Town Council - Regular Meeting

and get started 6 o' like to welcome everyone to our November meeting hope everyone has made it okay these past five weeks six weeks whatever long it's been my brain's still not working but glad glad to see everyone here um I do have a a little bit of a change to the agenda if you all are okay with it um James Keith I just got off the phone with him he's coming to do a presentation to the Niles and I would like to add him to item number five under the presentations okay if you have a and I would also like to move our council member reports up to underneath item number five just so we can kind of go over the what's what's uh taking place since the storm before we go on with the rest of our agenda everybody's okay yeah I make a motion to adopt the agenda With The Changes second all in favor thank you we'll move on to public comment uh first we have Mr Robert chome thank you thank you I'll try to be brief this is difficult to say but as I watched all of you I was amazed how I saw most of you maybe not all of you um how you jumped

from and very hard for this time and you condemed to do so so I just one m so thank you all thanks thank you rob thank you Mr Danny McIntosh 2024 Robert said what Robert said I'm telling you what the what has gone on here in the last 42 days is simply unbeliev it is to me what I've seen a lot of you do we spend a lot of time together saw a lot of things done a lot of things but I just want to express my appreciation for all of you and what you've done all the staff I mean it's just unreal uh certainly unprecedented time and and I'm going to uh apologize for not being here for the last 6 or seven months I've been busy 20124 has has been a lot it's been a I don't know what all else but it's been a tax reappraisal and a hurricane and even an election you know I don't know what's coming up next nothing parade Christmas got have Christmas parade that's going to come up a while so but it uh it has been busy and just seemed like there's a lot to do I wish I could have been here and I I wish I had something uh something to tell about tonight but

I've got to quit talking about 1977 that's in the rear view mirror now uh this is just un at any time but for certain I appreciate all that all of you have done and uh as as Robert said that the dedication uh to the citizens of the town of burn and the people of yansi county is just uh beyond belief the outpouring of support from outside agencies and individuals is something that uh I don't know that I could have even imagined that and what's going on here uh the work is yet to be done is hard to imagine too I know I know without a doubt every aspect of our life has been complicated uh there's so many projects going on before this and now you've got so many more and so many more are going in within those projects and I I just I don't know that I've Got Confidence and got faith we're all going to make it through I just appreciate all of you thank you for indulging me Brian's not going to give me more any more time I talked to him about the last months so he's got the clock on you here ran you Markus 19 y your time back you you take all the time you need Dan thank you thank you Dan all right um everyone had chance to look over the minutes from September to fil motion to adop Mr now second all in favor don't have any public

hearings right now James Keith just pulled in so if you'll bear with me just one second I think it's very important that he does this with n so if you will give me just one second I think you went to the town center first we moved well while we're waiting on James uh can I say something sure this is to back up what Danny and Robert said I've been here a long time I am I can't get it out so proud of you people I have I've worked with a lot but this what you guys have done in the past a little bit and I mean a little bit from what you've done um we couldn't have done it without you Shane Dale his crew yes nil um everybody I am extremely proud that's it still gonna cry make all of us cry you're gonna have all of us going thank you Judy James you're uh bo kind of skipped you there for just a second but she's a lot more important than I am no I let I let him know I said I said I think James might have went to the town center we were we were only a couple minutes behind but I I told him it was

very important to uh to allow you to to do what you're here to do so if you want to come to the podium um hey guys so um obviously I think we've been through a little bit um but um I know that the fire departments all throughout y County have been through a lot but a lot of their equipment to the test I assume some of it's probably shot at this point so uh we threw a brunch and through a lot of generous donations and a lot of stuff there's 12244 to the YY County firefighters Association and it is up to you to Dole that out as you see fit um thanks for all you do and all you guys thank you okay thank you very much this to you thank you [Applause] J awesome we appreciate it thank you very much it's a great gesture and good food too thank thanks to both you guys for all you've been doing so I know I know you've done a lot that people people are not aware of with the housing and and everything but uh thanks a lot for all that you guys have done all right we'll move on to the council members reports um I guess I guess Judy already gave her I done done mine anybody else has got anything I do have a I do have a proclamation that I I would like to read um from the city of buy Mississippi um they were here one day last week I guess all my days are running together but uh they were they were here supporting us and and giving out food and they brought us their their

