Board of Commissioners - Regular Meeting

You guys ready? Okay. Ready on the right? Yes sir. Good morning everybody and welcome to our last meeting in 2025 December 15th. Our regular session and uh Madame Clerk, would you call the meeting to order, please? Yes, sir. Roll call, please. Yes, sir. Commissioner Smith. Commissioner Howard, here. Commissioner Hunt, here. Commissioner Mason, here. Commissioner Mitchell here. Vice Chairman Jones here. Chairman Booker here. Um if you would stand with me, we're going to have the county attorney do the prayer and stay standing and we'll do the pledge of allegiance.

God of all creation and source of unending peace. Be with these county commissioners and bless them. Let good work be done in this place. May only truth be spoken here. Give to those present the wisdom to know their weakness, the humility to your strength and the courage to let justice be the sole motivator of their work. By the manner of their lives, let them proclaim the rightness of walking freely in your sight. By their love for our county and for their fellow citizens, may our commissioner serve well those who sent them to this place. May they lead by following you, the author of old truth, and show the way by cherishing your presence in their hearts. Amen.

Amen. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

First item on our agenda is to approve the agenda. Do I have a motion to approve the agenda? Motion to approve. Second. A motion and a second. Madam clerk, call the role, please. Commissioner Howard? Yes. Commissioner Hunt? Yes. Commissioner Mason? Yes. Commissioner Mitchell? Yes. Vice Chairman Jones? Yes. Chairman Ber? Yes. Item number one, Highway 70-42. Project presentation. We have Wendy Johnson with us who's the uh project engineer. Wendy, please come and talk to us today.

Good morning. We actually have two people from the DOT here this morning. Myself and we also have Jordan here who's going to talk in a few minutes about Havlock and the project that connects the two the James City project and Havlock. Um but just a real quick update about James City. I don't know who's you can move ahead. Oh, I have it. Okay.

Okay. Great. So, I know everybody's familiar with the limits of James City project. It just goes from Williams just a little bit east of Thurman. What this is, this is a recent flyover video. I thought this might be the best way to kind of update y'all on the progress. Although though this is from 112, we are doing flyover videos right now about every month. But we are moving towards the east. You can see the start of the noise walls that have started both on adjacent to eastbound and westbound. Um, and as we move through, what you'll start to see if you look over to the left, you see the green hopefully you see the green um, covers that we have on some of the drainage structures that have actually started up um, pretty much in the James City community area. You also see the new service road that you might be familiar with around at the food line area. But as we move further and further into the project, we just pass through Williams, you really start to see more and more of the service roads take shape. The service road that we're seeing on the right, that improvement has started as it extends um to airport and then through Grandantham. Over to the right, you can see the new location service road that will be opening up soon that will connect um airport back to Williams. this service road that's on our um right here has already opened. And then you see where the service road on the left was cold. Um and that was for uh the airport road interchange improvements. There was just not enough room for that particular service road to go all the way through. The big thing you see now is we're approaching Grantham. As you can see where US70 traffic's been shifted out and onto the new US70 ramps. It's not the final of US7. US70 will go back in the middle. And you can see as we're passing across, that is the new

structure for US70 going over Grandanthm. Um, this pattern we've just recently done a shift. It won't be reflected in this video of that same pattern at Chaberna. As we're continuing to go through, you see the continued improvements of the service road. All the new service roads on the project are curbing gutter. That's something I've talked about before. and we're moving towards Garner. So, we have had some changes at the Garner area where access has been limited to just the new service roads. The new service road from Garner all the way through to Taberna did open a few weeks ago. Um, and that service road does continue all the way to Thurman. Here you you see the preparatory work for the shift that we made a couple of weeks ago. If you go out there now, US70 is actually traveling on the new US70 ramps in this area and the middle is opened up just like we did at Grandanthm. In the coming months, you'll see basically what's happened at Granthm will will happen at Taberna. Well, you'll see the walls going up and the field going up in preparation for the new structure. Again, we have the new service road to basically now you can travel all the way from Thurman um um adjacent to US7 eastbound all the way to the food line shopping center on either new service roads or improved service roads and we're coming up to the Thurman interchange area. We do have the new service road open on the left. Um this is the next interchange area that the contractor's planning to do the same iteration that we've just done at Sabverna. So maybe by March you'll We're shifting traffic on 70 over to the new ramps um at the Thurman Road interchange and now we're beginning to approach the end of the project.

Um just a real quick, you know, overview. We're about 50% complete with construction. Um these are just some statistics. I know sometimes people like statistics about where we're at and um I just Can we go back? Can we go back? Oh, sure. Yes, ma'am. Go ahead. Thank you. I just want to finish reading it.

