Redevelopment Commission - Regular Meeting

All right, here we go.

We'll call the meeting to order. This meeting is being live streamed this evening by Under Production Multimedia.

Please rise to begin with the pledge of allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Roll call vote, anybody? Here. Bobby Brooks? Here. John Spencer? Here. Jeff Beaton? Here. Here comes the president. We have a quorum. You provide a copy of the agenda for tonight's meeting. I ask for a motion to approve the agenda. I'll make that motion. I second. Any further discussion on the agenda? None. I ask for a vote to approve. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Motion passes. Move us on to the bids for the Family Activities Park court bid opening. HWC, welcome. Aye. Aye.

Dan Cruz GNE Excavating Company, $296,111. $296,111. This is easy construction. $212,600. 212600. Who was that again? Easy construction.

We just need a motion to take those under advisement so that Sally and her team can review them and then...

i make a motion we take the two bids offered tonight under uh consultation and confirm that they're all they all meet the standards move forward after that i second we have a motion to second any further discussion on the bids nonetheless for our motion to approve also favorably sign all right great thank you we'll get a recommendation back to you guys before the meeting thank you

Moving on to the approval of minutes from the June 2nd regular meeting. I ask for a motion to approve.

three minutes i make that motion and i believe we had another set of minutes that were included after the fact is that correct or is it just the one no i i've inadvertently left the minutes out of the initial meeting packet okay so i've been in the actual minutes yes sorry about that i'll second number two yeah i made a motion to approve the terms please i'll second that motion is second any further discussion none to approve all in favor please say aye aye

Motion passes. Thank you. We provided a copy of the claims for the previous month with the additional one extra claim that was added. I ask for a motion to approve claims. I make a motion. Motion by judge. Second? I second. Second by Bobby. Any further discussion on the claims?

Is that specific enough, Jill? Is that specific enough as far as the extra claim? Yeah, it is.

Okay. Okay. All right, no further discussion. I ask for a vote to approve. All those in favor please say aye. Aye. Motion passes, thank you. Has anyone signed up for public comments?

I think there's no one else here.

That's right. Moving along to the weekly group consultant report.

Okay, thank you. I'll highlight a few things in the report that you all received in the packet. One of the things that I provided in the packet was the request for an easement from Duke for Shadow Lake Park. I provided that to you just for your information. We have requested some additional information from them related to the compensation. We have not received that yet. So I'm not gonna ask the commission to make any decisions about that until we have more information. But I did want you to know that had been requested in the area they were requesting. Just to comment on that a little bit further, some of the issue there too is the commission has done a plan for that, has started phase one with parking lot and the trail. And I think we'll have to overlay what our plans are for that area with where they want an easement. And I think it's going to be in conflict with some of that. So we want to gather more information and make sure that if you do decide to go in that direction, that we can accommodate that and be duly compensated for it.

Is there a time issue for them? Do we need to have any kind of special meeting or be okay to postpone it or put it off until next?

I feel like I've not been told that there would be any decision by them or a time for that. They just reached out to me with that easement within the last week or so. And then I came back to them to get some additional information to provide to you based on what they based their compensation offer on. And they responded in that they don't have that information back yet, but when they do, they will give it to us. So I've not been told. I know there are other pieces of property and other easements there going through that process right now in and around that.

I wish you'd take sufficient time anyway. I just wanted to make sure they didn't miss anything.

No, they did not tell me that. Then Charlestown landing improvements. We're still going through the process of figuring out what requirements are in place for that $4 million, I'm just gonna call it a earmark from the federal government, as well as we did find out that the Lilly Endowment Arts and Culture application that was turned in was not funded. So that's not good news, but it's something. Then also, I put in your packet the city received their first installment of TIF revenue. We got a little bit more than what I anticipated that we would get, maybe $100,000 more, which is always good in getting less. So I wanted you to have that information so that you knew how that was allocated. Something on the agenda that we're going to talk about later is those tip districts, but part of that topic, we will also ask, I don't know if you noticed, but Shadow Lake was not broken down on that disbursement. We've been battling on that for a couple of years now. I think it's still locked into one of the Central Charlestown tips because that was in there before. But we've been working with Baker Tilly and we'll continue to do that in the county to figure that out and get that specifically broken out.

And Jill, is part of that issue because it's part of the same economic development area, is that why it's not broken out?

I think it's just a, I don't want to say an error, but I think it's just maybe a misunderstanding at some level as to why that's not broken out. because we didn't have some of that issue with others. So I don't know if somebody dismissed something at some point in time and didn't do it, so that's why we're talking with Baker Tilly, and they think it may be something they need to talk about with the county and how they're dispersing it. But I don't think so, Matt. No one said this is the problem, but no one has been able to pinpoint what the problem is. But I'm gonna push until we find that out so we can break it out. That's all I have. If you have any other questions about anything else in my report, I'd be glad to answer those.

