Board of Commissioners - Regular Meeting

I wouldn't even get my wife. [laughter] Good morning everyone and welcome to the U November the 3 Dare County Board of Commissioners meeting. At this time I'd like to ask uh Mr. George Lori if he'll come forward with an invocation. Well, George, as always, thank you for being here.

Sure. You're welcome. [clears throat] All right, commissioners, guests, uh, [clears throat] want to again thank the Dair County Commissioners for allowing members of the North Ministers Association to [clears throat] open each of the meetings with a prayer. Three years ago, I chose to give the opening prayer in the middle of the Jewish high holidays, almost deja vu. I missed my October date, which [clears throat] was just after the end of the Jewish high holidays. So, I'm glad I have the opportunity to be here this year, albeit a month late. I feel fortunate that our [clears throat] God chose to seal us seal all of you in the book of life for last year and I pray that God will do so again for the upcoming Jewish new year on Roshes Shana we are reminded that all humans have the ability to exercise free will that is to make good choices and bad choices are perhaps the best available choice. 10 days later at the conclusion of Yom Kipur, we see that we have [clears throat] been given the chance to make amends with those that we have striven against. We are reminded that repentance, prayer, and deeds of loving kindness lessen the severity of God's decree. While most of us cannot make impacts nationally or on the state level, let us strive to make positive impacts locally on our outer banks. So, we'd like to offer the following prayer. Blessed are you, Lord our God, sovereign of all, who has given us life, sustains us, and brings us to this season. We thank you and sing your praises for our lives which are in your hand, for

our souls which are in your keeping. You are goodness. You are compassion. You have always been our hope. Be with these commissioners and others who serve served county. guide them in their daily challenges with the issues in Dair County such as affordable housing, dredging our beaches and our vulnerable beach houses, our health care system, our educational facilities, and our potentially endangered immigrants. Soften their hearts and open their minds [clears throat] so that every decision they make is the best one. Humble them to realize that [clears throat] they are all human and make mistakes because the residents of Dear County will respect them even more. Almighty God, gracious with your light when our path grows dark, with your strength, when we grow weary and with your support when we falter in all resolve. King of the universe, you have commanded us to do your work for the betterment of the Outer Banks. May this be God's will and all God's people say amen.

Amen. Thank you. Have a safe and blessed day. Thank you, George. Appreciate you being here. May we stand for the pledge. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America to the stand with all. County Manager, I'll turn it over to you. Morning, Mr. Chairman. Item one on the agenda is the chairman's opening remarks.

All right. Thank you, County Manager. As most of you all are aware, I love to start the meeting with a little humor. [snorts] Uh the um humor is um uh will help you get through the day. I heard about this old country farmer. He was taking his nephew camping for the very first time and his nephew had he was a smart kid. His nephew had five degrees and he was one of the smartest young men around. They set up their tent and uh of course after a long day of travel and setting up their tent they they fell asleep and in the middle of the night the former woke up his nephew and he said son he said u look up what do you see? [snorts] Well the nephew immediately said well I see millions of stars and the farmer said I know that but what does that tell you? Well, this young man, he's smart as he is. He said, "Astronomically, it tells me there's billions of galaxies." And he said, "Meteor, meteorologically, it tells me it's going to be a beautiful day." And he said, "Theologically, it tells me God is a great creator." And he said looked at his uncle and he said, "Well, what does that tell you?" The old farmer said, "Son," he said, "It tells me somebody stole our tent." [laughter] Um, [snorts] we're fortunate to have with us today, um, um, Kevin Leonard,

Nico, general manager. Kevin, thank you for being here with us today. We also have our former vice chairman Wally Overman's with us and we also have a former um board of education uh commissioner Susan Bothwell with us this morning. So thank you all for being here today. Um, speaking of young men, um, Tony Lamb is here with his grandson, Ian Lamb Lamoff, and he's, um, he's very interested in government operations, and he'll be going entering uh, UNCC Wilmington in January. And, um, he's, like I said, his his uh, interest is uh, government operations. So, they're with us here this morning. Y'all stand up. Thank you for Thank you for being here with us this morning [applause]

and good luck to you at UNCC Wilmington. Um the um as a veteran, this is very important um day for me and and my fellow veterans. On November the 11th, Tuesday is Veterans Day. Uh just uh tomorrow the 4th through the 11 11th is Operation Green Light uh here in Dair County and that is to recognize our uh veterans for their service uh to our country and that'll last from November the 4th through the 11th. and everybody is encouraged to um change their light bulb on their front porch or whatever and to a green and um let that run. I know we'll have that here at our government facilities from the 4th through the 11th just recognizing um uh our veterans and and the service to our country. So um just keep those dates in mind. Um and um we um uh we look forward to uh recognizing them for from my from for my fellow commissioners on the board up here today. The audience, you're not aware of this, but there's a clock in the back of the room. Um it is not 10:20, it is 9:20. So that clock has not been reset yet. So, just wanted you guys to know that we weren't an hour running behind time. Um, and then last but not least, I'd like to present a resolution to the board uh under my chairman's comments for your approval. And it's a resolution to honor Murray Helen Goodllo Murphy on

her 80th birthday and recognizing her as a Dale Dare County ambassador. I know this is my 13th year on the board, 11th year as chair. I still have three more years left in this term, but Murray Helen's been here all of the length of time that I've been here. She's been doing this some 30 plus years. But uh let me let me read this. Um and each of you should have a copy of it in front of you. And I'd like to ask for your approval. It's um whereas Murray Helen Goodlo Murphy has dedicated decades of her life to improving the quality of life for residents and visitors of Hattis Island. And whereas Murray Helen and her late husband, the Reverend Tom Murphy, moved permanent to the Outer Banks in 1986 after years of vacationing here and began their community service with the local volunteer fire department, serving for more than a decade. Let me interject something here before I finish this. Um Tom Murphy, incredible human being. um dedicated Democrat. Now, we're gonna talk a little bit of politics right now. I was I was u uh elected in 2012, 2014, became the um chairman, first Republican chairman um since 1986 and 87. It's only been twice in the hund and some years that we've been um a county that Mikey Daniels 8687. It's only only that one time that a Republican was chair and I I have to

remember this um and I laugh about it, but Tom sat right there on the front row the very first day that I was sworn in his chair and we had public comment and Tom got up and he stood up and he looked at all of us and he and most of us majority of us were Republican up here. I think we Danny Danny was here as know the only Democrat and Tom straight up said I don't trust you guys stood right there at the pony said I don't trust none of you months and months went by year went by two or three years went by and after a lot of things that we have done and we have done this board has done tremendous things for this county in the last 12 14 years. Tom came up to me after a meeting. It had been a year or more. He put his arm around me, stuck his hand up. He said, "Bob, you proved me wrong. Your board proved me wrong." He said, "I could not be more proud of what this board's done for Dair County." Sir Murray Helen, I think of Tom quite often, not for that reason, but for the the the honest upfront individual human being that he was. He truly cared for Dair County as much as you do. And I I appreciate you allowing me to share that moment. Whereas since 1980, Murray Helen has served as a reporter for the Coastal and Times, covering Dair County issues and events with families with accuracy and dedication, helping to keep residents informed and connected to their local government and community. And whereas through her grant writing and advocacy, Murray Helen helped bring new pathways