Oh, okay. I mean, I think the biggest things is that utilities, we always talk about utilities. We're about 99% complete just because we have some small things with um Craven County Water, Newurn Water, and Sewer to finish. Um, you know, we we've talked about kind of a good measure of where we're at on this project is talking about storm drains because we have so much storm drain on this project compared to other projects and just looking at the service roads, you know, updated service roads and roads um that remain to be upgraded. Thank you.

Yes. Um, so you know, one of the things that I thought might be interesting to talk about today is just to talk about this construction. You know, one of the biggest questions I think we got early on and even as we moved through until we did our first shift was, you know, how are we building taking US70 putting up and over in the same alignment basically that is today? And you see that happening at Grantham and this is just kind of a cross-section kind of depicting where we've moved US70 traffic out onto these new ramps. In some places, we do have a service road that may be beside it. And then that allows us basically the interior to be able to construct the the field, the new walls, and eventually the structure that takes US70 up and over at these cross streets. Um, we are managing traffic by using U-turns. If you've been out on the job, you and you wanted to go from one direction to the other, you probably use these U-turns. Um and basically one of the things that we're also doing in coordination with you know this traffic pattern and to hopefully make construction quicker is we're using a product called cellular concrete. It's a lightweight cellular field that's used in placement of traditional borrow materials and it's something that's built as we're moving up. So, if you had a chance to ride through the project as you would see the walls going up, you also might have noticed that the field was going up and um so basically it is kind of a stairsteped process. And I have a little short video that I want to show y'all because it's very interesting. But these are the blocks of this LCCF lightweight cellular concrete um that we are using. And here's just a really quick video. I think people find it really interesting to see what's So what you see in this video is this is the lightweight cellular concrete. It's being pumped

from an onsite batching facility where we're making this product with a mixture of cement, water, fly ash, and a foaming agent. And you see in the background, you can see the walls. These straps that you see are what's used to to basically hold the wall in hold the wall in place while this product is being used. But once it is placed, it hardens and it has the strength of dirt, but it's much lighter than dirt. And it is eventually capped with dirt and asphalt. So, it's completely encased within the walls and traditional materials and asphalt. And these are just some of the settlement numbers. Not only are we using it to to well, I mean, the basic reason we're using it is to speed construction because ultimately it uh lessens the amount of settlements. Um, this chart kind of shows at the various interchange locations. Had we used a normal weight field versus the cellular concrete, we could have been looking at 260 days for an example of settlement time expected at Taberna versus a 90day settlement time expected with using this lightweight cellular concrete. At Grantham, it's interesting because we've had almost little to no settlement using this product, much less than we predictive that we would have. Um, and there's just another slide showing kind of one of the benefits of the LCCF is that, you know, if we were using traditional dirt or borrowed material, all that's coming in on a truck and by the fact that this is batched on site, you're not having as many trucks on the highway in intermingling with traffic. And so, it makes it much um safer. And that's really just a quick update on city. Is there any questions?

Questions? Yes, sir. Um, just because I there's been a lot of chatter on social media. There's been a couple accidents in front of Carolina Pines. Of course, they blamed the DOT. Uh, you know how that works and I don't think that's the case, but there's been change in traffic. Do you guys monitor that? Is there a good response for that when people ask me about it? So, well, in just want to make sure you're talking about Carolina Pines, correct? Carolina Pines Pines that area. I guess one of the fire volunteer fire people mentioned it to me. So the James City project just goes to east of Thurman and so Jordan Scott's going to come up and he's going to talk about that project and I don't know I'm gonna leave that with you

before he come before he comes up. Are there any other questions on James City? Um completion estimates and milestones between now and the end of the project. So, the the department believes that the contractor will be completely finished with the project in the middle of 2028. But one of the things that's a little bit different about James City, because it's not a new location project, we will open up each one of these structures and shift US70 into its final pattern and open the ramps as each interchange gets completed.

So, it's a gradual process. So it'll be a gradual project, but I would expect by midsummer you will see that we've shifted at least Grantham onto its new alignment and that we would probably have all the service roads finished on the project by midsummer and be working on Thurman and potentially Airport Williams too. Thank you. One other question that I've been asked is the sound barriers. Yes. um they were going wide open and then all of a sudden it all stopped. What was the basis for that? Um a couple of things. One is they were having a lot of trouble with the manufacturer of the actual panels.