flag and uh I'll read this if I can it's not that I can't see it some of these words whereas the city of Burnsville has recently endured the devastating impact of hurricane heline leaving many residents in urgent need of assistance and whereas the strength and resilience of burnsville's community have Shone brightly in the face of adversity demonstrating the indomitable spirit that defines the town and whereas we recognize the unwavering efforts of the Trident foundation and the crew of Neptune whose dedicated members have provided essential supplies served over 1500 meals and instilled hope in the hearts of those affected and whereas these acts of kindness and generosity exemplify the best of humanity reminding us all of the importance of community and compassion in times of need and whereas we the city of buxy do hereby Proclaim our solidarity with the city of Burnsville during this challenging time we extend our heartfelt gratitude to the Trident foundation and the crew of Neptune for their selflessness service and commitment to helping those in need and now therefore let it be known that we stand with you Burnsville and pledge our continued support as your work to towards recover and Rebuilding Together We Will We Will emerge stronger mayor city of buy Andrew [Music] gallit casos that's what well that being said just to kind of go off of what Robert and and Danny and Judy have have said I I've I've been blown way myself um this has been obviously the most difficult thing that I've ever

personally had to deal with and um it's it's amazing the community that we live in um I'm want to brag on the the town employees but first I'd like to brag on Mr McIntosh and Miss Katie leadford they they spent uh endless endless days at that fire department serving this community endless days and I want to thank you for what You' done and I know that neither one of you were doing it to be seen um Public Works crew um it's unbelievable what what Shane and his guys done um I don't know if the public is aware of this um one of one of our crew members lost his home throughout this and once he was able to get out of Pensacola he's not been back he's he's been to work every day he didn't have a home he's been out here putting water to people's homes um Brian ban and his crew I mean they' they've went as far as Manning gas pumps in the beginning you know this this everybody's doing things that are outside their realm um whatever it took you know working security um whatever it took um Chief Hal Chief Hal hadn't been home in six weeks he's a he's a just an outstanding individual as everyone in this room knows but uh what he's done at his fire department for his community for his members is uh is astronomical um Chief I appreciate you more than you'll ever know um Heather Heather haw day I mean the the amount of work that Heather's

done above and beyond uh what she normally does I mean two or three days into it you know Heather's done at the sewer treatment plant with with Shane and I she's she's up to her knees you know she don't she don't have boots on just for the record she she left some of her tenis shoes down there but there is a picture there may be pictures back in the no shower days but you know it's it's it's everybody I'm I'm not singling out anyone I mean Corbin Corbin to my knowledge stayed at the Town C he lives at the Town Center I mean anymore but but he did but he did and uh um and helped with all the volunteer efforts there as as you guys see I mean y'all are right here on the Square every day you see what went on that town center Chad Fox what he's had to do above and be beyond what he does for the town of Burnsville on a normal day is is amazing Leslie the the paperwork that's involved with this from a you know from a FEMA standpoint it's it's it's astronomical guys but I just I just wanted to take the opportunity and thank everyone thank the board members um Bill Bill Wheeler has swept or Mo thousand well he slept first but he has mopped at fire department no less than 3,000 times I think n's put him on the put him on the roster over there at the fire department um you're looking for a cleaner here well our cleaner quit looking for one I'm I'm going to mention I'm going to mention Danny's better half Sharon um the ls they they cooked every meal for many many many people every day I mean that fire department housed uh Strike team members from from all over the United States you know six ambulances um the the fire departments that came in from across the state of

North Carolina were housed over there and they were fed by by our local people I just it's it's amazing what what's taking place the the recovery is going to be a long road but we're in the right direction and and we're above probably where we should be and it's because of it's because of the local people I assure you so just wanted to thank everyone we are so lucky to have the people we have yes we are including the mayor that's absolutely thinking we missed missed he was there with everybody else 100% from day one yep all right we'll uh move on to miss miss hockaday's report all right James and Manda if you guys need to leave I know you're busy but if you need to leave you're not going to you're not going to bother us at all can I say one quick thing yes sir whatever it took the fact that you guys got all of us in town quick and that's not one person that's a lot of you guys we there is no thanks that's a that's a huge damn deal thank you all so much for that and Shane your guy lost his house he called us to check on us you didn't have to do that thank you guys okay project updates I'm gonna keep it short um some good news uh our cdbg uh sewer Interceptor project where we had over

half of the project as far as lining of the sewer lines complete when the storm hit didn't take as bad AE as we thought that's probably a good thing we had some of them lined um but that that will start back I think Monday the crew will be back in and they will start finishing up the lining and then they'll have they'll have some interest in manhole work to do because there's a few I don't think there's any manhole covers left down through there but uh and a few manholes that look a little different these days um but we did meet with with that group and are getting back back on online um the Main Street waterline uh project will be on the 26th of this month we're excited about that um [Music] the the County's project um for the renovation of pine swamp uh sewer plant we'll bid on uh February 5th um we had discussions with the Engineers Lucky for us the way the plant sits everything that was going to be part of the scope of that project um was not damaged by the storm other than maybe the fencing and the road um so they they're going to go ahead and bid that project and get get our new five plant in and we feel like that's the best way to move forward we did take some damage down there um and Shane and his crew with help from some outside some outside help that has been amazing we're able to get the blowers back operational pretty quick so that we could treat sewer again which is a huge a huge thing we have we have sister cities to the East and the west