and community amenities to Hatteris Island and continues to champion projects for the public good. And whereas she also founded the Outbanks Hotline Thrift Shop in Rhdan in 1987, which continues to raise funds for the fire department and local domestic violence hotline. And whereas Mary Helen was instrumental in establishing Radio Hatteris, an all volunteer community radio station that provides vital information during hurricanes and emergencies and serves as an important resource for the island. Whereas Murray Helen Goodllo Murphy has been recognized with numerous awards for her service, including Derek County Citizen of the Year, Outer Banks Citizen of the Year, Membership, and the prestigious Order of the Long Leaf Pine, and the North Carolina Coastal Federation Pelican Award. And whereas on this occasion of her 80th birthday, Dare County wishes to formally recognize and thank Murray Helen Goodlo Murphy for her extraordinary dedication to the residents of Hatteris Island and her ongoing contributions to the entire county. Now therefore, be it resolved that the Dair County Board of Commissioners does hereby honor Murray Helen Goodlo Murphy on the occasion of her 80th birthday and recognizes her as an enduring Dare County ambassador whose leadership, vision, and selfless services have made a lasting difference in the lives of countless residents and visitors. adopted this third day of November 2025 and it's signed by myself, the chairman of Dair County Board of Commissioners. Do I have a motion to approve?

Mr. Chairman, I think you filed that motion when you read that resolution. I will second that motion on your behalf. Thank you very much. Um, vice chairman, is there um uh any further comments? Hearing none, those in favor of the motion signify by saying I. I post like sign. MOTION CARRIES UNANIMOUS. [applause]

[applause] [laughter] WE WERE WORRIED about her this morning. That's right. Because Mary because Mary Ellen said she was running 30 minutes behind because of NC12. That seems like that's the story of our lives anymore, doesn't it? Exactly. Thank you. This is this is a copy of that resolution and we certainly appreciate you. Thank you very much. [applause]

[clears throat]

County manager. That completes my chairman's comments.

Oh, excuse me. I I do have one more thing. Sorry. Um September 27, uh Governor Stein issued, um state of emergency for us with all the things that are happening in Buckton over these last 60 days. And um uh as you know, emergency declarations last for about 30 30 days. and unless he reinstates them. And there's been some subject matter with relationship to folks not understanding what a governor's state of emergency means. We've stated that numerous times, but um sometimes you got to tell them what you told them, then you got to tell them what you told them. So, we're going to tell them what we told them. And I've asked the county manager to um explain what our limits are and what we can and cannot do when a governor issues a state of emergency. Can t county manager?

Sure. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Um there are three three entities that can issue states of emergency. The president can do a presidential declaration. Uh that's typically done in a largecale event like a large hurricane. We had declarations here that triggers federal aid, public assistance. When I say public assistance, I mean assistance to the local government. It also triggers recovery stuff, but you have to have a level of damage and you have to have a a presidential declaration. We've had neither of those with the events that we've had over the last couple months. So the presidential side is not involved in this discussion. Um the state of North Carolina and the local government can also uh declare states of emergency. Um so let's talk about what North Carolina does. Uh the governor can declare a state of emergency and again he can do it for things like storms uh natural disasters man-made things. if there was a big technology breakdown, the whole internet and the whole state went down or something crazy like happened. Um, you know, a public health crisis like the pandemic that we had, uh, supply chain disruptions, there's lots of things that could happen in the state that would trigger the state of emergency. So, what happens when you have one of those events? Um, the chairman just told you the governor did that back in September when we had Aaron come through. Um, and that was one of those events that he have the authority to do and he did declare that the state of emergency. What does that do for us? We've gotten lots of calls. Why don't they call a state of emergency? Why don't they call a state emergency? The idea being that they're thinking that if we have a state of emergency that all of a sudden money starts flowing and they can move their houses or clean up their debris or do whatever needs to be done. And that's really not what the state of emergency does. Um the purpose of the state of

emergency is to protect the public safety and it makes resources available uh to the local governments, water, food, trucks, gas, um state resources, things that we can do, public assistance that we can do at the local government level to to make things better and to protect public safety. um you know it it can wave right they typically in a hurricane they weigh the weight limits on the road so that we can bring in the heavy equipment that we need to clean up that kind of thing. Um you know if somebody's price gouging they have rules they can go in and stop the price gouging. Uh there's restrictions they can place on travel. They can close roads. They can have curfews. They can do things like that. But there's nothing in the state of emergency that's issued by the government that creates um individual assistance to an individual property owner unless the level of damages exceeds some threshold. And then there's things they can do for public for individual assistance to try to help families, you know, get out of the situation that they're in like out west. A lot of that's going on now, but we don't have near the threshold to get to that. And so any state of emergency that's issued now is simply to make resources available to us. Well, in the situation that we have, we there's no resources that the county needs. And if we did, we could get them. If we needed helicopters, if we needed bigger trucks, if we needed whatever, we could get that stuff [cough] [clears throat] and we would if we needed to do that. So, the thought that somehow a state of emergency is going to come in and create a pot of money for individual people to use uh in these situations that we've had over the last month. That's that isn't how that works. Um [clears throat] I've talked about curfews, travel

evacuations, all those kind of things. Um you know, the county can do similar. The county can issue state emergency. That's also again to protect public safety. When we do that, it gives us the authority to close roads, to have curfews, to do other restrictive measures to protect public safety while we're recovering from whatever the event is that triggered uh the state of emergency. So, I think that's the message we've been trying to get out to people because we keep getting asked, why don't you do a state of emergency? Well, we haven't needed to do that. we we've been able to uh do the things that we do and you know the state has a state of emergency they issued back in Aaron and if we needed the state resources we can get them and so that's as far as it goes. Um does that answer your question?