Um they weren't meeting the quality that was needed and also just they have so much work going on and so much structure work. Some of those same crews were doing the noise walls. So I think it's it's a just an efficiency problem right now. It's not it doesn't affect things other than in people's heads and why did they right why aren't they finishing that right okay anything else thank you very much for the update good morning

good morning commissioners again my name is Jordan Scott I'm a division two construction engineer for the department of transportation so I guess I'll start out I'll answer your question u commissioner Howard um Staley Pines is we do monitor anytime there's an accident in our work zone. We do monitor and look at that. Uh you know that interchange or intersection is going to have a lot of improvements, you know, upcoming in the future. Um including closing off, getting across there and installing RCIs or return movements. I think we presented that uh several times at those meetings. Uh we will speak with the fire department folks and uh you know making sure that all the kind of movements and things worked out for emergency vehicles. It's not going to cause any problems. But to answer that question, yes, we monitor and and make adjustments as we see that there are issues.

Were you guys able to have a meeting with Denny about that your idea? Has that happened yet? Yeah, trying to get something set up. Thank you.

Okay. Uh my presentation is going to be real, but I'm not as quite as high-tech as Wendy, so you'll have to forgive me. But uh I come on Monday morning bringing good news. I think the cat's out of the bag on the halflock bypass, but we are opening it this Friday. Uh uh it'll be we we're in a position u where uh working with the contractor temperatures and things and the weather kind of cooperated that we're at a point where we can safely open the bypass. Uh we the message will not be complete. So, you know, as soon as we open it, there's still going to be lane closures to finish out punch list type things. Uh we still have some more asphalt to put down. We still had to do some final markings. A lot of those things are temperature dependent, but uh you know, we didn't feel like holding the project hostage from, you know, a state that it can be open and open safely. We wanted to go ahead, you know, give that to the community. So, this Friday we will open it. We'll have a really cut ceremony. I think of, you know, the words out. I think everybody's been invited to participate at 10 o'clock on Friday. Like to see everybody there if you can. But, you know, it's a we're excited. It's it's a huge milestone. a long time coming, but uh you know, we just wanted to make sure that everybody's aware that you know, we're not done. You know, you when you go out there and do the project, there'll still be some things that are not finished, but uh we're going to continue to work on that and there'll be lane closures, you know, from here till midsummer till we get to a point where it's starting to wrap up completely and look like a done product. So, uh just some quick numbers to the facts, you know, from a construction cost sitting around like 27 27 million post to speed limit is going to be 70 on the bypass. Again, like I said, we're about 95% complete. We're getting close anticipating overall completion grass grow done and contracted finish late 2026. Uh the C project update on that sitting at about 26 complete overall. U big

milestone where we're trying to complete on that is finish up right away. We're already at about 95% complete. Uh only a handful full parcels left out there to get wrapped up. So that that's a huge milestone that, you know, opens up the whole project. Nothing's restricting us. Um y'all probably seen a lot of utility work going on. That's going to continue going into 2026. A lot of utilities have to be relocated out there. U you'll see us finish clearing and cutting trees down and demolition on a couple more remaining houses. Uh also you've seen some art work going on at Stately Pines and storm drain work. As the utility conflict get out of the way, you'll start seeing the project kind of unfold. Uh still tracking the late 2028 uh for completion of that project. Uh just a bird's eye view of just kind of show you this is a state of fines interchange. Uh kind of give you another a view or kind of some of the clearing how it kind of takes shape from a plan to what's actually on the ground. you see, you know, service roads and on and off ramps taking shape.

Before you go, could you go back to that one? Yes, sir. For everybody's perspective, am I correct that on the left side of that is Toyota?

Oh, this is the beginning of the project. Okay. Since I since I'm on this end of the county, the Stately Pines interchange is where? Well, be there. Okay. So, Okay. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Got it. Jordan, I just want to say thanks. I feel actually informed when you're talking because you you've told me so many things. So, thank you for that.

U same interchange Carolina Pines over here. Um y'all kind of see that bridge being constructed up and over one of the few change where the side road service going over how all the other interchanges is going up and over. So, it's a little different configuration here, but like I said, Carolina Pines this way, Morehead City that way, kind of looking south direction, same interchange, just looking north direction, this way. So, you see the embankment for the future bridge going up and over 70. You also see a lot of stockpile of concrete pipe and the blue pipe utility work on the first year.

Is that excuse me is that the only interchange between um Havlock bypass coming back to Newburn? Is there just this one? No, it'll be one, two, three, be eight interchanges from Havlock bypass to Newurn to the river. Okay. And this is the only one where this is this is the only one where what we call the Y line or the service road actually goes over 70. Yeah. All the other interchanges through that is US70s going up and over. So this this one's a little unique and as you can kind of see the footprint's way larger

and that that's just a little different compared to the little footprint interchanges. Back to your blue pipes. Um I you did say or your I don't think it was you not Cadmus but the other guy that was there last time at our town said there would be some water outages when the blew some of the pipes in maybe early January or could be as they're doing that. When we do tie in, yeah, there's typically, you know, some downtime outages. Of course, when those come up, we'll notify the citizens of the time frames and work closely with the county to kind of make sure that those are minimum as possible. But you're thinking January. Well, they'll be starting in January.