of us that uh have had total losses of three swer plants so we feel that's a four to five year rebuild we feel very fortunate that we um we didn't sustain a any more damage down there than we did uh the building project at um on North Main Street the old fire department that's going to be our new Alabama level uh clubhouse for for the police department and uh and Public Works is going to bid um on January 8th so I had discussion with the architect yesterday so we're trying to keep everything that's going going um obviously the big loss for us was our entire water intake Pump Station um and we're in discussions with DQ though that project to rehab put new pumps in that pump house had already bid as well as the line part of it and now we have a significant amount of line that is damaged um we're in discussions had meetings with DQ today um and we we' also been in discussion with FEMA about how the money is going to flow for that we anticipate the new um intake system to to take to cost between $2 and $5 million um most of it should be feema eligible um the line work we may I think we're going to continue on and try to do the portion of the line that goes from the intersection of bowling Creek up to the plant um that was already bid had a contractor for that um and we didn't sustain any damages there unfortunately

the line to the to the older intakes on Bolan Creek uh suffered cat catastrophic damage as did the intakes they were both hit with significant slides so at this point in time it does not seem feasible from the engineer standpoint to to fix that back which is a is a blow so we're going to have to work on what we do about redundancy for the water system um the biggest project that we have going and the one that is um you know was got our water back was the uh raw water intake the temporary system uh contractors were able to get that in place it is not ideal um it is a constant maintenance nightmare already we've changed out um pumps and we're getting ready to do another change tomorrow some larger pumps these are diesel pumps we're hoping within the next two weeks we can have electric pumps backed up by diesel pumps we have to have two different sections one down by the river and one further up the river um more towards bowan Creek in order to get the water up there the the one of the main issues besides the pumps just wearing out themselves um is the amount of water that they're able to get to in order to keep up with production and demand we need about 700 750 gallons a minute to get to that plant and these pumps are pushing what Shan between I know about 650 Gallon Man yeah which you wouldn't think that's a big a big issue but it is you know when you're trying to get so you know I don't know Shane you want to you want to talk about you can talk about all the other line stuff out at cane River and stuff like that I won't

go into all that but we anticipate that just keeping that temporary system floating while we are in the process of rebuilding a permanent intake um is going to be about $2 million um so it's you know and those are rough estimates we haven't had Engineers go you know line by line yet but but that's what that's what the numbers we were being given to give to FEA um so those are the project updates that's kind of where we are Shane will talk more about some other stuff we've done um I do have a couple of items for your consideration um the county by law has to have a transportation uh memorandum a transportation agreement for IVC um those are involuntary commitments if someone is uh basically involuntarily committed uh through the Magistrate's Office in the city limits we're required to transport them to the facility that they're going to be going to um the county has an agreement uh or with us will have an agreement they transport anything outside the county am I saying all that correctly okay so they've already um uh adopted before the storm they adopted the the memorandum of Transportation agreement and we just need to um basically uh I need a motion uh for the mayor to sign onto that agreement basically stating that anybody inside the city limits that our officers will transport I'll make the motion second all

favor motion carries and then y'all have a copy of the tax report nothing really has changed since we last met because there's we were obviously shut down for a while and everything else have been going on but um we're pretty much in the same same boat we were um I know they have been taking some payments um but we do have a a tax exemption that came from from the county um that they failed to notify us of the change these are some Mitch yansy Habitat for Humanity owned properties and they're not subject to tax um and so they had made an application for exemption status and it was approved by the County Commissioners and the town needs to approve it as well I think there was looks like two one unit one unit need a motion I need a motion to consider the tax exemption yeah I'll make that motion second all in favor all got wow thank you thank you sorry about that I mean to walk away I get 20 phone calls a day for numbers or texts that I don't know about water and sewer Shane gets 3,000 I just wanted to make sure make sure that this was something we didn't need to look into I apologize that was somebody from gney I don't know who it was but that is a number that I've talked to all right all right we'll move on to Mr Chad Fox with the clercs update thank Mr Mayor uh with our West M SE Interceptor project we have cdbg compliance plans and policies that are set to expire in your packet there was a four of them that included section three action plan a resolution and the action plan each