Yes sir. I I I just wanted us to reiterate that for those that we we all have received comments and request via emails, text, telephone calls that we needed to issue a state of emergency. And I just wanted to clarify what what that does for us so that hopefully the public will understand that this morning through our meeting and our meeting. Thank you for doing that, county manager. Um have one other item and um that is um I'm sure most of you are aware that um I formed a um coastal counties fishing coalition. Um this will be this will be our third meeting that we we'll have uh this coming Wednesday at 1:00 in Carterat County. um that um involves almost was actually 19 coastal counties that um I requested this of my fellow uh chairman of of those those county boards uh to participate after um the trolling situation in in Raleigh that occurred uh in the Senate um with respects to banning trollers in our county. I mean in our um um in our waterways in our coastal I couldn't think couldn't think you Carson Carson and I were coming home from that meeting and I mentioned that to him and and so um everybody's joined that and I'm look

forward to this meeting. Uh this will be our third meeting. We'll have a resolution um on a on a couple items. Um vice vice chairman um house will be be presenting one with respects to to resolution opposing the proposed blue crab harvest restrictions and we'll look at that today. I'll take that to um our board meeting um Wednesday in Carterette and ask for the coalition to support that. The reason I wanted to form this coalition is we wanted one voice and with u 20 counties that's about a fifth of the state that um uh has a a voice and and we want a unified voice. So, we're hoping that that those number of counties and that one voice will wake up our legislators. I don't know have any other way to say this, folks, other than the simple fact is the state legislature is trying to shut down the oldest profession of mankind. And they're doing a pretty good job of it here in Dair County. And we're not going to allow it. Um, we're going to fight it and we're gonna we're gonna we're gonna keep our fishermanmen working and we're going to do everything we can to support them. And we had a we [clears throat] had a great win in Raleigh um over that over that troll band in our inter coastal waterway. So, we'll we'll continue. I I don't know about you, but I want to eat I want to eat local seafood.

Amen. [laughter] Look at what happened recently. You anybody bought any Walmart shrimp lately? God help you. I certainly don't and won't. I'm going to eat local local seafood from our clean. Indonesia is where that was sourced. Yeah. But I Walmart sold it.

Uh and I want to eat fresh seafood and shrimp, whatever, from our local waters. Our local waters are clean. And so we're going to fight just like we have always done for our commercial fishermen. I mean, we we were able to fight to um open up the waterways so they can go to work. For for so many years, they couldn't go to work. [clears throat] And we're able to do a public private partnership to to to build the u the dredge so that now that our fishermanmen can actually go to work in Hatteris and Oregon inland. So we're going to continue to do that. shrimp ban. They said, "Well, they can shrimp offshore." They don't realize these folks that shrimpers that shrimp in the inner coastal, those those trollers are 30 to 50 feet long. They can't go out in the ocean every single day. They got to make their living inside. So, um, we're going to fight and we'll continue to do that. We'll bring this resolution crab resolution here a little bit later on comm vice chairman's business and we'll take that to um Morehead City to Kurt Carterette and and our coalition will continue to um to speak as one voice and and we're going to lobby the rest of our state as well because quite frankly I don't um I don't believe our legislators in other parts to the state really understand uh what we go through here um for our commercial fishermen. So, we're going to lobby those, ask some of them to join us and and hopefully we can turn this attitude in the state legislature around. So, with that being said, county manager, I think now I'm finished with uh chairman's comments.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That brings us to item two on our agenda. That's the presentation of our service pins. We have two this morning. Uh first, Michael Elliot's here to receive his tenure pin uh from Josie Wilson. [clears throat] Good morning, gentlemen.

Good morning, Mr. Chairman. Good morning, board of commissioners. Um that's not what I was looking for there. Uh so this morning, I have the distinct honor of presenting Michael his 10ear pen. And uh if y'all remember at last month's meeting, I received mine. So, Michael was the first hire I was involved in um with Dare County. And um obviously he's made it 10 years. And so I feel very successful that we we made that hire and and I'm proud and and I think Michael has taken I don't think I know he's taken that opportunity and he has run with it and he has done an exceptional job through these 10 years. Uh Michael's a graduate of East Carolina. Um he's recently out of NBA school when he came uh when he came and interviewed with us uh for a personal property appraiser job. Um Michael was hired. Um he held that position for roughly three years and then we had a a position in the office resign which was the office manager position and Michael um applied for that position and and he he got that and in in the same time he was continuing to do the work um of his prior job and over the years that office manager position is involved in everything in our department and it is a wonderful way to learn about how everything works in land records and

property tax. And he has um exemplified a desire to learn every part of that of of what we do. and and that's really what has set him apart in his uh in his [snorts] quest for professional development. And and so about three years ago, we decided we needed to we needed a manager for all of our personal property. So we we morph that position of the office manager into the personal property manager and that position is responsible for the listing, appraisal and assessment of all individual personal property and business personal property in the county. Just for perspective purposes, we have roughly 10,000 boats. We have roughly 10,000 rental properties. We have 3,300 business accounts. So, he has uh he has quite a bit on his plate in conjunction with the office manager role that he maintains. At the same time, um so that in itself is enough to keep him very busy. Um just in the past couple years we had another retirement a longtime employee retire who was responsible for our exemptions program and we we tasked Michael with that and he he manages that entire process for our county as well and and does a great job with that. Um he's certified by department of revenue. He's a level one real estate appraiser and personal property appraiser. He is a personal

property specialist uh candidate for professional designation for IAO. Um he's on track to complete that this year. Uh the reval kind of has a tendency to sidetrack these things and and I understand that. Um, so I'm the incoming president for our statewide association, which means the last few years, four years, I've been very involved with all types of of what our association does in various roles. Um, you know, through the officers and Michael has been very involved in a new newly formed committee, uh, the personal property advisory committee. they've been I believe it was formed two years ago and he helps teach personal property um that appraisers will take at conferences and educational opport. So he is he's helping to assist others in that respect as well and and there's a lot to be said with that involvement is key to what we do. Uh and he's just been doing that since day one. He really his potential is limitless. Um he's going to go a long way. There's no question. He's he's relatively young unlike myself. But u I couldn't I could sit up here and talk all day about how good of a job he does. He outside of work he he and his wife Khloe have twin boys that are 14 months old. Um I have twin boys. They're 23. So I I at times will offer um advice in in a humorous fashion and I have quite a quite a good time with that and hopefully can impart some knowledge on that on that end. Um but they uh they keep him very busy as you can imagine.

Um just a few things I'd like to read from co-workers that that kind of basically uh emphasize what I've been saying. Um, it has been a pleasure to serve under a patient and encouraging manager whose steady approach has helped our team serve the community well. We appreciate his commitment and the example he sets each day. When I have asked for his assistance, he is always very willing to assist and does it with a great attitude. Michael has been very helpful to the techn technically challenged people like myself and I did not write that but I fit in that category as well. Um so that that's a good thing. Michael he comes from a long line of local government service. Um his grandfather was the public works director. I don't know how long ago that was but for Dare County. um and did retire from the county. Um his greatuncle served as county commissioner. Um and that is Max Dutton who some of you may be familiar with. And his mother just retired from the town of Kildevil Hills after 38 years of service. So he's got a few more years. 28 I think that's get with mom. But congratulations Michael. Thank you. PLEASE. [applause]

THANKS. [clears throat] NEXT, we have uh Brendan Lindsay. He's to receive his tenure pin from Jenny Collins.