Just for reference, so this is the southernmost or eastern most interchange. You got one at News Harbor where the Ranger Station was, correct? And then you got one at Camp Cairo on the other side of the Toyota dealership. That'll be your three rel make sure that I I understand the timelines. Um the James City is going to be complete we think mid 2028. This one will be complete late late 2028. Um Havlock bypass is almost done 95%. So essentially in another two years this major construction project will be finished.

We'll be on the coattails in two years wrapping up. So Okay. Thank you. I know everybody will be excited about that including me. Very very very uh busy area for Kramer County. definitely for you know DOT in our region and then that will be will be interstate from Morhead city to Kinston basically it will be built to interstate standards and I don't know exactly where we are in interstate designation process but that section will be to up to interstate standards available for

I know it's probably excuse me not your area but then the area I'm just curious between Havlock And coming into James City, would the speed limit be increased then to 70 on that stretch from Havlock coming in? Yes, it will be increased. Okay. I think it's not quite it fluctuates. Uh 70 coming off the bypass 70 going to James City. James City 60 60 and then back once you get through Newburn to Glen Bernie then it'll go back up to 70 to Kinston. Correct. Yes, sir.

Good. No traffic lights though. So definitely be a increase in travel time or excuse decrease in trout time increase input. Yeah.

Uh just a couple other notable projects for the Craven County area. You know Miller Boulevard 3431 still working on designing it. We think big milestone is design will be to a point where we'll start right away acquisition this upcoming summer. still on schedule 2029. Notable resurfacings that coming up this summer will be US7 Boulevard to crucif funded. Yes. Okay.

Any other questions? travel to I'll just say comment um you guys have saved me a lot of questions from citizens just by coming to our town halls and uh answering 60 70 people you know a lot of time tough questions so and with a lot of grace so I appreciate you Cadmus I forget the other guy's name that came yeah Brad uh coming and taking those questions otherwise they come directly to me and I'm not sure I'm always given the best answer so thank you well thank Jordan, can you go back to the U pavement upgrades on US70 mater?

It's just resurfacing um the route. You know, we're new construction on both ends with a havoc bypass high end and it's just we've done some uh resurfacing I guess southern end of the county going out in the Carter at US70. So, it's just continuing. So, you're going to go down Boulevard on US7. We'll start near Marta Boulevard where Smithfields used to be and go right through town and resurface all pretty much pretty much Highway 70. That's just Highway 70. All right. Roger that. Thank you. Yes, sir. And the 55 is just as you get on 55 from the Bridton interchange there all the way to Gransboro. Correct. Yes, sir. In Pico County.

So essentially the resurfacing and Havlock is just a continuation of what you guys have already done through Newport and Yes. That's right. It would be the same processes what we just did. Okay. Any other questions for him? Thank you. Appreciate you coming both of you. Thank you for having me. Thank you. Come back anytime.

Yeah. Okay. Item number two is the consent agenda. Had a number of items on there. I'll just read through them very quickly. The minutes of the December 1 regular session, tax releases and refunds, emergency services, emergency funds for sheriff's primary VHF radio budget amendment. Under recreation, the Craven County Independent Insurance made a donation. And by the way, I want to mention um that's a $5,000 donation to um improve the the ballparks at Creekide Park. right Mark and and uh new clay for the infield. So that's that's a big deal from five grand from the U independent insurance agents association. And then under planning um I'm sorry also I missed almost jumped over that recreation also independent international paper foundation grant um which is um has awarded over 25 grand in grants over the period of time from for West Craven Park including Pragon equipment, exercise equipment, beach volleyball ball courts, park benches, and now another $6,000 grant for two pieces of outdoor fitness equipment. So, I don't know what their name is today. It used to be warehouser. Now, it's international paper. I heard it's got another name. I I don't know, but

Right. So, but I wish I'm sorry I don't recall it at the moment.

I don't either, but we all know who we're talking about the facility out there. So, thank you to them. Um under planning a request for addition to statemaintained secondary road system portion of trellis lane under the sheriff's department a retiree firearms u I don't know what we call it what do we call it uh we want to sell the firearms to a couple of retirees which is standard pro protocol and then under economic development Project Tint subordination of options. So, do I have a motion to approve the consent? A second.

