Town Council - Regular Meeting

It opens at 830, but you can come anytime in the morning if you're not an early riser and come and help pick up trash around town. This has also been coordinated with VDOT cleaning Route 205, which was a request we had of the county. And so VDOT should hopefully be cleaning along Route 205 this week and next week. To help that part, we don't generally station volunteers on the highway like that because we do have a lot of families and kids come to help pick up trash. Please come and support that and pick up some trash around town. Get us all pretty because the following weekend is our 75th annual Potomac River Festival. We want to look great for that and also keep our environment well. Fireman's Parade, you know the whole gambit if you've been before. It's a wonderful weekend and I'm looking forward to that. We also have a new business opening this coming Saturday at noon. We'll do a ribbon cutting at Washington Court, which is our food court vendor location that opened up on Washington Avenue. I point that way because it's just catty corner from this building. Sunset Slushy. is coming to the food court there. So we're excited for them. And if you've been paying attention to the Virginia News lately, an interview was published on Wednesday from NPR in Richmond about Colonial Beach. And I did an interview as well as several other members of our community to be involved in that publication. It was about the history of the casino, some of the good, some of the bad, and some of where we are today. I encourage everyone to check it out. It is a radio interview, but they have a write-up on the website as well. But listening is kind of cooler than reading it because you get to hear all of the interview voices too, and Doug Cooper's on there and stuff like that. So very fun thing. So with that, all my announcements. All right, next up is our year of service awards. I actually have three service awards, but there's only two in the agenda. It's for the next meeting, so I should hold off on announcing it? Okay, all right. Okay. Is Bill here? He comes sometimes. Okay, Bill Taylor or Rob Mervine? Is Rob here? No? Those Public Works guys, they are so shy sometimes and they shouldn't be. They like being, I think sometimes in the background of things, but both of the service awards are for Public Works employees and I will read them. I would say both of these gentlemen go above and beyond in their service to the town and are really helpful in every project, even volunteering outside of the work that they are doing in the kind of eight to four range, nine to five range, however you want to say that. All right, appreciation of service award. This certificate is presented in grateful recognition of Robert Mervine. Thank you for your many valuable contributions over the past five years. This is a five-year service award. Your loyal and dedicated service play an integral role in our success, and that's really true for both of these. And the other service award, is for Bill Taylor, who, if you don't know, is a trash truck driver. So a lot of people know Bill and he honks and kids like it when the trash truck honks. It's like a big thing. So we thank him for his positive attitude and his giving the nature to the town. And similarly written, it says an appreciation of service award certificate is presented in grateful recognition of William Taylor III. Thank you for your many valuable contributions to the past 10 years. This is a 10 year service award and your loyalty and dedicated service play an integral role in our success. And if they were here, I would embarrass them further, but they're not here. So can we give a round of applause to these two public works?

Bill is also known as our resident garbologist.

What's that?

He's known as our resident garbologist. Yes. So we need to mention that.

Yes, resident garbologist. We should put that in the title of his certificate. All right. All right, we're going to keep moving forward. Next up is general public comment. Like I said before, we do have a specific public hearing, but we're going to hear from general public comment first. All right, hold on, Anthony. Before you come up, I'll read a little blurb about public comment. During all public comment or any of the hearings, we ask that certain guidelines be followed. We'll ask that you stand at the podium, and for the record, please state your name and address. And if you'd like to be contacted, please provide your contact information to the clerk on the sign-in sheet as a place to put your name and contact information, and that's so that we can get back to you. Make your comments to the council as a whole, be brief, state your position and provide facts, particularly because there's a 5 minute timeline to public comments. So we want to make sure that we hear from from you about exactly what you want to say. You may provide written statements and are supporting materials to the clerk for distribution. So if you have anything to provide to us, give it to Heather. Heather will make sure that the town council and the town manager get a copy. Debate is prohibited. Follow up on comments is provided by the town manager. We're here to listen. So we're just listen during this and then any follow up comes from the town manager subsequently speak clearly as we want to hear as we want to hear what you have to say. And council try to hear everyone who wishes to speak on a subject and the comments are limited to five minutes. Time cannot be transferred to another speaker. If you represent a group, you can identify any of the members of your group who are in attendance. Sometimes that's very helpful. We know who everybody's with. And after public comment is closed, we encourage you to stay as council engages in dialogue and deliberation on subsequent agenda items. All right, with that, and then we'll call We'll open public comment. I've got 6.33 p.m. and Mr. Damani. Welcome.

Hello.

I mean, what I'd like to address at this point is OBE. It's a done deal, okay? But when I got my water bill, That water bill reflected a new rate that went retroactive to the 1st of April. You guys didn't vote on that thing until May. When you say it's going to be effective the 1st of July, common sense tells you from July forward will be the new rate, not going back a quarter. OK, and it's upsetting because that's just trickery. And it's it's. Like I said, it's OBE. Nothing can be done about it. But you people need to be upfront and honest. You talk about transparency and honesty. So let me give you a little something here that I just picked up off of Facebook from the town of Colonial Beach. The town of Colonial, this was posted today. And I don't know who wrote it. It just says town of Colonial Beach. The town of Colonial Beach utility rates will increase beginning July 1st. Not payment on July 1st, effective July 1st. The updated rates help support the continued operations, maintenance and upkeep of the town's water and sewer systems. In your meeting, when you were voting on this, it was stated there was a shortfall in hookups, and that's why we needed the increase. Had nothing to do with operations. You said it right here in this chamber. We had a shortfall of hookups, so now the citizens of this town have to pay for somebody being nice to a contractor. How fair is that? You know, it is what it is. We don't, we don't have a choice. We have to pay it. Whatever you do, we gotta, we gotta put up with it, but you gotta remember it's our money that you're taking. It's not yours. It's not the towns. The town doesn't have any money without the citizens. And you guys are supposed to be responsible for using that money constructively. That's part of your job. Anyhow, that's all I have to say. It was very disgusting that we get the information one way and something else happens. And whoever wrote that propaganda should be told about transparency.

Thank you.

I know we don't respond, but I thought Mr. Larson was going to address this because I brought this up in my time manager meeting today. Well, okay.

Before we start discussion in the middle of open comment, let's finish public comment and then we can. Okay. All right. Is anybody else like to come up for public comment? Yeah. You're welcome to just come on up and state your name and address. Uh-huh.

Kind of a question, but I don't need an answer. but it's just for a thought. Suzanne Espenlob, Selgrave, and just wondering why with the increase, I understand your things have to increase, but what is the increase for the development, the people that are developing and all the other people that are actually causing the need for an increased sewage and things like that? Like we are the townspeople, we are the ones that are having to pay for it, but what kind of increase are they having and how much are they paying for this, when ours seems to be quite a bit of an increase. And that's my statement, thank you. Thank you.

Anybody else? Okay. I want to make sure anybody else has an opportunity. Okay. All right. We're going to close public comment at 6 37 PM. And I know we have a public hearing. I know you guys want to address that issue. Do we, do we, can we do that as a part of the thing right after this public hearing? Because it's kind of maybe all related to water and sewer, or do you want to address it now and then go to the public hearing for water and sewer? That's fine. It's fine with me. I'm just saying.