Good morning. How are you? Let me introduce Brendan Lindseay who's a paramedic with the EMS department here. Brendan like many EMS folks got a start in ocean rescue um where he was with uh Nex had open ocean rescue starting in 2012 through 2016 and then he went to the town of Kittyhawk Ocean Rescue for a year following that. Um, and a lot of the lifeguards figure out that when they're on the beach and they're rescuing folks, they interact with EMS a lot and that usually spurs an interest in um those types of fields. And so Brendan also has a mother who was an EMT and her past and so he kind of got doubled whammy with it there. um and he attended um COA um and got his EMT in 2014. We hired him as a part-time EMT in August of 2015 and then got him on board full-time um in November of 2016. So, we have watched Brendan grow up um from the uh kid who wasn't very confident who showed up in a Pokemon t-shirt and running shorts that were about two sizes too small for him [laughter] to uh the man he is today. Um he just recently got married. Uh Brendan is assigned to DARE Medflight where he's um he got his paramedic and actually uh let's see Lenor in 2019 um and was worked on the ground ambulances for several years and then been on MedFlight for about a year as a paramedic with us and he also helps us teach in our continuing education program. So Brendan here is for 10 years of service with the county. We look

forward to many more. And no more Pokemon t-shirts, HUH? [laughter] [applause]

We We do not have an employee of the month this month and so we'll move on to public comment. Before we go to public comment, if you received an award this morning, please go right out through this door with Caitlyn to have a picture made. Welcome. Ladies and gentlemen, now's the time that's been set aside for public comment. If you have public comment this morning, raise your hand and I recognize you. Uh when I do, please come to the podium, state your name, where you're from. Uh please limit your comments to five minutes. Uh there's a light up on the podium that'll come on. It's green when your time begins. There's a yellow light that will come on when you have about a minute left. And when the red light comes on, you need to conclude your remarks. Um, I have two on the signup sheet. First, I have Sandra Burgie. Welcome this morning.

Thank you. [clears throat] Good morning and thank you for allowing me to share this information with you this morning. My name is Sandra Bergie. I live in Kill Devil Hills and am a member of the Dare County Older Adult Services Advisory Council. And on their behalf, I'm here to uh invite the public to attend a community resource fair focused on connecting our older adults, their family members, and their caregivers who may be searching for assistance with the wide variety of services that are available in Dair County. the date for this event and I believe you have a blue card in front of you. Yep. Thank you. Uh save the date. Uh indicates that this will be held on Saturday, November 15, 2025. The time is 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. The location is the Dare County Youth Center at the Family Recreation Park and that's on Mustinian Street in Kildevil Hills. The purpose of this is to connect our citizens, both older citizens and their family members, with over 45 organizations and service providers and community leaders providing valuable information. We want them to explore the essential resources and they are focused on health care, wellness, nutrition, enjoyable activities and technology assistance. This is not designed for the ill elderly. It's divi it's designed for all

people in that age group and their family members who may be facing struggles in being a caregiver. We hope they learn to stay active and informed and engaged in their life. This event is free and open to the public. I would like to also notice that there are many new older folks that have moved to this county since CO. Uh I can tell that in my church and when I go buy groceries, etc. So these folks if they age in place as we call it then they will continue to need services as the years go on. We want those services to be not only available but recognizable by their family, their caregivers etc. Also in front of you looks like this is a proclamation from Governor Josh Stein. And I think it's timely that this comes at this time of year after we've been working for two years to put on this resource fair. It notes the number of families that are caregivers, the how many grandparents are taking uh care of their grandchildren, the different circumstances that caregivers face, the access and use support and acknowledge respit services. And so it ends with whereas the state of North Carolina encourages people to recognize and support family, friends, and neighbors who help those who are aging or have disabilities because of doing so is the right thing to do and an essential investment in a better future for North Carolina's older adults and people with

disabilities. Now therefore, I, Josh Stein, Governor of the state of North Carolina, do hereby proclaim November 2025 as Family Caregiver Month. Thank you very much. And I hope to see some of you at the fair greeting those older adults who will be seeking services. Thank you. Thank you, kid. Those first two where is incredible incredible numbers. 80,000 North Carolina grandparents

are responsible for for grandchildren in in the state of North Carolina. 80,000 and 1.2 million caregivers um providing 1.2 billion hours of unpaid family members and friends. Those are incredible numbers. Yeah. Thank you for pointing that out to us and thank you for this resolution and thank you for what you're doing. [clears throat] Thank you all. Appreciate it. Next we have Christina Boyd. Welcome this morning, Miss Boyd. Thank you.

Good morning, Chairman Woodard, commissioners, and members of the Dair County community. My name is Christina Drum Boyd and I'm here today as a property owner, resident, and year-round advocate and someone who deeply loves and cares for Hatteris Island, its residents, its visitors, and its future. Every person in this room knows that Highway 12 is our lifeline, the only route connecting residents and visitors to hospitals, schools, and emergency services. And yet, every few weeks that lifeline is buried, breached, or broken between P Island and Buckton. Each time NC DOT rolls in with heavy equipment to push the sand aside, and each time we destroy the very dunes and beach systems meant to protect us, we are trapped in an endless loop of temporary fixes, expensive, destructive, and shortsighted. The 2013 Dare County Shoreline Management Fasibility Study made this clear over a decade ago. It identified semi-p permeable groins paired with beach nourishment and monitoring as the most effective and sustainable strategy for shoreline stability. Those measures could have extended protection by decades and reduced the endless cycle of emergency sand removal. Yet, they were never implemented. Under GS13A through 115.1 within the Coastal Area Management Act, North Carolina law allows engineered shoreline structures when public infrastructure is threatened by erosion. Highway 12 already meets this standard. It's legally classified in published local government documents as a critical lifeline. The pathway exists. The laws allow it. What's missing is the will to act. Meanwhile, erosion has accelerated in Buckton as decaying remnants of the old groins at the former FUDs military site have disrupted sediment flow, intensifying scouring and collapse.

What was once a stable shoreline has become a catastrophic hot spot, predictable and preventable. The only thing standing in the way of long-term protection is not the law. It's the unwillingness to apply it. The 2013 study estimated a long-term stabilization cost of 28 to 55 million. By comparison, over 72 million has already been spent since 2010 just to keep the same road temporarily passable. Permeable groins are not seaw walls. They're modern sand sharing structures designed to work with natural forces. Engineered, monitored, and reversible. They reduce erosion, not increase it. In contrast, the constant sand pushing may be technically compliant, but it violates the intent of KMA. It is not preservation. It is in fact erosion disguised as maintenance. So today, I'm asking the Dair County Board of Commissioners to do what the state has not yet done. Apply the law consistently and courageously. I respectfully request that you adopt a resolution recognizing Highway 12 as critical public infrastructure. qualifying per for protection under section 113A through 115.1 petition NC do NCDEQ and DCM to initiate a permeable groin pilot project at identified erosion hotspots convene an inter agency task force including DOT CRC DCM and the Army Corps of Engineers and the park service to complete design scoping within 60 days. This is a clear, lawful path, one that builds resilience, protects the environment, and uses taxpayer dollars responsibly. Let us stop managing Highway 12 by crisis and start managing it by principle. Let us use the exception that already exists written into North Carolina law, the one designed for exactly this kind of

situation, and give this island the protection it deserves. This is not about walls. It's about willpower. We don't need another study. We don't need temporary state of emergency. We need action. If we can get emergency permits every few weeks to scrape the sand off the highway, then we can surely get one permit to stabilize it the right way. One project, one act of leadership that ends decades of costly repetition. Every storm that hits the island erodess more sand. It now erodess public trust. And to ignore lawful remedy is to invite unnecessary consequences. to act within the laws to protect our coastline, our residents, and our and your legacy as leaders. I'm asking you to not just listen, but to lead, adopt the resolution, direct the petition, form the task force, and move this county from reaction to responsibility because failure to act when the law allows you to act is no longer defensible. Thank you for your time, your service, and your willingness to choose principle over politics.