would require signature language access policy in plan Equal Housing Opportunity resolution and an equal employment opportunity policy and plan and I'll leave motion on those so that we can get those updated and sent to everyone motion second all in favor motion carries chair thank you and no other thing I wanted to mention was the Christmas parade since you're here I'll let you tell the details but I did want to let just remind y all it's Saturday December 7th will'll be participating the parade ium as usual that's one o' on December 7 I'll let her I imagine all right that's all that thank you CH y all right Mr Shane Bale public works thank you Mr Meer I guess I could start off from my side as I normally do that you talk about cuz that's what I've done a lot of lately I don't know as far as an update I don't know how you begin for the most part it's just been amazing the helper has rolled in here that has helped us during this whole process because this was so far over my head that I had no idea and that wasn't water either no just every period we've had Harper General or Harper contractors Garney contractors Russell Underwood pumps the City of Raleigh and I don't know who else that

we have talked to during all this withers's Ravenel Miguel Miguel Sanford electric yes Sanford electric which I worked a lot hand in hand with Underwood pumps it's just amazing these people that's come in here and help us do and they were and they were here they were here on Sunday after the storm all the way from I mean most of them from Raleigh area and they were here on Sunday and it was it was amazing how they got here I don't know yeah cuz you couldn't I mean you couldn't get up the mountain so you know they were having and couldn't get through Asheville because old for was shut down but it didn't stop them on Saturday when we was trying to figure out what was taking place because at 6:00 that morning was the last time that we had any communication with any of the skate systems and I'm sitting here watching it on my phone I can I've got a camera up what used to be the river intake and the water was at the bottom of the cutwalk and I've never seen it there before it wasn't long after that today was nothing and it was how long before we could get to the intake me and Heather my wife walked around through there I think on that Saturday evening if not Sunday evening they was a pile of trees there across the bridge that crosses Bow Creek another pile of trees just up from around the Jes is there and you could get to that corner to where you could see up the river there ain't no trees ain't no nothing I'm going look and you take a few more steps and get on around through there and there's no Pump

Station I mean there's no words for that you just don't know what you feel at that point given time but it's amazing to where we're at right now and as of right now the I can't remember exactly what that text said but that 8 in line that crosses Rivers out there flushing flushing it currently and see that was a portion of the line that we know nothing about because you couldn't tell anything out there and until we got the water started heading back that direction and basil was sitting down there at that hant just before rcal hings is there where you turn off he said I can hear water but he said ain't nothing that coming out of this H this is not good let me go to the other side of the bridge and you can see it coming out the bank for that first week I had two employees that was here it was me and Russell and shooter and Heather getting out trying to cut off valves trying to do this and you just couldn't stop all the flow of water because when all this took place we had 17 ft in the tank it was gone so now I know where most of it went went back toiv back the [Music] river I don't know it's just amazing what's took place here and I mean the sewer system as bad as what it looked was not as damaged as bad as what we had thought they was one real bad break down there just before you got to the silver plant well and I missed somebody else the Eastern band of Cherokee Indians was in here they was the very first ones that uh their maintenance crew was in here and was working on that line down there we had their camera crew in here

for a while we had another camera crew and I cannot even was that seems like a thousand years ago there was a camera crew out of Pennsylvania that was the red whatever and then there was one from the coast that was in here and just cameraing lines trying to figure out what was still intact what wasn't intact I just a lot of stuff that's happening in the license walk 42 days as far as an update itself we're pretty well back up to operation as we normally are don't get me wrong a lot of this stuff is still running on a wing in a prayer right now but it everything is operational sew going to one place and the water's making it to the plant and all that with a lot of extra help along the way it's not a good feeling on a Monday morning when you on the way somewhere and you get a phone call it says you're pumping the field down here is on fire right now so I heard about that one yeah it was not the cause of the giant boom though yeah everybody on Facebook was what was the boom that was a power transformer yeah yeah that boom happened about 2:00 at CU me I was that hunting theom hunting the boom anyway I don't know it's just amazing where it's got to by now and I'm a hoping depending on how this change out with pumps and everything goes tomorrow and what kind of flow we can get back I'll put water to can River by next week that's about all I have again that's convinced

version thank you thank you for everything a lot of help all right Miss Lesley thank you sir well I'm not as excited is that I just got to figure out I just got to figure out how to actually manipulate all this money so we can pay for all this stuff um I sent out the budget versus actual the overtime is what it is I mean we're going to try to get as much as that as we can back from FEMA but you you got to have that for something like this that's what it's for but anticipates in an amendment probably in the future so I'm just sorry that's just how it is so uh after this started I made some lines I made a hurricane line in the street and in the water and in the sewer but since then I have talked to Sharon and she said that the easiest way to do it maybe was to start me a new department and to just do that that' be the quickest thing but it's it's just going to be like everything else this probably is a temporary till we figure out what actually we're getting you know from who and then it'll probably be replaced by project ordinance um but anyway I I skipped my one thing here we need to talk about opening a another account for some donations that was made specifically to the fire department for Hurricane Relief um we've we've got how much was it ,000 almost $133,000 yeah so what I'd like to do is to actually open a new account and to do that we actually have to have a motion with approved minutes to do it but we'd