Okay. No, I had the same question. I asked the town manager today why it was put on this bill. So because of our billing, the bill covers these. Well, I guess we can't say usage, but it covers the upcoming months. So it's covering July, August and September. for this first quarter. I don't know why we bill it that way, but it is correct. So it is for these next coming months.

Tom, do you want to clarify that at all?

Yeah, so we bill in advance, not in arrears. I may not have mentioned what Maggie just repeated, which was that, yeah, the bill is for July, August, and September. It is not for the past three months. It's for the next three months, starting on July the 1st.

Okay, does that clarify that situation? So the July 1st bill is for the subsequent months, not for the prior months. And that's the application of it. Okay. With that, and there's... probably more to come related to some water and sewer if you just stick around. So stay with us because we have more stuff to talk about. But we're going to stick to the agenda and the order that the agenda is in. So next up is our public hearing for zoning text amendment 2603. This is to amend section 20-2 definitions of the zoning ordinance in the town of Colonial Beach, Virginia to add small-scale production definition. Ms. Lawrence, I'll let you take it from here. Give us an... introduction and then we'll do the public hearings.

Sure. Next. So there's two separate public hearings and two separate ordinances, but I'm going to do the presentation combined tonight. The original request came to us as a potential coffee roasting business. They inquired about zoning. They anticipate selling via the internet direct to customers and eventually to wholesale customers, but not nationally. Our zoning ordinance does not address coffee roastery and or any small scale production. We do not have industrial zoning. So rather than just adding a definition for coffee roasting, after talking to many localities and nobody having a coffee roastery, we thought the best way to do it would be more comprehensive and to look at small-scale production. And so you have... Oh, next slide, I'm sorry. So you have the definition of small-scale production, which includes small-scale production such as food products, non-alcoholic beverages, leather products, jewelry, et cetera. Coffee roasting would fall into that small-scale non-alcoholic beverages. Next. And so that was zoning text amendment 2603. 2604 is then to add that definition or that use. into three separate categories all the commercial districts in town so seven dash three is resort commercial district conditional use so a conditional use would be required for any small scale production that goes into any of these section 8.2 would be general commercial Conditional use required and then section 9-3 is commercial residential See our district and the conditional use permit and that gives us a chance to look at things like odor and noise and how they're going to vent things and stuff like that by Requiring the conditional use all of those would not exceed 6,000 square feet for small scale production next I So what we're asking for, I should say, the Planning Commission approved both of these unanimously on a 6-0 vote. One person was absent. The approval to amend, so the recommendation is to hold separate public hearings and then to take separate votes to approve, to amend Section 20-2, the definitions, and then to approve and amend sections, the three sections for the commercial uses. All right. Next, are there any questions?

All right.

I'm assuming that the coffee roaster would rather say fragrance than odor, but that's the only.

Yeah, so they do have, they will be venting outside, but it will be above the roof, and that will all come in during the conditional use permit process, so we can look at how that will happen. Very similar to... So rather than doing it this way for the breweries, they have their own category, micro-brewing and another type of brewing. And the same thing, they vent outside, but that comes into play when you're considering the conditional use permit.

Okay. All right, so the coffee roaster will be a later application. This is just to cover small-scale production in a wider sense at this moment, right? That's correct, yes. All right. With that, we will open the public comment on this. Uh, this is a formal public hearing. So first is the actual definition. So this is a public hearing on the actual definition of small scale production. And we'll open public comment at 6 43 PM. Nobody sign up. Does anybody have any public comment on the definition of small scale production? Going once, going twice. Okay. All right, the public comment is closed at 6.44 p.m. Try not to bang that thing super loud or I'll wake you all up. Okay, I'm gonna do both public comments and then both public hearings and then we generally defer action to the regular meeting.

Is there any chance you can do it this time because of the cancellations in July? We'd like to have the public here. Oh, because of the application has been received.

Let's do the other public hearing and then we'll talk about that. All right. The second public hearing is now to apply the definition that we just had the first public hearing about. Apply that within our ordinance to our commercial districts. There are three commercial districts, resort commercial, C1, general commercial, and commercial residential districts. So this is the public hearing on that, and I will open that public hearing at 6.45 p.m. Is there anyone? No sign-ups on this? Would anybody like to come speak to it? Okay, all right, with that, we will close the public hearing at 6.46 p.m. Yep, okay, just holding out in case anybody else wanted to come up. All right, so now let's discuss whether we're taking action on this. Obviously, it was unanimously approved by the Planning Commission, and we know that there could be a pending application, and we have a July work session canceled because it is on the fourth, so.

Madam Mayor, I would like to suggest that we go ahead and move forward with this as a council. It brings new business to town. It brings new jobs to town. It's not a particularly controversial group of businesses. And it's something that we've heard about from the Planning Commission and the Town Council. So with that in mind, I'd like to see us take action if we can.

Okay. Is that in the form of a motion? All right. Is there a second to that?

Second. All right.

I'm going to open that up for discussion. Is there any discussion on this? Yes, Mr. Williams.

Just a question. One thing that comes to mind with small scale production is trucks, deliveries, pickups, stuff like that. Does that all get addressed in the CUP process?

It will, but it's also, these are all commercial districts and yeah, we will certainly ask for the traffic flow and look at the traffic conditions as well as some of the others. But it's commercial district and

So I'm assuming like if there's a house in the commercial district, somebody could convert that to a small scale production. Yeah. That way I'm understanding it. Okay. So the traffic and all that would be addressed during the process. Correct. Yes. Okay. Thank you.

I have a question as well. Um, why have we limited to non-alcoholic beverages instead of just saying beverages?

Because those are already cut. Well, the micro breweries already have their own classification.

I know. I'm thinking, what about distilleries? I know Warsaw's getting a vodka distillery.

I would guess that they would have their own because of the alcoholic thing that we did the same thing we did with microbrewery.

Yeah, I would think maybe the microbrewery should have been broader to alcoholic beverage. You know what I'm saying? I'm just thinking holistically probably should have been broader in that realm, but that's fine.

I'm not sure it may have to do with the licensing requirements too, but I can check into that, but yeah.

Okay. I don't really, I mean, I was just a inquiry. Any other? Yes. Grand staff.

Under the background in the paragraph, it states dependent on the space where they end up. So we are not sure yet where the location?

Yeah, so he recently has submitted his cup application in this particular location. Again, we're looking just at the text amendment, but just for your information, it's going to be the building right up the road where Margarita's Restaurant used to be. There's signage there that there is a cup upcoming. they will be entering, their location will be entering Alpha Wilder. On the side entrance.

Any other discussion? All right. We have to do separate council actions on these. So the first one is for the definitions. So we'll vote on that first. Mr. Wood?

Aye.

Mr. Larson? Aye. Mr. Williams?

Aye.

Grandstaff?

Aye.

Sanford? Aye. Allison?

Aye.

I vote aye. And the second action is to the addition of adding them to the commercial districts.