Thank you, Miss Boy. Any other public comment this morning? Anyone else like to speak at public comment? Any public comment in Buckton? Yes. First, we have Betsy Gwyn.

Welcome this morning, Miss Quinn.

U. My name is Betsy Gwyn. I live in Buckston on Old Lighthouse Road. I'm also a property owner of uh several properties on Ocean Drive. My rental house that was four lots back from the ocean is now ocean front and I fully expect major damage in the near future. First of all, I would like to thank [clears throat] you all for they can't see you. I'm sorry. First of all, I would thank you all for what you've done for Buckton over the past several months. the fuzz project. Uh moving the timeline ahead. There you are. Um moving the timeline ahead um for the beach nourishment and of course the jetty project. I wish I could say jetties, but we are grateful for what we can get. But I think we can all agree that no matter what anyone and everyone has done, it has not been enough. I'm here today to speak about my observations with the cleanup process. When the first house went down in the middle of September, [clears throat] uh the debris did not spread very far on land and the private contractor was able to go up immediately and clean it up. Two weeks later, when we lost nine houses, that was a different story. I'd like to say um yes, the private contractors did an incredible job with what they had to do, but there did not appear to be anyone overseeing the project and so some areas got overlooked. There were two streets that that um still had debris on them when

the contractors were done. Fortunately, the Bucks Pacific Association addressed this. they were able to gather volunteers and those streets were cleaned up the day before another storm. And then the county came out with um this statement that because of the financial concerns, future um debris removal would be left up to the homeowners. And then we we lost five more houses. With the incredible amount of water that flowed, that debris went everywhere. It is all down on Lighthouse Road. It is on just about every property. I can say with 100% certainty, it has been on every property on Ocean Drive. Because of the county stance, the non-resident property owners believe that the contractors hired by the homeowners of the fallen houses are going to clean up their debris. The debris is in bushes. It's under houses. It's between houses. And the private contractors can't go on this property without permission from the owners. The owners don't know that. The owners um don't know. Even if they do know, they don't know who to give permission to because they don't know who the contractors are. It is a circus without a ring leader. With a project of this magnitude, there needs to be someone in charge. Now, there may be, but none of us know who it is. On Friday afternoon, I spoke with three county workers and one contractor, and none of them could definitively tell me who was in charge of the effort. Additionally,

this is going to happen again. There are houses that are leaning, there are houses with broken pilings, and there are houses that are missing pilings. We need to be planning ahead. Now, I know every storm is different, but I think somebody could sit down and say, "If this happens, then we do this. If this happens, then we do this." At the very least, those of us who live here need to be assured that the county will send down a large dumpster that we can put the debris from our yards in because the transfer station here is not going to take the amount of debris that comes from these houses that fall into our yard. Henry Ford said, "Don't find fault, find a remedy." I believe a remedy is to have someone in charge of the project. Preferably someone here with boots on the ground who knows the contractors, who knows the area, and who doesn't get stuck on the other side of the bridge. I also believe that we need to be planning for the future. Now, the contractor that I spoke with on Friday afternoon totally concurred with what I have just said. So, I do not feel like I'm off base. Thank you for listening to me and I hope you will take this into consideration.

Thank you,

Miss Quinn. Thank you for your comments. I'm going to I'm going to ask the county manager to respond to a couple of things that you said that might be just a little bit off base and not quite correct. Uh I personally in the last 30 days have been on Buckton 17 of those 30 days looking at situations, looking at what's going on, talking to our county. Just this morning, we had an issue about storm drains. They're they're NC DO's responsibility. NC DO is busting their you know what trying to get NC12 and Okoke and south of of the bridge put back together so we can have ingress and egress off of that. I have staff right now in Buckton looking at those storm drains to see if we can help NC do DOT, which is not our responsibility, but help get those storm drains cleaned. So,

and and they're crushed, too. Many of the drains have been crushed. So, right now, as we speak, we have somebody down there. I'm going to ask the county manager to uh respond to a couple of things that you mentioned that u not quite correct county manager.

So I'll take you through the process of debris removal. Um the first storm, the debris, the first house that fell as she said was a smaller storm and the we typically we don't clean up. If your house burns down, if your house falls in, if your house comes in disrepair, it's your house, it's your property, it's your responsibility to clean that up and we don't usually get involved in that. And so when we have one house that falls down, then it's the owner's responsibility to clean up their [clears throat] property. uh when we have multiple houses that fall down, then we have to gauge what is our role. And the second event came down, we put dumpsters out because we thought we could manage the debris that way. And we allowed the the property owner who cleaned off their lot to take their debris, put in our dumpster, and we hauled it away. No tipping fees, nothing like that. But it's still the owner's responsibility to get the debris off of their property. um and either to the dumpsters when we place them there or take it to the landfill themselves. When we had wider spread, when we had multiple houses fall down and they had co-mingled debris and all that, then that triggers the next level of debris removal. And at that point, it's still the property owner's responsibility to get the debris off of their property. We ask the property owner to bring the debris to the rightway. and then we've paid a contractor to go to the rightway and haul all of that debris away. Um, that's what we did the last time. That's what we're doing this time. Press releases went out, I think on Friday, Dorothy. Um, we're giving the properties until the 17th of November to get their debris to the rightway, at which time our contractor will go out there and remove that debris from the rightway. Um, we don't go on the private property to clean up other people's private property. That's the private property

owner's responsibility. Uh, but we do want to help. And so if they get it off their property to the right away, we move it away. Uh, that process is exactly the process we fall we follow when we have a countywide hurricane. Uh, exactly the same thing. The property owner is responsible to get the debris to the rideway and the county then takes the responsibility to remove it off of the rideway. um that process, that incremental approach is what will follow going forward. So if one house falls down and it's not widespread, then that's going to be a property owner issue and the property owner needs to deal with it. That's not a county issue. If we have multiple dwellings and co-mingled debris, then we'll either bring in dumpsters depending on the volume of the debris or we'll have it put on the rightway in which case we'll have our contractor haul it off. Um, that is the process we've used in this event. That's the process that we've used in I've been here for 11 hurricanes for 11 hurricanes. So, no different here. Nothing there. Um, we've communicated it through our social media, through all of our things. Um, and glad to talk to anybody who has questions about it. So, that's our process.