Got a motion and a second. Call the RO, please. Commissioner Howard? Yes. Commissioner Hunt? Yes. Commissioner Mason? Yes. Commissioner Mitchell? Yes. Vice Chairman Jones? Yes. Chairman Ber? Yes. Okay. Under carts, item number three, budget amendment related to retirey payout. Mr. Jean Hodges. Good morning.

Uh, in your packet is a budget amendment the amount of $29,797 that is needed to cover the cost related to a recent retirey payout. With the retirey payout and the recruitment of a new director, it's necessary to replenish the related personnel expenditure accounts to maintain the lines for the remainder of the fiscal year. Okay, we're as being asked to approval appro board to approval of the budget amendment in the amount of 29797 related to a retire payout and recruitment of a new director. Do I have a motion? So moved. Second. Second. Call the role, please. Commissioner Howard, yes. Commissioner Hunt, yes. Commissioner Mason,

yes. Commissioner Mitchell, yes. Vice Chairman Jones, yes. Sherman. Yes. Thank you, board. Thank you. Item number four, finance America 250NC grant budget amendment. Craig Warren. Morning.

Morning. Good morning, board. We got one uh item on the agenda for you this morning. That is uh an America 250NC grant. Uh Craven County has been awarded $30,000 from America's 250NC grant from the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources. This grant requires a local match of 15% which amounts to $4,500. Uh that will be provided by income contributions by the Craven County TDA or Tourism Development Authority. Uh the America 250 grant was established under session law 2023-143 as a program to support counties in funding public programs, tourism projects, and educational outreach related to the 250th anniversary of the United States of America. On May 6, 2024, the board approved a resolution uh for the 250th anniversary designating Craven County Tourism Development Authority uh to plan and implement the marketing of plan associated with this grant. At this time, I'm asking the board to approve a budget amendment so we can accept these funds and pass it through to the TDA.

Okay, board. Uh any questions on this? I have a question. Okay, go ahead. So, looking at your project timeline, I noticed that um in May there's an event going on at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point. Um Marine Corps Air Station is hosting the United States Navy Blue Angels the weekend of May 9th and 10th. Would it not be appropriate to put that on this time timeline? Is it too late to get that on there? Um I can pass that information along to Melissa Wgle. I think the United States Navy will be celebrating our 250th birthday with us as well. Okay. Yes, absolutely. We hope so. It's appropriate. Thank you.

The only question I had, um, is this all we're getting? That's the total amount from I mean, this was a m much larger grant that went to various other, um, probably all the counties in the state. This is our allotment. A fairly even allocation amongst counties. That was sort of the blanket amount. Okay. Did I get a uh motion to approve? I'll second. Motion and a second. Madam clerk, would you call the role, please? Commissioner Howard? Yes. Commissioner Hunt? Yes. Commissioner Mason? Yes. Commissioner Mitchell? Yes. Vice Chairman Jones? Yes.

Chairman Duka? Yes. Okay. Thank you, board. Thank you. Item number five is appointments. Under pending, we got the Craraven Aging Planning Board, Craraven County Clean Suite, Craraven High County Highway 70 Corridor Committee, Havlock Board of Adjustment, Juvenile Crime Prevention Council, and Volunteer Agricultural District. U Commissioner Hunt, did you want to make a nomination for the um ATJ Havlock board of adjustment?

Yes, Mr. Chairman. I'd like to nominate Sue Boyer for that position. Okay. Is there any other n are there any other nominations for that position? Hearing none, she will be appointed by acclamation. Next one is the fireman's relief board of trustees. David Warren seeks reappoint to I'll nominate David Warren for the uh board of trustees for the Okay. Are there any other nominations? Hearing none. David Warren will be appointed by acclamation. Havlock board of adjustment. I guess that's the one we just did, isn't it?

And Craven County Highway 70 corridor. We got a couple of changes here. Don Bumgardner seeks appointment to fill the expired term of Danny Walsh. Do I have a nomination? I'll nominate Mr. Bumgardner. Okay. And are there any others? Hearing none, Mr. Bumgardner will be appointed. Chad Strong seeks appointment to fill the seat vacated by Mr. Bumgardner. I would nominate Chad Stronger for that position. Okay. Are there any others? Hearing none, he will be appointed by acclamation. And then Bobby Darden seeks reappointment. I'll nominate Mr. Darden.

And are there any others? Hearing none, Mr. Darden will be appointed reappointed by acclamation. Under the Juvenile Crime Prevention Council, Melissa Ward seeks appointment. Mr. Chairman, I would nominate Miss Ward to that seat. Okay. Thank you. Are there any other nominations? Hearing none, Miss Ward will be appointed by acclamation. And then uh upcoming we have the Havlock Craraven County Board um some commissioner by the name of Hunt. Congratulations. We will be considering her appointment at the next meeting. Any other comments or questions on appointment?