Good report.

Thoroughly appreciate it. Old business, the Little League, facilities renovation project, RFPQ.

So at our last meeting, we talked about this, and then we drafted a draft schedule, BOT schedule, as well as a draft RFPQ and also a draft score sheet. What our schedule, what we're proposing to do is to, if the commission approves it, then we can send the RFPQ advertisement to the newspaper to be published on the 10th and the 17th. We have to publish it at least seven days apart. Uh, giving people almost a month to respond. So having those do in the middle of August on August 14th, then give the selection committee, which you appointed at your last meeting as being, uh, Mr. Deaton and, uh, Mr. Hester from council and mayor Hodges on the selection committee, giving them some time to review that. and then have something ready in form of recommendation to present to this group then at your meeting in September, on September 1st. That gives people ample time to respond. I think it'll be a pretty straightforward project, but then also keeps us on track. I know it sounds odd, but June will be here. June next year will be here before we know it, and that's when we wanna make sure that we break ground because we'll be on some specific time. line there, and if we can have some guaranteed maximum price close to the end of the year, then it will allow the city to then go through some financing options, have all that buttoned up, and so then we'll be ready to break ground in June. So I think we're on a good schedule. This doesn't rush anything. We give people plenty of time. I don't know if you've had a chance to look over anything, have any questions or comments. regarding the RFPQ or the schedule? If not, then I'd ask. What do you need? I'd ask for you to, the commission, to give me the authorization to go ahead and advertise the RFPQ and move forward with the process.

I make a motion we approve the process and let Jill handle moving forward with the RFPQ politically.

Our last meeting we discussed We discussed the paving of the little section of high street at the intersection of level That's within the city limits one of the city's roads and We received a quote to do that by Libs, who is currently doing the community crossings grant in the city. Something else, so you would approve to do that. What's happened since, at some point we did some drainage improvements at Forest Edge next to what used to be Sigma. I don't know if it's still called Sigma or not. There's a business kind of down the hill there. When they did the drainage improvements to try to keep water off of that, Somebody's going to have to help me with these bamboo mats. There's some type of drainage control there that was in place during construction. One of those torrential downpours came, flooded the Sigma building. In working with that property owner, they asked if we could make them a parking lot there. city can't do that if the city's going to use public fines for public improvements that's be a public parking area so we received uh quotes hwc graduate scope of work received a quote from libs to do a would be a public parking area you had the graphic in your packet there right at level street you can see where it's part of the time it levels off there, so it makes sense to put parking there. That would be public parking that would be available for that business or anyone else that wanted to park there. So we received a quote for $24,000 to do that. So what I'm asking is for your approval to move forward with that $24,000. The contract itself is actually working through the Board of Works, so we would just agree to A, but the Board of Works would then make the amendment to LIB's contract.

Is this equivalent to quid pro quo? I mean, what we're doing?

The owner said he would be satisfied with some type of parking there for, that's available for his business in lieu of any payment for damage, any type of flood damage. And that'll be formalized?

I'll make a motion we approve it.

I'll second. Motion is second by Chuck. Any further discussion on the high street painting? Not asked for a vote to approve. All in favor, please. Aye. Aye. Motion passes. Thank you. Move us on to the approval and review and amend of the .

I alluded to this in my report. I talked about this a little bit last month as well. On one of the calls that we had with Baker Tilly to discuss the availability of funds for the Little League project, they brought up that a lot of the, not a lot, but there are several lot, several parcels within the TIF districts that are residential, and none of your TIFs are residential TIFs, so that does not bring in any revenue. There are also a number of parcels that were exempt from property tax. So they suggested we kind of look at all of the TIF districts and try to remove those parcels that were not eligible. So we have done that. The Wheatley group went through a mapping exercise and went through and picked, mapped all the parcels and then mapped some that we felt like fed that category that were not contributing to your TIFs. and would not in the future. And so we ran that by Baker Tilly with those parcels which matched the ones that they thought should be removed. We also went through an exercise with Mayor Hodges and Donna Coomer just to make sure that they also were aware of this. What I'm asking for from you tonight is approval for us to start that process to make those adjustments to those dip districts. one of which would be the elimination of the North Clark TIF. Matt and FPT Givens have put together a very good schedule, which I included in your packet. that if you give approval to move forward, then he and I can start working on that tomorrow morning with parcels.

We would like to review each parcel tonight before you move forward.

You can if you'd like.

I think we're good. And just one other thing we kind of wanted to get your all feedback on. So my team and Jill's team, we think the cleanest way to do this, given that these are separate TIP districts that have been amended and stuff over the years. We think the cleanest way to do this would be for each TIF area that's being amended. It'll happen, approvals will happen at the same time, but do it by a different resolution. And so that was just one other thing we wanted to get your all's feedback on. We think it would be cleanest and the least confusing to do it that way.