Thank you, county manager. All right. Can I ask you said that was the 17th? I did. Yeah. November 17th to get it on the rightway for this. Have it. We're going to start cleaning up and any debris after that we're not picking up. So don't don't put it down behind us is what I'm getting at. Right. Thank you. Okay. Um other public comment from Buckton. Yes. We have Brett Barley. Brett, welcome this morning.

Morning, commissioners. Um, some of what I'm going to say will just kind of be repetitive. Uh, some of it, you know, I have a few of y'all's numbers and we do talk, but I just like to come in and put it on public record. Um, you know, back in at the beginning of August, I came to you all for the first meeting in August and told you all that Buckton was in a state of emergency without it being declared one. Sadly, three months later, here we are and 15 houses have fallen and it's it's still not an area that's considered a state of emergency, regardless of situations like Miss Betsy just shared. Um, regardless of situations like homeowners whose pets are getting trapped under their houses when the tide comes up too fast. Um, even myself included, th those of us that saw this coming never saw it being as as wild as it is. Um, I'm not sure who of y'all or if any of y'all have been down there in the last couple days since the last storm, but what has changed and the reason that 15 houses in Bucks have fallen in six weeks is that there there's just nothing down there. There's nothing down there to stop the water. This is not like anything we've ever seen on the rest of in the rest of our county or on the rest of the coast. This is a completely different situation. And so, no offense to, you know, y'all and and Bobby's remarks as far as how the cleanup goes and how y'all handle it, but you got to do it different. This isn't the same thing. Um, this isn't a hurricane. You know, we understand the deal of how cleanup works after a hurricane. Everybody rallies and lends a hand. The thing is, there's a reason there's not a room full of people here. Everybody's exhausted. Um, you know, we've spent most every week for the last two months

navigating when to go get groceries because of high tide. Um, people getting stuck on and off the island, people helping other people clean up properties. This is insane. This is no way for us to operate. And what's frustrating is this is all was all preventable. You know, conversations we've had, this was preventable. the county knew in 2013 that this was coming down the pipeline at some point and did nothing. And uh so it's really hard to be told that like you know as a property owner or a homeowner like oh you need to clean up your property and get it to the side of the road. The debris isn't theirs which under a you know catastrophic onetime storm hurricane is is whatever you should clean up your yard. Everyone has their own mess. The debris isn't theirs. [laughter] Some of the debris is only coming from houses that only fell because other houses fell. The houses are only falling because there's nothing there and there was nothing done by the state, the county or the park service to prevent this from happening. Like this is absolutely insane. We're watching an entire town start washing away. There is no I can tell you from walking the beach there, there's no end in sight to how bad this would be. As she said, she's four four lots back. She's at the water's edge. Houses that were fine two weeks ago are not fine anymore. And you know, there's refrigerators in people's yards. Uh, like I said, the cat got stuck under the house and a guy had to swim under the house with goggles and hold his breath to pull the cat out. There's 8 by8s that are getting floated 800 feet inland. Like, y'all don't understand how much water is flowing in here. It is it is like nothing we've seen because even even though the houses have been on the edge of the water for years, there's been a dune between the first house and the second house. There's been a dune between the second house and the third house. And so the entire area is leveled. There's nothing to stop the water. And I think our community is is just one exhausted. um you know,

being told how the cleanup's going to go or not be cleaned up depending on how it is. You know, being told, "Oh, don't put anything out there if it's after the 17th." I don't think it's exactly fair to expect an entire community that's still trying to work and live and take care of our kids to have a square mile of debris cleared up within two weeks. Um I think we need a little bit more grace on that. I think we need a little bit more help. I think you guys need to put more pressure on the state for help. And I know I would like to acknowledge I know some of y'all are fighting and there's a lot going on behind closed doors that we don't see. I want to acknowledge that. But uh yeah, this is going to get worse. And as Miss Betsy said, there needs to be somebody I agree 100%. There needs to be somebody that is like heading up what's going on down there because it's an emergency situation. It is a disaster zone. And in any disaster, you have a, you know, somebody that oversees it. Even if it's broken up, whatever, and some sort of tree of people that's it's organized by, but there needs to be some sort of team that's overseeing what's going on down there, planning ahead for the next storm. Um, because we can't just keep waking up every day and be like, "Okay, well, five houses fell. Now, what do we do?" And because homeowners that whose houses are fallen answering the phone, you all know that. Um, so you can't expect people to figure out how to clear refrigerators and stoves and 8 by8s off of their property when they don't have the physical means. And contractors who are contracted out to clean up debris, not even knowing which debris they're supposed to pick up. Like this is not like any other hurricane. So don't compare it to that. This is different and it's going to keep happening. Um, unless we're blessed with just another calm season, but we got that last year. We were given our grace and it is over. So anyway, I would encourage you guys to start brainstorming on ideas with that. I know there's people down here that would love to talk to you about that, but it needs to be done because we're just our little community can't do it

alone. So, thank you. Thank you, Greg. Other further no further comments from Boston. And with that, we close the public comment. Mr. Chairman, can I ask um Bobby, this young lady brought up a statute um that says I believe you said that the ability for us to put hardened structures on the ocean front to protect NC DOT highway. I've never heard of that. Um can you clarify that then tell us where we're at?

There are exceptions in the rule. NC do DOT for example in in Ochre Coke uh in Rodanthy um they put in sandbags um they also have in Rodanthy they put in sheet pile um they take protective measures that they're allowed to do to protect those transportation corridors. Um we've had meetings with them. Um we're concerned obviously about the canal zone. Um we're concerned about uh the other hot spots down there. Uh we've met with the secretary of transportation. We met with the chairman of the um Department of Transportation board. Um you know, we've met with the governor. Um and so they're all aware of what's going on, what's going on down there. Um, from DOT's perspective, what we're told by them is that as long as they can push the sand off the road, then they're not going to go in and put in hard structures and do things like that. Um, if they the road becomes compromised and they can't move the road, then they've got to take other measures and it opens up other funding sources and things like that that they do. That's what DOT's told us. Uh with respect to Highway 12 in Buckton, um we've got a $45 million project that we're waiting to do, uh because we have to wait till the spring to do it because the seas are so high that you can't do it in the winter. I was at a meeting on Thursday and I saw one of the representatives of Great Lakes Dredging, one of the largest dredging companies in the world, and asked them about doing winter beach nourishment so that we could maybe speed up that project, do something to get it out there. And he just said there's no way that they could do that