So moved.

Do I have a second to that? Second. All right. And I'll go the opposite way. Grand staff.

Aye.

Sanford? Aye. Allison? Aye. Wood?

Aye.

Larson? Aye. Williams? Aye. And I vote aye. Thank you. Okay. So do we need to authorize a cup hearing?

So it'll go before planning commission. And then I thought we'd bring it back to you at the next meeting in June to authorize.

Okay. So we'll have, uh, we'll have that on June to authorize for the July regular meeting.

That's going to be part of the June 11th meeting, right?

Yeah. To authorize it. And then, Oh yes. That for planning commission is thank you.

Okay. Thank you. All right. Next up the Dotson MOA.

Good evening. Madam mayor, council members. Members joining us in the audience and those who are listening online. I'm just going to provide some background and just give some information on the memorandums of agreements that the town signed with Dotson. And this is only specific to phases three A and three B. I want to start off with just going through a few definitions so that everyone's on the same page and we all know what we are speaking about. What is an MOA? So an MOA is a legal document. It's a memorandum of agreement, which is a legal and binding document which outlines terms, responsibilities, and expectations between Two parties working together on a shared project. Now, the Memorandum of Agreement can also be called just a contract. It's just a different name that serves as a legally binding document between two entities. Phase A, the dots in Phase A, that is what we refer to as Drift and Muse. Those are the two restaurants that were built on the boardwalk. Phase 3B, that is the new building that's currently being constructed, and that's located between the town bathrooms and the beach shop, also on the boardwalk. Connection fee. I know as it relates to water and sewer rates, you've heard discussions regarding connection fees, tap fees, and things like that. So what is a connection fee? What does it do, right? A connection fee is a one-time fee that's paid to the town by a developer or a property owner. Now this fee helps to offset the costs that are associated with connecting a development to the town's water and sewer system. Now this fee helps with labor, materials, infrastructure improvements, the physical connection work that will help to serve that new development. So it is a cost, a one-time cost fee that a developer pays to the town. Now let's move on to just the terms of the MOA. What did the MOA identify? When were those discussions started? And when was the actual agreement signed? So what did the MOA do as it relates to the relationship between Dodson and the town? So the MOA outlined the terms of agreement concerning water meter installations. Only water. The MOA did not discuss sewer at all. And this was in relation to both DOTS in phases 3A and 3B. Negotiations for 3A and 3B began in 2022. MOA for 3B was ratified and signed on November 21st, 2023. In 2022, there was a previous, well, I'm moving ahead, so I'll wait until I receive, get to that slide. So this is the three, Phase 3A. This is the back parking lot. It says something else now, but originally it had the Osprey Flats, which you see here. And on the other- The picture's not loading.

I'm trying to see why it's not. I don't think it converted over to...

It's just a picture on that slide?

It's just a picture. Yeah. Yeah, it's just a picture of Drift and Muse on the boardwalk.

Okay.

Okay, so there it is. So that's the back parking lot as you're driving up, and on the other side are the two restaurants, Drift Muse, which has a view of the Potomac River.

Okay, I think we can go back to the...

Okay. Phase 3A redevelopment. There are nine residential units and there are two residential units.

Commercial units.

Commercial units. Thank you. There is one commercial meter. And that, I know you may be asking, well, if there are two commercial units, why is there just one commercial meter? Well, our town code states that when two businesses share a space, then those two businesses will be treated as a single commercial use. So based on the town code, one commercial meter was connected for the phase 3a redevelopment. And so the one-time fees that were paid for 3A for the water connection was $6,000 and the sewer connection was $9,375. And so on this slide, it shows that the previous connection rates versus the current connection rates so the previous connection rates as you see here for um the residential water and sewer both is six thousand dollars and for commercial water and sewer both fifteen thousand dollars so because the negotiations with dotson began at the time that this code was in effect they were charged these rates under the previous ordinance. I believe the date was March 15th, 2023. There was discussion before town council. There was a proposal to increase the rates. And so I have listed here what the amended rates became, which are now our current, uh, sewer rates. So the rates were increased for residential water to 4,000 residential sewer, 4,500 for a total of $8,500 for both water and sewer for residential and, um, for commercial, the water connection rates. increased to two and one half times the single family dwelling fee, which was $10,000. And for sewer, two and one half times the single family dwelling fee, which is $11,250. So under the current rates, water sewer connection fees for commercial is $21,250. So again, under 3A and 3B, the negotiations began under the old ordinance rates. So we charge for phase 3A, we charge the 3A for the 10 residential units and of course that is billed quarterly. And so we receive in addition 10 units and they are billed commercially, not the residential rates. So those 10 residential units, they are paying the commercial rates, and the commercial rates is the regular flat fee, and then they're charged for usage above 15,000 gallons. So how did this impact the town overall? Approximately for fiscal year 2025, based on the water and sewer rates, the real estate tax and mills, lodging and cottage. So there's approximately $90,000 of revenue that the town has received just on the phase one alone. And I'd also like to point out that The Dotson also provided labor that normally a developer would not provide to connect to the town's utility infrastructure because that was not a blank lot. There was a previous I don't know what kind of business that it was, but there was something on that plot of land previously, and what Dotson did was they redeveloped that plot of land. And so those services that really the town should have provided, Dotson went ahead and they paid for the labor as well as the fees directly performed with the associated connection work. And now we'll move on to 3B. So 3B is currently underway. It is being built now. And that is next to the town bathrooms and the beach shop. So phase B, 3B will consist of 12 residential units and two commercial units. They were billed for one commercial unit meter for the residential units. And that's on the second floor and one commercial meter for the commercial units. Um, that's on the first floor. So the connection fees that they will pay, um, and these again are one-time fees. These are not recurring fees. $12,000 for the water connection fee and that's $6,000 per meter and $22,500 for the sewer connection fees and that is based on $11,250 per meter. And keep in mind, again, that the MOAs only address the water connection fees, not the sewers. And so the sewer connection fees are based on the old codes, not the new codes. Next. Now the town charges phase B 12 times the quarterly rate for the residential units that are on the second floor. And we charge one time the quarterly rate for the commercial unit that is on the first floor. And additionally, the commercial unit on the first floor is responsible for any additional usage above 15 gallons that is used. So I want to go back to the... slide with the previous and the current amounts. So on phase 3B, they were under the old rates, which was the $6,000. So if you'll go back to the slide 10. Yes. You'll notice here for phase three B the water connection fee. We charged a $6,000 per meter for a total of $12,000. That's based on the old rates, but the sewer connection fee, since the sewer connection fee was not addressed in the MOA, they were charged the current rate at $11,250. And that is the end of my presentation on Dotson. Mr. Wood.