I do have one, Mr. Chairman, for staff. So going back under pending that highway 70 quarter committee position that will that was the one by Danny Walsh. Correct. So we can take that one off. Okay. All right. Thank you. Okay. Next item is our county attorney's report. Mr. Chairman, I have no report.

Okay. And the next item would be the county manager's report. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, commissioners. Good morning. Three quick things. Um, last week I was able to attend the, uh, December TDA meeting, which we just talked about, the 250 resolves. Uh, there's a lot of great things happening at the TDA. I know they're excited about having a commissioner join their board here in January. Um, they just had a big race. uh trail to tryon. I think it was the weekend before last. 500 people came to run that. It was a half marathon at 10k and a 5k. We had a couple county employees run. I volunteered that day and got to see them finish. Great event. Was a little chilly that morning, but certainly bringing people in doing the tourism thing at Christmas. Also, last week I was able in this room to attend the Kswuama meeting. Kriswama Coastal Regional Solid Waste Management Authority, better known as a landfield to most people. A lot of business here to wrap up the year. Uh landfield appear appears to be in good financial shape. They did uh reduce some surplus equipment here at the end of the year uh to make way for some new equipment coming in. Also continuing as uh vice chairman Jones knows a gas to energy project there with the methane gas that forms when the trash uh you know deteriorates over time. They have a contract with the company working on getting water to that site to run the turbine and keep it cooled. So looking forward to seeing that project move forward. Somebody's alarms going off

that that power that gas that's created. Then the power is sold to the grid. Back to the grid. Yeah. And we we've had this plant vice chairman may have to help me here. It's been there for at least a decade. What they're doing now is switching some of the mechanisms inside which generates the power, the fuel source mainly. And if I'm not mistaken, it was about a thousand homes that were really funded out of that project. Now they sell it back into the grid. That's just a projection. But it's a it's a neat thing because we have a cost. So we have to burn that gas off. It's part of the natural thing. So being able to pipe it in, let them have a a better use of it really is beneficial to both parties. So

very good. All right, last thing. I just want to wish you all a merry Christmas and a happy new year. It's our last meeting of 2025 and I have a list of accomplished sitting on my desk in there. I'm just thinking about there. So, uh maybe after commissioner comments, I'll come back up and go over a few of those if you don't mind as I do that. But again, merry Christmas to each of you. Merry Christmas to the staff and citizens who are here this morning watching us. So, and while you're up here, we have a new employee here.

We do. Uh we sure do. We're really excited to have Diana Treble with us this morning. Deanna, as you know, earlier this month, took over as our carts director, better known as our transportation department. So, she was here this morning to hear all the good things about 70. Diana's hit the ground running and doing a great job. We're excited to have her here moving forward. So, great. Welcome. Glad to have you on board. She not she's not a new face to She's been here before. It's almost like she's always a few times. So, that's right. So, okay. I'll be back shortly, sir. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Commissioner reports. Uh Howard, would you like to start? No. Give me a second. I don't know if that Okay.

I have any thoughts right now, but go ahead. Back from uh uh the warm weather is uh Commissioner Mitchell, the first family vacation um with the the new daughter-in-law. No, I would just like to wish everyone a happy holiday season. Uh a happy and safe one, and we'll look forward to 2026. Okay. Thank you. Commissioner,

I have a couple things I'd like to mention. I'd like to congratulate the Harlo volunteer volunteer auxiliary. They um have been an organization for the previous two years and they're doing great job um recruiting firefighters and uh raising funds to support our firefighters, but at the same time they're creating a community environment where all the different areas are united. So this year they participated in the Havoc Chili Festival for the first time ever. They put together a beautiful float and they won third place. So I'd like to congratulate them not just on their third place win at the um parade, but also in everything that they've accomplished in two short years and thank them for that. And the second thing I'd like to mention is that the Craraven Havlock Library is going to be closed or is closed now um for an upgrade. So services can be had at St. Timothy's Lutheran Church in the middle of Havlock, but also um the book mobile will be open there on the U community college campus a couple times a week and book drop off will be um right there at the library and books will be picked up every day. So returning books won't be an issue either. But um everybody at the Havlock Library would like to invent invite all of their patrons to the St. Timothy's Church and see what all they have going on there.

Okay, that's the two things I have. Thank you, Cher.