in the winter. The the wave heights are too large to allow their dredges to to move and and do what they have to do in the sand. If you recall, uh, our contractor in the first or second project that we did in Buckston got delayed and was into October and all of a sudden they had to pull off and they didn't finish the project until the spring because it couldn't work through the winter's months and in fact left all of their dredge pipes buried underground until into the summer and they had to come back in and dig all that out uh because the seas were too high for them to operate. So from our perspective, you know, we understand there's things that need to be done. Where we can do them, we have we've got dollars budgeted and we're doing it. Uh where we can't and and where we don't have funds, then we're working with the state officials to do that. Um I'm not sure what else to answer to those questions, but that's where we are. That's the state of things right now. Um I I explain uh debris removal. the speaker is suggesting that maybe we just start going on people's private properties and cleaning them up however we think and we don't have any authority to go do that. Um that's not what we have the right to do. So again there's responsibility for all and we'll do our part and the property owners have to do their part and that's where we are. But just just for clarity, that statute does not give us as a county the authority to go and put hardened structures. It correct. We can't go into the the refuge at the canal zone and begin building hardened structures. We don't own any property there. We have nothing there. It's owned by the federal government and the state has a easement right away to run a road through the

refuge. uh they have an arrangement with them that they have the right to protect the road. So they build dunes, they do the things that they do along the canal zone, for example, to protect the road and should the road get compromised then they'll come in and do the other things such as sandbags like they've done in Ochre Coke and and that they have to go through the Department of Interior to do that. That irrespective of that statute, you can't just go on federal property and do what you want. You got to go through them. And so they'll have to do that. Uh the same is true down at Isabel Inlet in between Hatteris and Frisco. Um where the communities are populated, where there's homes and where that then we can do nourishment projects because we're not in the refuge then and we've gotten permission from the park service because part of that is in the park to allow us to do that in those areas. And so that's how the system is set up. Um again and we haven't even talked about assuming that we could you know where are we going to pay for all this stuff to do something in Buck in Rhdan for example is another $50 million on top of the $45 million that we're getting ready to spend in Buckton and we haven't talked about Isabelle inland and we haven't talked about the canal zone um in terms of nourishment and things that we can do um we have met with them about building bridges about trying to go around these areas with bridge which as much as they did uh in Rodanthy. Um and we've talked about because you know to do a 10 or 15 mile bridge around something there is so expensive that unlikely we would get the funding. Can we do a series of smaller bridges that we start with one bridge in the hottest of the hot spots and and add on as funding becomes available to try to find a way to start something happening. Uh that process is in discussion now. the

division engineers are looking at that one to figure out where they could do that and two to figure out what the costs are. Um there's you know there's another place we can do cheaply. It doesn't solve all the problems but it solves one stretch there by the visitor center in P Island. They have the ability to move the road to the west side of the P Island visitor center with the erosion right there that buys 10 years of while they work it out. So there's discussions about how to get that done that's at a price that's affordable. And so all of these things are happening. Uh and you know, many of you on the board have been at those meetings. Many of you have been on those phone calls. We've we we're doing all these things, but you know, they work at the pace of the state. You know, the state doesn't have a budget. And so and to the extent that federal help is needed, then they're not even up there to do their job. So a lot of stuff coming together at the same time, but it isn't for lack of effort on your behalf or our behalf.

Bobby, I got a quick question. So you said that we don't have the ability to put anything up on the National Seashore obviously because it's federal property. Buckton is not federal property. Buckton is private property. What about there? So if somebody if a property owner gave us permission to put in a structure, could we do it? Well,

we have easements from the property owners that we got when we did the first beach nourishment project. We also have permits from the park service for the area of the park that is in front of those villages that they've authorized that as well. So we have the approvals that we need to go in and do the things that we can do there and we have the money to do it with. So the two key elements are approvals and money. And in that case, we have both. But we can't put a permanent structure in place. We can't put a Well, we are putting a permanent structure. I'm aware of that where we're getting where we're fixing. I'm fully aware and down there to hopefully stabilize [clears throat] that beach. Okay. But you can't add any new

You can't add no new ones because of CMA's permanent structure ban in 1973. And even with her statute about state of emergency, we still can't do that. Correct. We can't go in and build drawings. No, we can't. Okay. And that's the clarification I wanted. Commissioner Creed to take that further. We're dealing with this every single day.

Every single day that I sit in this office. We're dealing with the state, the federal government. I mean, we had the Secretary of Transportation down here. showed him everything from from the bridge all the way to to the ferry docks. Very sympathetic, very understanding. Two days later, we get a notice he's retiring. Now, we got to do this all over again for the for the latest Secretary of Transportation. We've invited him down here. We've we we finally we have finally got an ear to listen to us. who is chairman of the North Carolina Transportation Board that's very very concerned about this. We had a phone conversation with him. We we we met with him in person. We had another conversation with him again last week trying to find options and so forth. We're we have done every single thing humanly possible. And it gets a little discouraging when somebody comes and says we're not doing anything. When in fact, three years ago, we spent $45 million to nourish the beach. Our nourishment programs are designed to last five years. But who in the world would have known a guess that mother nature was going to issue this blow in 2025 to now that we have move we were scheduled to do it in 2027. Y'all know we voted. We moved it to 2026. We would have done it in 2025 if we would have been able to get the bids out there and have somebody bid on it. But we don't have but three major dredging companies that it can even do the work. And now we're getting ready to spend another $50 million to nourish that. And [clears throat] to say we're not doing anything is very discouraging to hear uh

from somebody to make those comments. and not not to mention three years you've been on the uh highway 12 task force.

That's exactly right. That's I formed the highway task force. We had every single stakeholder in and in including Southern Environmental Law Center that was supported us. The answer is short bridges like the Ethridge bridge that we have. And just right now, this afternoon, when I leave this meeting, I I I outlined a letter to send to our legislators. And I I'm going to do this one way or the other certified letter or somehow knowing that they get this letter and read it and I'm going to send it to every single senator and representative in the state. I'm asking for two things. Several years ago, you established a beach nourishment fund and didn't put a penny in it. And I'm asking you to put money into that beach nourishment fund, not for Dair County, but for the entire coast of North Carolina. And the second thing I'm asking them to do is to eliminate the ban on groins and jetties. And if I have to, Commissioner Balance has said she can rouse up enough people in Hatteris Island or whatever. We got to take a couple of buses to to Raleigh and sit in front of their doorstep and then sit in front of their office to make sure they read read the letter and help us out. We need help. We cannot any longer do it on our own. We have spent over $250 million in the last 12 years of nourishing our beaches. $250 million. And we're getting ready to spend another 50 million to do Buckston.

And I the list goes on and on, folks. We're working ourselves to death daily trying to do something to establish our oceanfront all the way to Hatteris Island. Can and we're talking to every single human being we can talk to. We're talking to the governor's office. We're talking to our local legislators. We're trying to now talk to the rest of the leg legislators throughout the state. The Dare County needs help financially and to your comment on the property. So the state owns three miles out, right?

The federal government owns the beach and that leads up to the private property owns from where the federal government ends the high tide line to the rightway which is state. I got you. Okay. So we're we're in between. I'm pretty sure state we're in between the state, the feds, the park service, and mother nature. And the county is caught in the middle.