like to have the signers as Niles myself and Heather so that Niles can you know do whatever needs to be done with it you need a motion please I make that motion second that all fav all all right so now I'll move on to my budget amendment wait just just for everyone here's information Niles Niles took a lot of these at the fire department and those people came in with these monetary donations and said I want this to go to Burnsville fire department there was a few that came in that said I want this to go to the town of Burnsville you know the town of Burnsville overall was blessed for the most part when you when you get a half a mile outside of our jurisdiction but you have to honor that if if an individual brings you that money and says I want this to go to the Burnsville fire department you have to honor that on their behalf so I just I told them I felt like that was the best thing we could do is set up an account for the for the fire department and for Hurricane H yeah I already got 15 was one more um okay so the budget amendment um I tried to be very bag I told he I said I'm just trying to be as big as I can because we just don't really know it's a very good yes on any of it but so far we've kind of heard 3 million house out for loans or or you know FEA is going to up front us they said 50% but we're not really sure we have another meet tomorrow but I'm just using the 3 million marker right now um and I just I just put some numbers trying to decide the only thing we'd really heard was maybe that this water intake would be around 2 million and we the temporary seore plant repairs around you know right now how much do we say 130 something I can't

remember but anyway but yeah it should stay around there um we just I mean this is just a good guest and it will be a work in progress but um I'm going to pull out what I had posted to those lines already in the budget in the budget verse actual and put into this after we approve it I need a motion on that too that one second all in favor you'll have you'll have a much larger report next month i' see oh my gosh I don't know I don't know it's going to be interes in few years it it is and it's going to be it's going to be tough and don't don't hesitate to ask for for help because this is this is going to be a lot we have to do something different then we'll do that well thanks Chief H thank you Mr Mayor well we had 86 calls in the last month most of them storm related and so we had that in addition to feeding the multitudes anding the multitudes Healing The Sick huh Healing The Sick heing the sick yeah just to let y'all know we did F we had a field Hospital on one side we had a kitchen running and operating feeding three meals a day to everybody we had donations coming in and we stockpiling those and distributing those and then other side of the building we had Sheriff's Office strike teams in there who were doing search and rescue we housed all of them and fed all of them that were staying with us us they were in different locations but we had I think seven different teams that came and stayed there we had three different fire departments from across the state two cent strike teams we've

had to house those uh Russell said we had six strike amet strike teams that we fed we didn't house them they stayed somewhere else we had EMS part of the time because they were staying close to the field Hospital during the storm so I'd say Sharon and Danny and MIT and her crowd fed probably what 200 two to 300 day two to 300 people a day probably for a long time that wasn't just one meal no three meals a day and then we had Katie and Wanda and all of them out at the front trying to answer people's questions it it was a community effort but it was a busy place I'm glad we had that fire department you're not kidding I've been playing for over could not have done that in the old place it worked out real well so many people have come to help you so many new friends were made and so many of them keep talking about coming back because they R treated nice so I hope we treat them nice but we're going to carry on and we're going to take the best and appreciate all that thank you n Chief Theon on you thank you Mr Mayor we uh you everybody else we had a weird time for a while we're starting to roll back to more normal operations especially with Patrol um getting back to more of a normal a normal schedule uh we did have a bit of normaly this with Halloween if any of y'all made it out that's by far the largest crowd I've

ever seen for a Halloween I don't know if it was double last year but it was close it felt like it was a lot uh there was people out here vendors from Ohio giving out bar barbecue I think he stayed uh the entire time and his line was what 10 10 Deep the whole night giving a barbecue and ice creams and there was tons of people in our candy just nice to see a bit of normaly for everybody and I'm sure Elena probably mentioned that in a bit um Police Department wise is kind of what we have um so code enforcement of course been doing that much code enforcement or anything like that of late but uh we have had a few applications for some storm related damage uh the state did wave all those fees so we've been we've processing a few of those and I've have had a few reach out about just normal projects going so at least that's starting to get back to more of a normal thing a few housing projects that people have reached out about in the last week so maybe things will start to get back to noral that's kind of what I am thank thank you Bri and he came and checked on me every morning I did check on house to make sure he was okay 6 o' I don't know what time it was but it was appreciated all right uh chamber oh is it me yep yep we we switched it around a little bit oh I got you okay well first of all I just wanted to say it's interesting that we got the proxim the the proclamation from dely because I went with the church group when I was still in clearw waterer to bxy after Katrina and I saw a lot and I can tell you that as much as I saw there and I've compared it a lot it was nothing like here and it was Devastation there but it was nothing seen here and it's it was interesting to get that Proclamation