Uh, got to attend the Vanceboro tree lighting. That was a very good pleasure doing that. It went off very well and they had some nice presentations from choirs from the elementary school and some of the the uh daycare centers. I had the privilege of attending the uh press conference for the capture of uh Mr. Donnelly and uh it was good to see all the the law enforcement agencies working together doing a great job providing peace of mind in this season of joy and peace to the people up there for the fugitive. My two tax commissioners went had their first meeting uh this month and uh they're on board and they seem to all going to go forward and do a good job. And I think that's all I've got.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Uh just to piggyback on what Commissioner Mason said, I want to thank the sheriff and uh his team and and definitely we're very appreciative for the other uh agencies within the state that helped in the capture of this um fugitive, this killer. Um it uh had a lot of folks in uh Vanceboro concerned for a long time, but uh sheriff was uh persistent in in going forward and making sure that he was captured and and again we appreciate all the efforts of everybody there. Also, um Commissioner Hunt, Commissioner Mitchell, and myself, as we talked about last meeting, we all three serve on the uh Craven Pamco Regional Library Board of Trustees, and we um had the uh retirement uh that will occur at the end of this month by Miss Cat Claus and so having that we had to go through the process of hiring a new executive director for the region. Uh we have uh done that commissioner Mitchell and myself served on the personnel committee as did several others and uh we have a new hire that we have announced this past week is Miss Julie Cox. She is our current assistant regional director uh for the system. Uh we got great confidence in in her. She will begin her new uh role January one. And um her desire is to be a part of uh team Craven. Um that was one thing that we I think all three of us um championed and wanted and uh so we're looking forward to that. So and then on behalf of Jennifer, Emily, and myself, we do wish everybody a merry Christmas. um blessed new year and so look forward to 2026 and working with you all and I thank the Lord for for the opportunity that he has given me to serve and to serve with each of you and so I thank you. So thank you Mr. Chair.

Thank you Sheriff. Would you like to uh give a few words regarding that capture? I think a lot of people are interested. If you didn't get to hear the press conference um just a quick update.

Yes sir. Um very extensive manhunt. uh we we figured it would be from the beginning and we did bring in a lot of resources from the federal, state and local level and you know first and foremost I want to thank the citizens of the county for uh their continued support. Uh understanding that these things can be very complex and they can go on for an extended period of time. Uh but uh mostly u I want to thank the men and women of my office uh their perseverance, their dedication to to finding this criminal. Um it was just uh tremendous. U they were there uh many many long days and nights. Um, and even though you didn't see a presence all of the time, a heavy presence, there was a lot of behind the scenes uh investigatory work going on uh that went into tracking him down. So, I was very pleased that uh it was brought to a head in a in a peaceful resolution. That's what we wanted and and that's what took place. So, uh also I want to wish all of you a merry Christmas and want you to know that our deputies will be out in full force over the holidays. um encourage uh people to be aware of their surroundings as they're leaving stores uh lock up their cars and stuff like that as valuables are stolen from time to time. I do also want to thank the city of Havlock. They're the f first municipality in the county that has put forth an effort to help uh help us with the vape and tobacco store issues that we're having in regards to the uh garbage that they've been selling our sailors, our marines, and our children. uh they they uh put together a very good uh ordinance that I think will or I know will help us uh shut down more of them and keep new ones from coming in. So, they've taken a great step and I think also that that's a uh says a lot about

their partnership with the base as we've had our Marines and sailors that have visited some of these places. So, uh, great job also, Commissioner Hunt for assisting with that and being being at the forefront. And I hope more of our municipalities will look at what they did and, uh, put policies like that in place. Good. So, thank you. Appreciate y'all support also. And, uh, Commissioner, I appreciate you being at the press conference that that meant a lot to us so you could see how county resources were being utilized. Merry Christmas. Thank you. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you. Okay. My the comment I have again is the same one of everybody else and that is u merry Christmas and uh happy new year to everyone. Um Mr. County manager, did you want to come back up? And I I'll say merry Christmas since you didn't come back to me. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas to everyone. You didn't you didn't you weren't ready so I I skipped you. I'm sorry.

That's fine. I'll just say merry Merry Merry Christmas to everyone. And uh the last thing I will say I was just happened to be in a meeting with the sheriff in Nash County when uh Sheriff Hughes caught the fugitive and it's just amazing how quickly he knew and he said he said to send you a message congratulations sheriff that you got such a tight network across the state that you guys have that he knew immediately and was proud of our county and proud of our sheriff for doing what he did. So thank you.

All right. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the second opportunity today. Okay, I'll be brief this time. So, um I did want to make sure that you guys saw the commissioner appointments for 26 are in your agenda package. Uh Mr. Chairman, I don't think there's any action needs to be taken, just information only on that. And I alluded to I believe Commissioner Mason joining the TDA and I think that's the only that was the only significant change in that. Oh, then you're also going to assume the Highway 70 corridor commission seat. The Highway 70 seat. I'm sorry. Say again. You will be assuming the Highway 70 seat. Yes.