I think I remember this discussion when we first started going into the change in connection fees. And Mr. Allison and Ms. Schick, you can let me know if I'm incorrect on any of these. There was a fair amount of consternation that nobody was ever going to build another business in Colonial Beach if we raised the rates. um what we decided at that point if i remember is that there were already businesses that had made application to the town and we gave them six months to close the deal at the old rates in order to get it done is my memory on that correct

I think that's the way it worked was we were hearing this in March. We approved it. We had several builders contact us that they already had contracts with applicants, with houses, with other people that were in the works. They hadn't passed these costs to their clients. And so we gave a grace period to the end of the fiscal year of anybody who was in the application process prior to the end of the fiscal year. So if you were in zoning, you didn't have to have built it. You just had to be, you had to be in that process and you were a grandfather. So that's a yes. Yeah.

Now the other thing I want for clarification is it looks to me is nobody got a nickel off of anything on these deals. Am I correct with that? Am I seeing that correctly?

Uh, yes. So these were in accordance with the town codes as they were in place at the time of the negotiations.

So it was brought before town council, town council voted to raise the rates. Town council also voted to give that grace period for anybody who already had an application here. So the implication that people are getting cut special deals is incorrect. Am I right on that?

On phases three and three B yes.

Thank you.

I just want to address, I know we've had a lot of public comments emailed to us. I know I've tried to be responsive or forward those on to our clerk too so that everybody had them. But I know there is some confusion around thinking that the... connection fees are related to the current utility rate setting. That the bill that went out that's billing for July 1st is directly related to some kind of hundreds of thousands of dollar discount that people got or something to that fact. I don't really quite understand why they believe that or think that, but the water and sewer budget was overinflated in revenue projections for multiple years. The town was thinking it would get all this revenue after we had increased the utility rate connections, knowing we had grandfathered in anybody else, but overinflated revenue projections in that and it was, shown in facts that that was overinflated. Well, we needed to be realistic in the budget about that. The other thing is that the biggest impacts, actual money spent wise in the water and sewer budgets were clearly identified by town staff at the time was the fact that our utility, the Dominion power bill went up by 15 percent. If you haven't seen that your own house, I don't know where you live, I'd like to live with you. But my power bill went up and the plant's power bill has gone up significantly, especially as we fix a lot of the pumps that are running 24-7 now. Some of the things that were broke were all fine, they weren't really running. and now they're running and also the utility rate increase for power has gone up significantly that was a big budget line item that went up and the other big budget line item that went up was this sludge removal like i said we got a second press out there we're trying to get that stuff out of the tanks and to dispose of sludge we have to pay disposal fees to landfills Because when it comes out of the tank, it comes out kind of like dirt, but you can't actually spread it like fertilizer. People used to do that. Sometimes they spread it like fertilizer. There are environmental processes to being able to sell it like fertilizer. There's a drying process and some other things. So we are not able to sell it like fertilizer, like maybe back in the day that used to happen. So we're paying disposal land, the landfill fees as we take those trucks out. Um, and that cost of that, uh, in this next budget is, is almost a quarter million dollars. It's very expensive. So I just want to highlight those two budget line items because I think nobody has sent me an email asking about those two, but those are really important. I think people need to, you know, we talked about it before in the budget process, but I'm not sure everybody got that same information. Um, And under the prior utility connection fee structure was not good. Do you remember that Kenny? It wasn't really that great. And it said that under the residential utility connection fees under the prior code, anything under one roof that had condos was a single building meter. That's what the code said. And that's how it was built. And that's exactly what that code said. Multiple units, single, under one roof, single meter. That's what the code said. So we have changed that code in a big way. Now I will tell you, I went back to look at how many new connections, because that, Dotson 3A had the snack shop. You remember Willie's used to be down there at it. And it had the tourism building on it too. So there were two sewer connections existing. We have in redevelopment, if a sewer connection exists, you don't have to pay a new sewer connection fee. if one's already there. Now, if it has to be upsized or resized or things like that, then maybe we can have you pay. But like if you buy a house and it's dilapidated and you want to tear it down and you build a new house, you don't pay a brand new connection fee. The connections already existing. Well, if there is, if it's a redevelopment, there's a redevelopment language to that effect. so there was fees paid in this case but i just want to remind that there were two buildings down there with water and sewer connections to them prior to the development happening now 3b that's not the case there wasn't any development that i know of or maybe there used to be before i was born on that lot but i haven't remembered that um but we don't have a lot of new commercial connection requests until like lately. So there is a lot of economic development kind of stirring. And so this is a really important topic and I think it's good to get answers to this and, uh, and understand it, especially as we move forward. Cause I think we have several other small businesses that are going to keep coming forward and we want to make sure we have clarity on the issue.

Robin, if I may.

Yeah.

Also, she was talking about the press. That bill is about a quarter of a million dollars. However, we had gotten estimates before about cleaning out that sludge from a another company and that was well over a million dollars. So we are saving roughly three quarters of a million dollars that isn't being implemented into our sewer bills. So that, you know, we're trying to do the best we can with what we have. So just so everybody knows, we are saving where we can save, but sometimes it doesn't always work out the best.

And I just want to say thank the staff for the I know there's been a lot of questions asked to them about this, and there could be more questions, and we just want to continue to have an open-door transparency in the public and let the public, not just us, but let's just present it and put it out there, and there's no reason not to do that. And I think going forward, too, we need to, you know, we always have to do a better job of communicating. That's true. We talk about that all the time, maybe every meeting. But also just think that the citizens that are here and asking these questions, thank you for your inquiries. Thank you for being interested in this. This is important and let's continue to have discussions around it too. This I'm sure won't be the last one. Mr. Wood or Mr. Williams, I saw both your hands. Mr. Williams, go ahead.

Okay.

I think it's important that we all realize that our town leadership is a principled person.

There's been a lot of bull hockey on social media about backroom deals and people getting special deals. You're looking at, in our town managers, one of the most principled people that I've ever met. If you have a question, ask her a question, and you get an answer. Busy person, might take a while, but you will get an answer, and you'll get the correct answer. So instead of believing the worst about people because you read it on social media, ask the question we can have principle disagreements on how things work but i can tell you miss tucker is always going to be a principled and above board because if she wasn't she'd lose her law license okay so i just wanted to say that

I'd like to second what the mayor said about the information you've shared tonight. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

Go ahead, Mr. Williams.