that's what those people were saying you know they were all from down there and they said you know it was the worst thing we've ever seen yeah but in comparison this is worse it's crazy it's crazy time I just like everybody else has said here and I'm going to try not to cry which I did a lot of in the last six weeks but I can't tell you how much it meant to have each and every one of you on the scene on the ground helping being there knew you were and that was so important to our residents and I was just thinking as I was driving to work this morning that even though I'm temporarily not a resident of Burnsville because we had to evacuate and took a little apartment in Spruce Pine I still am a Burnsville resident I can maybe move to Spruce Pine for a little while but my heart's still right here so anyway um I just wanted to let you know kind of what the visitors center and the Chamber did uh that we got down here on Sunday night after we evacuated and found that the visitors center had a landline had electricity and actually had Wi-Fi so we open Monday morning at 9 o'clock and we've been staying open Monday through Friday from 900 to 5: um just mostly at serving our our businesses in the area either as an information Hub a lot of co-working space we had people invited people in because we had Wi-Fi they could come in and start doing their applications for FEMA and SBA they could reach out to their customers and let them know what they were doing just do as much business as possible um to Brian's Point Pete came to me the first week and said you think we can do trick- or treat Main Street and I said oh God no way and then I was like no I don't think so and then week two I said I think we have to I think we need to do something that will just give these kids a little bit of a break from everything they're going through in the same way with their so let's figure out

how because I don't want the retailers and the restaurants and everybody else spending money out of their pocket that they need to be putting to the businesses for candy so we sort of reached out to a couple of people and said hey you think you could donate some candy or maybe sponsor and uh we ended up at the back two rooms of the chamber full stuff full candy and toys and backpacks full of stuff Blue Cross Blue Shield donated 25 th000 pieces of candy and 250 backpacks that were full of books and toys and activities and stuff for the kids that was just incredible and they came to me originally and said we're the I'm the community liaison I I'm not here because we're Blue Cross and Blue Shield I'm here to see how we can help with trick-or treat Main Street we don't want acknowledgement for it we don't have banners anywhere we just want to bring you whatever you really need um Advent Health same way I mean there were a lot of sponsors but it was just an amazing outpouring to support the community and especially support the kids in that amount of time Brian and his team were fantastic like you said we had no idea what to expect we figured either a few kids would be able to show up or maybe we'd get a little more than usual we're estimating between two and 3,000 um we here which is about the same ratio per hour as we get at the crafts fair but at the crafts fair there's usually more than four or five volunteers and working it so we were I at the end of the night I sat down and I had 11,111 steps on my Galaxy watch that mostly came from that event so it was incredible but Brian thank you so much to you and your team everything you did how many I have 15,000 watch you were not in witchy high

he boost so he might have been he might have um let's see other things we we have been keeping the visitors center open from 9: to 5 Monday through Friday just because first of all we've not had a lot of visitors right now and not been encouraging that but we plan to go back to our seven days a week starting December 1st so we'll be expanding that we're starting to reach out a little bit through our PR department to Regional visitors people that because we don't have all the hotels and lodging back yet just to people to come up for a day maybe overnight to get some money and traffic coming into our businesses and our retailers um I'm also happy to announce that cat Bower who's been working with us for a while as a volunteer is no longer a volunteer she's now paid staff our board actually um in the midst of all of this because she was there more than 40 hours a week too went decided to go ahead and move her hiring up from January 1st to immediately which was fabulous because it's been helpful having her um looking ahead Brian mentioned and I think Chad mentioned that yes we are planning because of the um Community coming together that we saw at the Halloween trick- or treat Main Street we're going to do the Christmas parade it will be um December 7th at one o'clock is normal and then Mary Main Street will be on Friday the 13th uh and we'll be Mary Christmas um hopefully we'll see a good turnout but we're also going to kind of do what we did with trick-or-treat Main Street and sort of amp those up a little bit just to keep people give people a reason to stay downtown around the Christmas parade and also to come and enjoy downtown around Mary Main Street uh I think that's pretty much it we're finalizing our 2025 chamber calendar as far as events and programs and uh C was