Okay. All right. So, a couple things as I lead up to the accomplishments for 2025. Shane has begun to collect all the legislative goals for uh the next legislative session as we come back from the holidays. We will jump straight into that. So, if you have things that are on your mind, please reach out to us, let us know so we can do some research and get those on our list. We're collecting mainly from the departments right now. We're also looking at the narratives that are coming out for potential legislation in the short session, budgetary things like that. So, there are things that you're interested in, please reach out and let us know. We'll be happy to um add those to the list. It was a busy 2025. It was a fun 2025. U there was a lot of great things that happened in Craraven County. I told someone last week it was a great year to be a county manager here. There are some very positive things as we look to the future. Um and I'll just talk about and I'm glad Chad's here. There were three really important pieces of policy that came out of this board last year. One was the update to the hazard mitigation plan. The second was the update to our emergency operations plan. It been over 15 years since we touched that. So it was good to get that modernized. And the big one was Chad and his department had a lot of work. I know we talked about this a couple weeks ago was the land use plan. Um that was a big deal that took all year. A lot of outreach there. We touched every part of the county, talked to as many citizens as we could. So excited to have those three. I think Chad can take a breather this year. I take that back. He's got an RV ordinance coming in January. So, we're going to pick up where we left off. Uh Mr. Jean had a big year. Uh many of you attended these events. We completed the renovations at the senior center back in the fall. Great facility. Uh awesome. If you haven't had a chance to go by, I know Commissioner Mason will be going by Friday, but if you haven't had a chance to go by and see how that building's actually being used by the seniors, it's worth it. Uh we opened the expanded social services building this year. We doubled the footprint there. Two stories. We're able to take some of those employees that were in very tight quarters, space them out into the new

building. Mark's still here. While it's not done, he began construction on a new 176 acre nature park on Old Airport Road. There's a lot of clamor out there uh for people who are excited about that kind of space, the access to Bryce's Creek, some paddle trails and things that he's going to be working on between Creekide and there. So, really, really looking forward to that. We got pickle ball at West Craven Park. Wait a minute. What What was the name of that new park? Was that the Chad Howard? No comment, sir.

No comment. No comment. Um, but pickle ball at at West Craven Park, lots of updates at Rocky Run, Nature Park, still seeing uh great numbers in uh District 1. Mark had a number in here. I'm not going to read everything, but I thought this was pretty unique. Over 600,000 visitors to Craven County Parks last year or this year, I guess, were still there. So, that that's a big number, Mark. That's probably a record, I think, in the history of tracking that. 75 leagues, uh, classes and camps, 4,700 participants, 5,000 practices, and 1500 games last year. So, big year on that. Uh, as we touched on, we've onboarded uh, two new department heads this year, Chris Mullis and Water and Deanna and Carts. Another big piece of policy was our salary and paying classification plan update back in the fall. Hearing really good things about that. um 89 employees this year will receive uh awards for tenure here with the county. Some of them as much as 40 years and that's really meaningful to me. I'm excited about that. We redesigned our county website. We've got a chatbot. We've got a citizen response management system. I I think we're probably due for a chatbot and AI kind of briefing to the board. I uh had Shane come in and and bring down kind of what's coming in the chatbot. as many as 150 chats a day from citizens and individuals inquiring about county services, much more than I ever thought. And the citizen inquiry is picking up. I know that uh we're starting to see more and more of that every day where folks just, you know, go to the different departments, put in their question, and we follow up with them. Really, really neat software. Mr. Warren in the back, GFOA award again for at least the 20th year. Uh that's the government finance officer's achievement for excellence in financial reporting. So, we're proud of Craig and his team downstairs. I'm not going to read them all. Um, this list will be emailed to you later today. Please pursue it. Use it as you like.

We'll post it on the website for the citizens to review. There's a few updates. I actually had a couple things I added this morning. Um, particular on the economic development side. Um, but again, great year. Looking forward to next year. A lot of work coming in and u I'm here if you have any questions for me. Questions? I have one quick one. Okay. Are we going to get an update the public get an update from Mark about our parks in the next couple months? Maybe especially with a little focus on the nature trail. Yes, please. Yeah, if you'd like one. Sure. We've got something coming up with a bay grant and also with our kayak. So, January expect we can we'll have way to start the year. All things park. Very good.

Thank you. You have anything else? Anything else? Okay, I'll take a motion to adjurnn. So move second. All in favor? No close session. Opposed. We are journal session. Okay. I just saw one thing. have.