I'd raise my hand, so I'll let Mr. Wood go first. Just wanted to point out a few things. I don't really want to get into a big argument or litigation of what happened with the agreement on the boardwalk. Yes, I've put a lot out there on social media and I've done a lot of digging to get answers because the citizens demand them. So I try to comply when I can. I do want to point out that I first asked about what Dotson paid for Phase 3A, where Willie's used to be. I asked in our meeting in September of 2023, I said, how many connections and how much did he pay? I got no answer. And then fast forward a couple months later in November, there was this actual agreement that we're looking at here, several pages long, was written, signed, and basically recorded with the clerk of court and all official. Not a word to counsel. So I continued to ask for a couple more times, and finally in April of 2024, I got an answer. They said 15,001 connection. So I posted that out on social media back then. So I just wanted to kind of set the... record straight as far as the order of what happened because it seems like to me if a council members asking what was paid and when and all that and then negotiations actually I would go back step to September I was told that we're currently in an agreement with working on agreement with Dotson so that would have been a great time to loop council in and let us know what actually was going on but Um, instead it was kept secret. I mean, I didn't know anything about it. Maybe somebody, I don't know if anybody else on council here was aware of what was going on with the agreement, but I was totally left out of the loop on that. Um, so I just wanted to say that and also connection fees. Um, They were mentioned at least two to three times in our budget meetings about the reasons why we needed extra money. Yes, there's other things going on with the plant and those were mentioned too, electricity and things like that. But at least two to three times in public meetings, the connection fees were referenced as a budget concern for the water sewer and reasoning for increasing. Let's see. Also, I do have a question, too, about one of the things. And like I said, I don't necessarily want to get into like a legal back and forth on this, but I will point out in our water and sewer code that was amended back in 2023. section 2173 and I think 2181. They both say no connection with the town water sewer system shall be made except after a payment of the requisite fees as shown below, which were passed and voted on by council. 4,000 for water and I can't remember, 4,500 for sewer, something like that for residential and more for commercial. It says for a single-family dwelling, townhouse, duplex, semi-detached dwelling units, multi-family dwelling units, apartments, and condominiums, $4,000. That's just for water. So if you take even the going rate back then, $6,000 for water and sewer for residential, and you multiply that times 21, which is what the agreement we made, that's $126,000. They paid 15,000 for phase 3A.

Mr. Williams, but they were grandfathered to the prior code and that's why we changed the code. $6,000 per unit. No, not in the prior code. It said all under one roof is one connection in the prior code.

For commercial. No, in the residential.

Yes, in that prior code it says under one roof.

I would like to see that in writing before I would actually want to put that on record, public record.

Okay. Well, I mean, I don't have the code in front of me, but you're right. We could continue to look further into what happened in the past. or we can start to move forward in a productive way about the future.

Right, which is why I put something on the agenda. I didn't want to, I mean, this was presented and there's a lot of back and forth, so I just wanted to at least say some of the reasons why some of this information was put out so that there's no confusion there. I will admit too also that the current town manager wasn't even the town manager at the time that this whole agreement was written up and signed. So I'm not sure why the prior town manager didn't wanna sign it or couldn't sign it, but she didn't. But as far as.

I think she was having a baby.

No, she was done having the baby. She came back from maternity leave, and then she put in her notice and said she was going to leave in a month.

Oh, okay.

That's what was going on at the time. That's what happened, yeah.

So we do know why she did that.

Oh, and just, I'll use this, I'll save this for my discussion on the next agenda item. All right.

Is there further discussion on this? I mean, I think the next agenda item is very productive. It talks about what to do next, right? Is that my understanding?

Correct.

Okay. So is there further discussion on this agenda item?

Okay.

We'll move forward to the next one, which I believe is presented. Is that you also, oh no, it has Mr. Williams on here. Is there, is that Powell's memo too, or that spells memo?

It's my memo, but I think Mr. Williams is the one who should introduce it.

Sure. Go ahead, Mr. Williams.

All right. We're ready? Yeah. Okay. This agenda item is based off of an email discussion with and is basically the concerns I had raised, I had asked him and council has all been privy to our back and forth emails. I guess I'm not sure how the attorney client thing works with council, but I guess that was okay to share with everybody. Okay. And so, With all the concerns and the back and forth with Mr. Dugan, he suggested that there were ways, if council didn't want to allow the town manager to make the discounts that he stated were within her legal authority, that council could take action by drafting or amending our town codes to limit those authorities. And like I said earlier, I don't necessarily want to get into the legal litigation of whether what happened in the past was correct or not, that's for the public. I mean, if the public ever decides they want to do a judicial review or something on that, they can, but as far as we're concerned today, our town attorney's legal opinion, he says that what she did was appropriate based off of her being able to determine the number and type of connections, and I want to put words in your mouth, Powell, but is that correct?

That's accurate.

Okay. And so that's why I put this on the agenda. I feel like council should approve any discounts even if it includes reducing the number of taps or the number of type of connections. Um, and so like I read earlier, um, in our water and sewer, um, code, um, section 21, um, I read how the, basically it says that each unit should pay. Um, and then also you'll find later in that code, I think I referenced it here in my notes, um, section 2393 actually, um, addresses economic incentives, and from what I gather from the town attorney, we're not necessarily saying what was done was economic incentives, it was just a, and I'm making this, my words, a loophole in the process. But basically what it states in there is economic incentives, and it says other incentives as negotiated and approved by council. So if you go into our water and sewer code and you scroll down, there's a link if you click on that link and it goes to 2393 and it states that. So basically from what I can gather from our water and sewer code, the only fee, the way to discount fees in any way at all is through that economic incentive which it states approved by town council. So at least at one point we deemed it appropriate for town council to sign off on significant discounts. So I wanted to point out that that's in our current water and sewer code. whether people want to debate whether each unit pays or not, it seems pretty clear to me in our water and sewer code that each unit should pay whether they have one meter or not. So this is my proposal. I'd like to make a motion that we ask the town attorney to draft basically in this language to draft a town code requiring council to vote on fees discounted, including items like reducing the number and type of connections and the number of meters.

I second that. Is there any more discussion on getting the?

No, my thing is like for discussion part is I feel like even in my discussion openly with the manager in light of all the discussion and the concerns, we probably should err on the side of where we have something where it does come to council, where there's some checks and balances because I openly, when Natasha and I talk, no disparaging thing to her, I openly said for whoever's the town manager now or going forward, maybe it's a good thing to have those parameters so it doesn't look like there's a lot of gray or things are happening. So if something has to come to council where we can be part of the decision making process, because at the end of the day, we're council, but we're also citizens. And the fact of the matter is, membership doesn't have its privileges. These rates also affect us, but we as the leadership, we keep saying we have to do a better job of communicating with the public. And I know we don't get a lot of, we don't get to put out everything that we are doing. And it has to, we just have to do better about letting them know because at the end of the day, from speaking to different people and today visiting businesses, The truth can be hard at times, and sometimes we get upset, but when the dust settles, most of the time, people will say, I may not like it, but at least you were honest with me. And right now, it doesn't look like that's happening. And if we can show it, so like I said in my one-on-one discussion with Ms. Tucker, I said to have checks and balances would be a good thing maybe to keep clarity and openness and also to also just cover whoever is here now and in the future so it doesn't seem like it has a whiff of impropriety so you know it it shouldn't be um a case like we are trying to cast dispersions because like i said every time i've spoken to miss tucker and ask her for anything She gets back to me, if she can't, she'll explain why the delay is and she gets back to me. But I think the town as a whole, for the citizens, they want to know if, why, when, and how, and they want to see us doing a better job at it. So, like I said, we all know the emails we're getting, we all know what we're seeing, and I think it would be good practice to have something in place going forward.

Sounds good.