actually hired as the program manager so we're going to be doing more programming throughout 2025 and I'll be bringing that to you probably next month and our vision for 2025 is really to just support our chamber members and all of the businesses in this community as they start to regain equilibrium and get back to work and and it's exciting to see everybody back open and the restaurants open I was alarmed two Fridays ago Chuck Edwards told us that after a disaster like this about 40% of the businesses never reopen and I went that isn't going to happen in Burnsville because if we lose 40% we're going to be in trouble so our goal is just to keep as many people open and as much money in pockets as we possibly can right now so that doesn't become an issue I want to say a special thank you to Corbin because I was around from that Monday after the storm and watched him live in town center and carry five gallon bucket after five gallon bucket so everybody could use the bathrooms in town center and that was extraordinary and just want to say thank you for all the work that you did and all the work you do um and again just how incredible this entire town has been and how proud I've been of every one of you as I've watched you work through this so thank you for that did you get anywhere on that Christmas thing you I talked about remind me of the the the website thing no what we're going to do the Christmas present oh yes so thank you for reminding me of that yes so um Mary M it's going to be a little bit different this year we're going to have Santa in the pocket park that we've established next to the chamber and our goal is for every child that comes to Mary Main Street this year so I'm going to cck in anyway to walk away with at least one Christmas gift that they can take home with them and we

have already had extraordinary response in donating gifts and and helping with that we also have two different groups that I think are working with Corbin at the Town Center they're going to set up essentially Christmas markets where parents can come in and get Christmas gifts for their kids um obviously not at any cost but to just set up so they can come in and choose things that their kids will really want and need at Christmas time and have Christmas under Christmas pres under the tree so that's our goal with Marin grp and I've got a couple good connections on like kiwi that's going to have run stuff awesome I'll get back with you soon as I count super thank you Randy I appreciate oh I've got one question did did you meet with Dogwood when did we meet with Dogwood first of the week I don't remember lastek yes yes last week yeah with Susan Mims and Sarah Grimes they have there they have stood up I think it's I know it's a $25,000 grant program for any businesses and I think they have like 20 to30 million they do and and she said this was just the first trunch that expect there'll be a lot more behind it so but that's grant money which is yes they don't have to pay they don't have to pay it back which is huge we're actually working on two things we're working on putting together a live Grant page that'll allow us to update as we continue to get grants so that our businesses can just go to search those grants and be able to find what works for them and the other thing that we should be live by Monday I think we're going to probably be posting tomorrow but um should be live by Monday we're putting together a landing page page that'll live on our website but it's really all of the businesses in town rests divided by restaurants retail that sort of thing if they have a website a Facebook page anything that that somebody can link to we'll put the link

on there and it will drive them straight anybody that clicks on it it'll drive them straight to the business if they've got an online presence to purchase or to purchase gift cards or um gift certificates we're also going to use the chamber butts program for those businesses that don't or don't have brick and mortar like our artists in the area so if somebody wants to buy chamber bucks and then go use those to buy from the retailers we'll be able to do that and kind of still a gift card or gift certificate situation but it doesn't I mean it doesn't do anything for the chamber except get money in the business in the pockets of our businesses but that's what we want to see happen right now so we're putting that together as well and is the SBA going to set I don't know I got a I got a email and I should have forwarded it to you you probably got it too about um a um a local Small Business Center I know they have one set up at Ma but they were interested in one in yansy County if you can forward that to it's from Misty price Bishop Misty Bishop price so I'll send it to you okay please do because I haven't seen that but we'll be happy to help them do that for sure we're hoping with the gift card and gift certificate situation it'll get money into retailers in our restaurants Pockets now that gives them some operating cash flow that won't get redeemed until later won get redeemed all at the same time so they're not having to worry so much about inventory or or staff but that play out we also have a lot of people that have been contacting us from all over the United States saying how do we help your businesses there and we're hoping to see that some of that flow through the gift card and gift certificate program are buying online so they can do that um Dennis something special has already seen that working with them and so we're just hoping to amp that up as

well call thank you El absolutely and really thank you for bragging on Corbin since I skipped him on was fired for a minute I actually no it kind of changed the agenda and I just I was looking at the one below you sorry but before we get to you I also skip Niles on did you want to do that uh no though you don't want to to do that okay I assumed that you didn't or you would I had I had my computer up day today and I didn't have a chance to get on there to get the names off so okay do we need to table that since it's on the agenda for next month or we can t it for next month I'll make a motion to table that second appointments of the relief fund board is what it is so you second it all in favor Corbin if you're ready I mean unless you want to go last I'm do whatever at this point I do apologize for that I'm sorry so we have had of course cancellations whatever you want to call them we've had 45 of those um from octob 1st to December 11th however we are getting some reservations back um Town Center as you know was hosting path for volunteer coordinators we were more or less the hub for volunteers and um DSS was set up for about a week in the auditorium supplying the community with food stamps um now that both those GRS are back their headquarters or Le not in the Town Center we're fully operational and back to opening up for events um we have 19 events scheduled for November and 22 scheduled for December uh um we have on I I forgot the dates Thanksgiving the day before the