So if we need to amend something later, we just amend the one resolution?

Exactly, instead of having to have all these other maps and exhibits. That would be a lot cleaner for us too.

And we have it mapped out like that. I mean, we have each identified by what would be their, their TIF district. So it would be easy for us to do that. Just more paperwork, right?

More, more paperwork, but less of a Frankenstein document. So we love paperwork. I love it. So Jill, I think you were looking for a motion to move forward with the process.

Does the motion include Matt's? Yes. Okay. I'll ask for a motion to it. I'll make a motion. I second. A motion and a second. Any further discussion? And I'll ask for a vote to approve. All in favor please say aye. Aye. Thank you. Moves us to the Highway 62, Highway 3 Gateway Signage Amendment.

As you're aware, we're moving through the design of a new gateway sign at 62 and 3, and originally thought that that would not encroach on in any, you know, in that right-of-way, have since discovered that it's going to in some way, shape, or form. So, Taylor Secret Williams Design Group has presented an amendment $7,500 to their agreement that would add that coordination with NDOT in order to do that and going through that process to get NDOT's approval. That would bring their total agreement to $35,750.

Is this a case where you feel pretty good about what NDOT's requiring or does it feel like heavy hand?

No, I think it's warranted. It's definitely warranted because that sign is going to be in the right way. Part of it is. Not the sign itself, but footprint will encroach upon it.

So it was just a survey. Initially, it was like an idea that it wouldn't, and then when the actual work was done, it was determined.

There's a utility pole in the way and some other things that necessitate this. So I think it's worth going through that process to give you some additional flexibility. I'm going to say it like that.

I'll make a motion to move forward on this then.

Motion by John. Is there a second? I'll second. Second by Benita. Any further discussion? None. I ask for a vote to approve. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Motion passes. Thank you. Moves to the last item on the agenda. Consideration of Resolution 2026 R2, the RDC Rules of Conduct.

this and I don't know mayor if you have any more detail but I think this is something that the city is adopting and we are one of the boards that have asked been asked to adopt this this resolution related to you know deadlines and timing for having things available to the public but also governs public comment and just general rules of conduct that I think are good to have in place I know last month we kind of scurried around before the meeting to see if there was anything in place regarding public comment and there wasn't. So, I mean, it's a good measure to take and at least we know what those are and they can be published and everybody should be aware of it. Anything else to say about that, Matt?

Yes. So one of my colleagues who used to be the commissioner of the Department of Local Government Finance prepared it. And he prepared it substantially similar to the existing city council rules of procedure and decorum. The redevelopment authority of the city as well as the sewer board have already adopted their own set of rules and procedures. And really, the purpose of it is to ensure that people that do come to comment, they speak on items that are on the agenda. There's a time limit, I believe it might be three minutes. just trying to keep things in order so people you know people don't talk about irrelevant things or or nobody's here for six or seven hours because you have 100 something people sign up for public comment so it's just you know making sure meetings are orderly and making sure there's a process in place in case someone's disorderly as far as giving them warnings and if maybe ask them to leave the meeting. I did look over the rules my colleague prepared and they're pretty standard to what some of my other local government clients have in place for their meetings.

Just as an example, one of the items Matt said that each individual would be offered three minutes allowed up to three minutes to make comment, but public comment will be allowed a total of up to 30 minutes per regular commission meeting. So I mean, it sets some of those things rules in place that gives you the ability to, as Matt said, enforce something. We could also extend that.

We have a good thing to have and if somebody's talking about something that they're passionate about or whatever and they last a little bit longer than three minutes this ain't a okay you're cut off have a good day. I mean it's one of those that you can allow them to have a little bit more but also If, I mean, people may want an explanation. We ain't got four or five hours to do so. And we also are a very professional entity. We're not gonna come in here and throw a timber tantrum and walk out. So I think rules of this authority or this commission need to be there. I mean, they need to be there for, in my opinion, everything in the city. It just needs to happen. I may be upset and I may be mad, but I can come in here and act like a professional too. So it'll be more an explanation. Stick around, I'll talk to anybody. You know, but I think it's a good idea. I think that there, in my opinion, in three years that I've been involved, we probably have more money coming in and out of these meetings than any other thing besides the council. Uh, you're right. So there's going to be a lot of opinions sometimes, and I think, I think it'd be a good idea to make a motion.

We adopt the resolution. I second. We have a motion and a second. Any further discussion on the resolution? None. I ask for a vote to approve. All those in favor, please sign. Aye. Motion passes. Thank you. The next meeting is scheduled for August 4th, 2026 at 7 PM. Take a motion to adjourn. I have a second. I have a motion to adjourn. Second. Any further discussion? None. All in favor, please sign. All right.

Please sign the claims docket before you leave.