Mr. Allison. I have a different view. As the town manager works through all different departments through our town, including our economic development piece, You know, as council members, we're not out soliciting businesses to come to town specifically because that kind of looks like a gray area, right? I think we should give the authority to the town manager to be able to address those concerns if a company wants to come here and then not be burdened that they may have seven different people that hold that responsibility. hold it hostage, basically. There also is the political view of not having businesses come here to get a political person to help them kind of thing. As a town manager, you have a single point that runs the rest of the government that we trust her to do. Not saying that I don't trust anybody up here, but at the same time, It's just as easy to go to you and say, hey, I need this passed. You need to make it work somehow or another, right? I mean, it happens all the time throughout everywhere. I don't want to be in the position for somebody to come do that to me. I'd rather it be her problem. So that's my stance on it.

Mr. Wood?

I think we're doing a disservice when we say that citizens' distrust has come organically. It's been fomented. Okay, let's take a look at what has actually happened here. We saw what the agreement looked like. Every number on the agreement is exactly what it was supposed to be, so it's a problem in search of a solution. I think it's important that we have professionals Over here, we have two people with law degrees. Over here, we got none. We have professionals whose job it is to develop business, to look through the fine points of it, and to make sure that we have a good agreement. I can tell you, being on council, it takes a while to get to know the job. I certainly still to this day, am not somebody who should be negotiating real estate deals. And I don't think anybody, with the possible exception of the mayor and the possible exception of the vice mayor, is in that situation either. And we know this to be true because we've seen the amount of incorrect information that we've worked with. So to take that responsibility out of professionals' hands is a terrible mistake.

Tom, do you have anything you want to add?

Yeah. I got a couple of questions. First of all, Mr. Williams said that the town code says if we're gonna give economic incentives, that comes before council anyway, right? So I think the solution is there. I think the review of, we don't wanna rehash the past too much more here, but the review of the Dodson agreements makes it pretty clear to me that those weren't economic incentives, they were just, the normal process of doing the connections for those businesses so that didn't apply but when economic economic incentives do apply i.e discounts they have to come to council it's already in the code so so what are we what are we really looking to do here i'm a little bit confused i have to have to be honest okay i can address that um i don't know if you agree or not but

If a town manager or anybody says, you know what, normally it would be $100,000 for your connections. We're going to do $15,000. To me, that's a discount. Even though it was the number and type of connections. I mean, when our regular code also says a fee is per unit. So that... agreement was kind of, to me, outside of the code as it is. So that's why I suggested bringing this on to just make sure that that's 100% clear to the citizens as well, that no builder's gonna come in and say, I mean, to Kenny's point, I get what he's saying, you don't wanna be political about it, but what if somebody on council has a pull with the town manager? I'm not saying current town manager, I'm saying future or in another town, what if they have some pull and say, hey, i think insinuating things like that does some damage to our entire town council no i'm not insinuating that was done i'm what i'm saying is speculating we should council has a has a responsibility to ensure that that doesn't happen with future councils or future managers okay they can vote on to change all this after we get done

We can do this and in six months they could change it back to whatever they want to change it to. They can vote on changing the fees, they can do all that stuff, the same thing that we did. So by trying to do anything today to circumvent what might happen or will happen in the future, doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

What has happened?

Okay, I have a discussion point. I want to stay solution based. We're here to solve problems, that's why we're up here. So in order to solve problems, we have to give clear direction. In order to solve problems, we have to frame the issue. If we do not frame the issue and give clear direction, we're not gonna solve the problem. So in that sense, I do think that what happened in 2023 probably had some confusion and, and honestly should have come, David, your question should have been answered. If you ask that of the town manager, you're absolutely 1000% right. Your question should have been answered. That was a prior town manager. This is a new town manager. We all seem to be getting along very well with this town manager. So I don't want to blame her for whatever prior things weren't or were. answered um i also think it's really important to treat our staff with respect and respect their knowledge base and their background and their professionalism as well as each other and our intentions i don't think anybody up here has a bad intention for the town of colonial beach i think we all love colonial beach sometimes i love clinton beach too much but we all do that right we're just pouring our heart out pierre and i think also mr williams i think you are too and i think you are also just trying to do the best thing for colonial beach and i believe that in my heart and in that sense i think that uh there is a miscommunication about the authority about the town manager having to having the authority to interpret the number and types of connections and whether or not that becomes an economic incentive That to me is framing the issue. We have already rewritten our code. This might have been not quite this council because I got three new members, but most of the people on this council helped, assisted in rewriting the economic incentive code that was passed and implemented today. That code says that these agreements and discounts have to come to council. I would say to Lisa, speaking, and I want to speak for you, but your point right then was that that is also what you would like to see, that council get any kind of economic incentive deals brought to us. And so I think that just echoes the direction that was already codified in that economic incentive town code, which was rewritten. Then we rewrote the town code to the water and sewer connection fees, and the prior code was abysmal, by the way. Also, in the prior code, we had only had one new commercial connection in like 10 years. If you think about it, in town, there's not that much stuff that it knew commercially has been built. Everything is like from the 50s and 60s, and it's been reused, revamped, renewed, things like that. We don't have a lot of new connections. It hasn't come up that much. But in that same tone, when we rewrote that code, we made it per unit, which is what you're quoting. You're talking about the code that we wrote, that we passed together. And I think we just want that code implemented, right? The code that we wrote and passed. So we don't have to recodify that because we did it. And there was this, maybe there was a blurred line in that grandfathering of the old code, which was messy and not that great and didn't say that. But now in the new code, it does say that, and we are clear, and it should come to council because it says that in the code. So I think we just would need to maybe second the actual direction that's in the code and just kind of like a hear ye to our current town manager that she already has to follow that code. She is now... immensely aware of the code after all the research, I don't foresee the issue happening again in this moment. Not to say it can happen in the future if a town manager didn't read the current code, but the way we have changed the code pretty clearly does, I think, say that those things should come to us because in the bottom of the connection fees, it references the economic incentive code. It says, hey, it didn't used to say that. It says it now. But now says, hey, if you want economic incentives, go to the economic incentive code. Go check it out. Let's see what we can do for you. Because one of the things that's important about business and attracting business and growth, and if we want more diversity in business here, is businesses having clear expectations. Those expectations, if they're not sure or they're not sure who to ask or who to go to, then maybe they will be hesitant to open business here. We don't want to create more barriers to that because we already have a pretty terrible reputation as being not business friendly. If you're not familiar with that, then you can look at the last town meeting that we had at our public comment. We're trying to get better at that. My point is I agree that I too think that if incentives in utility connections or any other incentives come forward, I think best practice is to bring them to council. I think that's what we should be doing. And that's why we wrote it into the town code. And I think the current town code, as it's been changed, we're just asking for it to be implemented as it's been changed and not go back to what was happening three or four years ago. And I think that kind of resolves it in that way. If we want to bolster the code even further, then the question is, how do we frame exactly we want and give clear direction to the town staff to can to bolster that code if you want more language related to that if we want to get more detailed about it then um let's just be clear what we're asking the staff to do but i think i we're on the same page though yeah that's right

that that's basically really all i'm asking for like you said it's already in the code and economic incentives so really the only piece to me would be making sure that the number of connections or type of connections doesn't reduce the per unit requirement That's mainly what I'm asking for. And I think it's not that complicated.

And the code is written now much clearer that that should be like formulaic, right? I mean, that's your, that's what you've been using the code we have now as a formula, right?