27th and 28th of November both days we're having um different two different groups uh will'll be having Thanksgiving dinner for the public supplying public with food for Thanksgiving Christy Edwards is going to be having her craft shows the next two days 29th and 30th of November um we do have uh what did you call it Christmas markets That's What I Call toy run Christmas Market um I have two of those one on December 6 and the other one is on December 21st uh again like she like elain said it's for parents to come by to get free toys for their kids for Christmas and other than that that's really all I have I um we're back to normal somewhat that's the main point Thank You Corin for all you've done I know you've had a lot going on over there we do appreciate for sure U Bill do you have anything that you'd like to report from High Country no they were just uh you know talking about the uh the hurricane thing and most of them were whining about it which nobody had the damage that Mitchell and Yancey had and I was going to ask Heather I don't know if you would be interested but anyway where I work at wnc Bridge Foundation they give all kind of Grants and things out if you'd be interested in yes in getting uh I can put you in touch with the person that that does that great that'd be [Music] great all right any anyone else have anything I'd like say one thing Mr Mayor sir uh when we start naming people it's almost impossible to name everybody as much work as was turned out uh Shane's wife Heather worked endless and hard

um Rick gerlo was doing reconciliation house when they moved everything to Fred and he was going to try to volunteer uh a massive amount of stuff and so I think they' decided to go back to R consideration house I like think R for everything that he was doing during that time and then it's just so many people from away from here before I came to the meeting tonight I got a call from a gentleman who's probably responsible for somewhere over $100,000 worth of stuff and said what do you need me to send you and so I mean stuff's out there if we see there's a need there's a couple folks out there still willing to meet the needs so uh the people who lost houses I mean I think we're into I don't know building Timbers and that kind of thing more now and the thing that n and I talked about so many times at the burns Department was we think we'd need bucket of tea and a Diet Coke today but by the time that stuff got there we were needing different stuff and we just couldn't catch it and so it was frustrating as the dickons trying to keep up with it but everybody out there who's worked and and Dan was around and 77 and we've talked about 77 since then but 77 was anything compar 24 thank you thank you R any want to tell anything anyone in the public anyone in the public have anything throw it out there sh m y there is so many folks that work hard giv the circumstances if any way in the public has anything they'd

like to say I don't I don't mind that sure I just had a question about the chain employe that lost his house is there anything that we can do the can do for them what are their needs I'm really not for sure at this point given time to be honest he has been he has been given a camper a new camper and that's set up right now um Heather and I and Shane have have had some conversations with some some people about possibly a new a new house trailer um that's something that we are working on but um um if there is something I mean I wouldn't care bit to reach out to you so if we if we see that but yes um one of the things that Randy made me think of um one of the needs I see coming toward us in the future is as people start to build back and start to get homes they're going to need Furnishings oh yeah and we've already been approached by people who want to bring in Furnishings furniture that people can just come get donations again but trying to figure out how to house that access the biggest challenge so I'm just throwing it out there not that I think anybody's going to have a solution tonight but something that we really need to be at least thinking about I did talk to Kelly May from um Glen Raven corporate was in and talked to me one day and I brought that to her attention to see if maybe they have warehousing or something that we could use and she said that they don't really have warehousing but they have tractor trailers that they might at least be able to store some of it in if we could find a space that and I'm thinking I mean just what came from conversation yesterday was maybe that frad space as things moved forward could

be used to the fishings as well that people could just come get but I don't I haven't looked at any of it I'm just thinking if I WR out there maybe somebody will come up with and the county has has warehouse space that they have leased um in Mitchell County okay it right now it's pretty much full of you know water water yeah it's full we got a lot of water it's full of stuff like that but you know as time moves on they may have some space open up over there so reaching out to might be a good idea I definitely will yeah thank you well yeah but I mean it I it's just it's not even necessarily a chamber thing I mean we'll be happy to take it on if that's what we need to do but it's just figuring out how Logistics yeah you're right I mean we need some sort of a space that people can easily visit and collect I mean I know just going through trying to furnish an apartment from nothing in the last few weeks you know it's sort of like you find out what you don't have access to really quickly so and how much it costs to do it so yeah anyway and we will you know definitely relay that information along to the county you know as we we talk with them obviously every day right now but uh the the facilities are the the the huge thing I mean it was the it was the huge problem with the initial donations um it was it was mindball blowing how much that we got at one time and we didn't have anywhere to put it you know the the fire departments couldn't run as fire departments and we're blessed I'm not I'm not saying that we didn't need them we did need them but it would be nice if we had facility moving forward that that could house those those things and maybe something Katie could help with a little bit would be to tell everybody they got to be smart enough

there's a ton of scamming going on on there and some kind of not everything you read on Facebook's going to be the gospel all right no one else has anything we uh we're going to have to enter into close session pursuant to North Carolina General statue 143-30570 yeah I might have toac I need to go to the car anyway I that you s little nervous up there beside me you want Sal yeah why