Yes.

So, There should be.

So what are we, you know, there was a second and a motion and all the good things.

So what are we doing with this? Okay. So do we just want to say to, is there anything else associated? Is there an action item?

Just to be clear, I mean, there is that thing about economic development, but I think the decision that was made was based on, you know, types of connections and number of connections, and that was not centered on economic development.

I understand that, but I think we're saying, and to David's point, is if there's supposed to be 10 connections and they only want to pay for two connections, you have to bring that to council.

Right, and that probably should be clarified.

Okay, so do you want us to give direction for you guys to bring back something?

I think it would be helpful to be clarified. We need to vote on that first.

Right. Okay, so the staff is asking to continue to clarify. It's fine with me.

And just a comment. The constituent won't let me live it down if I don't make an appeal to Tom Larson. He said that he seems pretty reasonable, so I want you to ask him to support it.

Yeah.

And Tom doesn't seem to be a conspiracy theorist, so hopefully that'll work as well. So we'll see which way it goes, I guess.

So again, we're voting on what?

The town staff providing further clarity to the code if there needs to be a revision.

Right. Well, you made a motion and you made a second. I'm assuming we're taking some action to vote on this.

Or was this just a direction of the town attorney to bring something forward to council for a future vote? Correct?

Right, and my understanding of that is that you think the connections, the type of connections and the number of connections, not the fees themselves, because that's set. I mean, that could be a separate economic development thing. But those, the types and the number, should be considered part of the economic development and brought to council under that. So I think I can make that more clear.

Okay. I think it's already been clarified in the code, but if you want to take another stab at it, then that's fine.

I'll take a look. Don't we need to vote on that?

We do. I'm trying to hear from Hal.

My main goal is to just ensure that any significant discounts come before council. Number and type of connections is one of those, but any significant discounts.

Is there consensus on that by council? Sometimes it's good to go ahead and get narrow on something. Is there consensus by council that significant discounts should come to council for that direction to the town staff?

What is the definition of significant discounts?

We can discuss that in our meeting.

But you're asking to vote for something about a significant amount. What is a significant amount? Are we talking $5,000, $3 million? What is the significant amount that we're proposing to town managers to not save where if we lose $10,000 in a hookup and we make $100,000 a year off their taxes and meals and stuff, where do we go? Where's the line?

Well, the water sewer code doesn't specify at all.

Y'all mentioned a significant amount. I'm asking for the definition of what a significant amount is.

Over $1,000 is a suggestion?

Over $1,000 is significant?

If you handed me $1,000, I'd think that was a significant amount of money.

If they're bringing in $90,000 a year, you're worried about $1,000?

All right, all right, all right, all right.

You guys calm down. We're talking where you guys are ready to play with monopoly money up here.

I mean, $1,000 to probably most of the people in the audience is a lot of money. To me, it's a lot of money.

All right. So we don't have consensus on any of that, but staff wants to bring us something back. So I think we should let staff bring us something back if they're interested in bringing us something back. And that's where I stand on that. And so to me, the motion is for staff to bring back what they would propose to solve the fact that we're arguing about $1,000 up here right now.

All right.

And then let's see what staff brings back with that is how I interpret that motion. We'll see what staff brings back about that. All right, so that's the motion right now. It's just direction for the staff to come back on that.

So can I add a little commentary before we vote?

Yeah, sure, go ahead. We're still open for discussion.

This idea that reducing the number of connections is a straight-up discount is a little bit... confusing to me, right? Because if you have 10 units and we say, all right, we want them to have 10 connections, then we've got to make 10 connections and install 10 meters, right? So it's not a, all of those connection fees lost by taking that down to one aren't really lost because there's a bunch of equipment and labor and stuff that, well, Natasha. I know she went to the bathroom right there. I'm right about that, right?

That's my understanding.

Right, so... it gets to kind of what's a discount right because that is that a discount are we are they just not installing a bunch of meters and making a bunch of of water pipe and sewer pipe connections and therefore we should be charging them less right so think of that as you're working through this what is a discount i'm not sure i understand exactly what a discount is one last shot in the dark please madam mayor mr wood so if i understand correctly mr dugan

Okay, there was no variance between what was in the code. There was no variance that people were charged for water and sewer hookups. That was exactly as it was specified. So, we don't have a problem there. And now we're going to send stuff back to staff who's already overworked, and we're going to treat them as if we don't value their opinions on what they did. And eventually, people just get tired of that. You have to work to retain good people. And I think we have empirical evidence.

All right, hold on. He's finished. And then it's Stanford. I will make sure you have an opportunity to speak.

What problem are we trying to solve?

Maggie, I would like to hear from you because you have been quiet this whole time, please.

think we have a clear direction for staff we want just I go with what the mayor is saying just let's move on I mean you're making this into a bigger thing than it has to be I mean you're okay all right I think I think she's saying call for the vote all right

I'm going to start, Mr. Wood, on yours. Nay. Okay. Larson? Aye. Williams? Aye. Grandstaff? Aye. Sanford? Aye. Allison? Nay. And I vote aye.

Okay.

Okay. And Powell, do you have a good enough understanding?

Yeah, I think I can come up with something and give you some options. So it's not going to be staff.

Are you going to quit?

No.

Okay.

I would say my recommendation would be to draft something kind of quick and dirty and let us react as opposed to put a bunch of time and effort into it because I'm not sure it's going to make it.

Okay.

Maybe even if other localities have something already in writing, it might help.

All right, moving forward to pickleball. Tom, are you doing this one?

I know all about it. I could give the presentation, but I won't.

Well, Tom does play a lot of pickleball, everybody, so if you haven't seen him out there.

I'm a little embarrassed that I've only played pickleball once, but it's only because I'm the Parks and Rec director and I was invited and they told me I should learn how to play. So I have a very fleeting notion of pickleball. All right. This memo is based on a proposal. I believe both of these are included. Is that right, Heather? Both the proposal and the memo are included. The proposal was brought to the Parks and Rec Advisory Commission at our April 7th meeting from the Pickleball Group. and Larry Wilson was the one who presented it at that meeting, and that was the time that Councilman Wood heard, and we had conversations as to how to present that to the council, and here we are. So I'm just going to go ahead and give you the summary. The Colonial Beach Pickleball Group, which has more than 50 participants, has requested authorization from council to proceed with enhancements to the existing courts at Torrey Smith Park. They're calling themselves the Sunrise PICKLEBALL LEAGUE, AND THEY HAVE SECURED A $3,750 GRANT FROM THE COLONIAL BEACH COMMUNITY FOUNDATION TO FULLY FUND THE PROPOSED IMPROVEMENTS WITH NO TOWN FUNDING REQUESTED. THE ENHANCEMENTS INCLUDE EXPANDING PLAYABLE PICKLEBALL CAPACITY FROM TWO COURTS TO FOUR COURTS THROUGH ADDITIONAL LINE STRIPING. I THINK, COUNCILMAN LARSON, YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT THEY'RE ASKING, BUT THEY'RE ASKING TO TURN PICKLEBALL COURTS AT A 90-DEGREE ANGLE to the tennis courts, because a pickleball court can be played at about half the size of a tennis court. You're playing very close to the net, and they would have collapsible nets that they would provide and keep in a storage unit, which they have also included in their budget. Would you like me to read the whole thing? No, we can read the summary ourselves. So the current configuration at the Torrey Smith Park has two courts for tennis and pickleball. Two courts total to cover both sports. And right now, the pickleballers are probably a larger group than the tennis players, and some of them are actually tennis players as well as pickleball players. What they want to do is try and create basically four courts for pickleball, and they have agreed that they do now and would continue to defer to tennis players if tennis players came and pickleballers are on both of the courts, which would mean they'd have four pickleball courts, to give up two of those pickleball courts in order to allow the tennis players to use one of the courts. And do it in a round robin. We've talked about some ways that they might do that, but I think that would come later. So the... The alternatives that we've listed are to maintain the existing court configuration with two pickleball courts and shared tennis use without additional wind mitigation improvements. And I did not mention that they also want to add windscreens, which would benefit both pickleball and tennis players. The second alternative is decline the proposed improvements and evaluate alternative long-term options for expanded pickleball facilities elsewhere within town-owned recreational areas, which could require future town funding. Right now, what they want to do is already fully funded. They have been calling contractors to get prices. The prices that they've been told are within the prices that they have requested. said they have money for. They haven't been able to find someone yet that is willing to come to Colonial Beach to do this for various reasons. So that's still, they're still working on that. What they're asking for is permission to move forward with finding a contractor to paint the lines and put up the windscreens and add a storage unit for their collapsible pickleball nets.

I have a couple of questions. Um, it's really for Tom. Have you played on one of these courts that has subdivided its tennis court into two pickleball courts next to someone playing tennis at the other court? Has it worked out okay?

It should be fine. We do it all the time. We'll play on one of the tennis courts. We'll be playing pickleball and there'll be tennis players on the other court.

But now you're asking two pickleballers to be next to a tennis?

You think it's fine?

I don't play, so I don't pretend like I don't know.

What Sally described wasn't quite right. Okay. If you imagine the tennis court net is here. I'm going to do it vertical. Sorry to have to work with my hands.

I'm sorry that I did not include the drawing here.

Yeah, but there are going to be two pickleball courts sort of parallel to the existing tennis court, one on one side of the tennis net and one on the other side of the tennis net. So we'll still be playing in the same direction. We're not going to be hitting balls towards where the tennis ball is.

Okay, and there's no permanent infrastructure being installed on the court other than the lines being painted on the ground?

Right, correct.

no resurfacing nothing like that it's simply the rubberized paint that they use to add pickleball lines and the old pickleball lines will be pulled off or will remain still they'll stay right so it's going to be a dual purpose so if if we wanted to play over the pickleball oh sorry over the tennis net we can do that or we can make two courts put up the temporary nets and have to so the new chords have a different color so that it's clear The pickleball lines already have a different color than the tennis lines.

Oh, okay.

I think what they're trying to do is address the issue of multiple pickleball players showing up and having... I understand that. Yeah, having to wait.

The next question is on the windscreens. I want to make sure you can see through them. I think it would be a big mistake to put windscreens up that are...

Impede the visibility there are windscreens that have visibility still through Yeah, the what the images that they've sent or that they brought to the meeting I believe were You could see through them.

I would say that needs to be a requirement though I don't want to see that that's not explicitly stated and then all of a sudden it's enclosed in like a black box and

No, it wouldn't be. Because they have to let some win through, otherwise your fits get blown down.

Yeah, but there are many kinds of these screens that have different visibility ratings as well as win through. I think it's important for the police. I think it's important for the neighbors. I think it's important for several reasons to not impede visibility to the court.

Agreed. I made the note, so I'll make sure we have an image of that. What else?

For the storage locker, who is going to have access? Is it going to be like just a lock with a key kind of thing? That is still under discussion.

I was hoping you knew the answer to that. Oh, thank you, Heather.

Well, they had talked about a coded locker so that people could have the code and use it. They use a signal chat to identify themselves as pickleball players, and everybody that wants to get on the chat is invited. I think they've got 100 people on the chat. But that was one option. Another option was to put a lock on it, like a padlock, and have some people with the key who would be responsible for getting the nets out if the lines got too long. I don't think they've landed on how they want to do that. And if anybody has any thoughts, I'm sure they'd be open.

I just don't want it to be a code. The code gets out and then the stuff gets stolen. Sure, sure. I'm sure they don't either. I think the town should probably have a key and the town should be responsible for it. That's just my two cents.

Who do we have here? That's going to get up in seven, eight o'clock in the morning, go open that for the pickleballers.

Oh, I know who's on Sally's, uh, parks and rec.

I know, but if it's, uh, if town staff has to do it, what's your point is it's a talent. She's saying that the town should be the one controlling the box.

I think the town needs a key to it for sure.

For sure. I think the town has access. I don't think they have sole control. I don't think that would be an undue burden on the town staff, to your point.

I just don't think the organization should have sole control. I think the town should have.

I agree. I agree. 100%, yeah.

Question. Go ahead. Looking at that picture you put up, it looks like, so right now we have two tennis courts and now we're going to have. Go back to the picture. Pickleball, two pickleballs.

I was just trying to find an example of how to say what direction, like the directions that it's going.

Oh, you found that on Google. So there's going to be two tennis, but they can be converted into up to four pickleball? Correct.

Okay.

Gotcha.

And does that cause any issues with the tennis people or?

Apparently, tennis people have weighed in on it and said they thought it was fine. They just want to make sure that they have a place to play, and this actually is a bit of a problem solver for them as well, because if there are two groups taking up two tennis courts, this would change to having two pickleball groups on one tennis court, leaving a tennis court free for tennis players. Thank you.

Looking at this picture, it's the one on the left is what we're talking about doing, but we have two tennis courts, so we're gonna have that pattern that's on the left picture twice because there are two tennis courts. So there's not gonna be a four court set up like the one on the right. It's gonna be two courts. I don't know if I said that. It's probably confusing. Ignore the four pickleball court half of the diagram. That does not apply to us.

I apologize for misreading that because I saw an earlier design that had them turned. Sideways, yeah.

So not that one, this one, but two of those. Yes.

Basically, they're going to be playing on both sides of the tennis net. Correct. Okay.

Full games on both sides. Yep.

And there's enough room for that, I guess, like we've measured the length and all that? Yep, we have. Okay, gotcha.

And I went and double-checked that, so I went with my little tape measure.

Any other stipulations? All right, with our stipulations, are we going to let them do it?

Should we vote on that tonight? Do we need to move?

Yeah, I think we have to give a blessing for them to move forward or not.

Okay, so move.

second all right and the stipulations are the lock and the screening right all right all in favor say aye aye aye aye any opposed there you go okay thank you all right thank you sally there's no closed meeting can i get a motion to adjourn All in favor? It's adjourned at 8 o'clock p.m. Thank you very much, everyone.