And we can only be as loud as we can be. And and I think I've I've been on the B phone with Bob every day, sometimes two and three times a day since Aaron. this we are I can legitimately say everything that we are possibly in our power to do is being done and so we do need to we've got to figure something out but at the as slow as government moves to as quickly as mother nature moves I'm it's it's scary but it is what it is so we've got to come together and figure out how to have one united message that we can take to to the feds and the state to to fight this together because coming at it a bunch of different voices and my heart I've been through Isabelle the people in Buckton watching this happen every time it's they're they're just screaming for help because they see it every day and it's frustrating for us because we know what we're doing but we're we also have to find a place where we see what they're seeing and and I guess cuz I'm down there I see that I I know it's hard for us up here and for Bobby and Bob and and the and the ones that are are making the phone calls and doing all of the hard work on the back side of it that we can't tell the people that are on the beach that are doing that are seeing it every day. But um I'm promise you there's nobody up here that wants to see any more destruction there or doesn't want to step in and make it all go away. But it's just going to take time. Unfortunately, it's probably going to get worse before it gets better, but beautiful things came out of Isabelle and I believe that beautiful things will come out of this. It's just hard to see right now.

Thank you. [clears throat] Is any more public comment? Public comments closed. Sorry, County Manager. Gentlemen, that brings us to item five. Uh Kevin Leonard, the executive director of the North Carolina Association County Commissioners is here. And uh this file is from a conversation that I had with uh Denise Stagel about the association, what they do for us, what you can do for them. And so we asked Kevin to come down and talk to us about that. And with that, Kevin, I'll turn it over to you. Kevin, thank you. Thank you for being here this morning. Um hopefully you brought a pocket full of money with you. [laughter] Just joking with you.

Not sure about I will say this that it's been an inspiring conversation to hear and I'm glad that I was in the audience. I am too, Kevin. I was thinking of that as you walked up to the podium. You got a very very clear in full technicolor view of Dair County's issues and why we're trying so desperately to influence the legislators to enable us to try to get some solutions and with state assistance. I

I'm I'm thrilled, Mr. chairman, members of the board to be here today and to hear that and the passion um in which not only your community has come to talk to you, but the passion that you brought to the community to demonstrate to them uh your heart of public service. Um so it truly is a gift to be able to listen to this and I I truly appreciate the opportunity to be before you. Um my name is Kevin Leonard. I'm your executive director of your state association. I have the honor of representing you in that way and it truly is an honor for me to do that. Um, and I represent a a whole team uh across the entire state of North Carolina that works every day for you and the other 99 counties in the state of North Carolina. I'm joined by two of my colleagues and I wanted to introduce you to them. Denise Steinagel uh is what I call a recovering county manager [laughter] from Wilson County, but she's on our team now, a member of our outreach team. She is your touch point. Um if you need anything, you can reach out to her. She often reaches out to to Bobby and and staff, but you can always reach out to her. Of course, you can reach out to me or anybody else on the team, but she's your designated person for for this area of the state. And I'm also joined by Norma Houston, um, who y'all may know, uh, who lives here in Dair County. Uh, Norma and I have had a chance to work together for a very long time in my career at state government. Uh, and when she recently retired, I wouldn't stop calling and and uh, pestering her to come join our team. And so I was able to convince her to join us in a part-time role and she's uh working on our disaster technical assistance team which is new for our association and I'll look

forward to telling you a little bit about uh in in a moment. I do have a presentation uh PowerPoint um and I can go as slowly or fast through that as possible. I'll try to be concise um and save time Mr. Chairman, if you have any questions, if anything that you want uh to talk about, um we have lots that we could talk about uh legislatively speaking. There are a lot of issues going on, but let me start with a thank you for your public service. Um just again listening this morning um the daily operations of local public service are complex and we know that and I had a lot of stuff I was going to say here but the thing I want to boil down to is that it makes me think you're not alone that uh your association is here for you as commissioners and as your staff. We're here for them because there's a lot of complex things that you have to wrestle with every single day. Okay. And our aim is to try to make it a little bit easier on you if it's u knowing that you're not alone because you've got 587 county commissioners across the state of North Carolina um who are going through very similar things. They may not be going through uh beach reourishment, but they're going through very challenging things as well. And so reaching out to them to learn from that and we can connect you with those folks. But your job's not an easy one and I recognize that and your association is a safe place, a safe harbor for you to come. You know, our association was founded in 1908 and we've been working together since then. Um we're not we're a nonpartisan group. As uh a lot of our leaders say, we're not red or blue, but we're county green. So, it's a place that we all work for county government and what's good for local government. I often say when I get to talk to

commissioners across the state or groups that um county government is the front door to democracy and you witnessed it today. People coming in to talk to their local representatives about things that are important to them. And I'll be delicate about this, but we all know that the federal government is shut down right now. The state government has not passed a budget. And y'all are here. Y'all are doing the work. you are the practitioners of government making it work every single day. And I thank you for that. And um it's not like you're in it for the large sums of money, all the thank you notes, um all of the things. You're doing it because you care about Dair County and you care about the people that live here and we recognize that as your association. I do bring greetings from your president of the association, Wallace Nelson, who's from Perquimman's County. I will say and bring to your attention that his presidential initiative this year is focused on access to health care. He's, as I said, from Perquimman's County, so he knows a lot about rural health care. And uh Norma was telling me and I overheard Bobby talking about the helicopter that y'all have. I'm not sure, but y'all might be the only county to have a helicopter because of your health care needs in the island. So, completely understand that. And that's something that uh is is unique, but you have to have access to healthcare. and President Wallace Nelson, he knows that and he's going to help us shine a light on that this year as we discuss that. I'm going to move on. So, this is my generic PowerPoint about the value of your membership. So, let me thank you for that. The value you have been members for the association. We've had a 100 counties be members of the association for as long as I know. Um, and so we don't take that for granted. We thank you for your membership in the association. As I said, we started in 1908. A gentleman named CE Foy from

Carter County. He said, "We're better doing this together than than doing it apart, especially down in Raleigh or in Washington DC on our advocacy." So, we were born out of that advocacy. Our our motto, our our vision is empowering 100 counties to work togetherment for the betterment of one state. Our mission is the North Carolina Association supports and promotes all the counties through advocacy, education, research, and member services. So, let me jump into a couple of these services that we provide. Um, we're not just advocacy. We're a lot more than advocacy. We've been running uh programs that help your county and other counties for years um that have given back funding to your county. We run a program called EMS Medicaid that helps uh set the rates or give um uh knowledge to the secretary of of HHS to set the rates on ambulance uh uh EMS Medicaid rates and we will do a a cost report that will give money back to your county and to other counties enrolled in in the program. Since its inception, we've we've been able to save counties about $750 million in in monies back to you. and just last year in 24 it was $50 million. We have a debt set off program. This is money that is already owed to your county whether it's uh through property taxes or things that are um not collected and this program helps you collect those debts. And so 15 million last year, 324 million since the inception of the program in 2002. I'll call out your county manager here and recognize him. Uh Mr. Outton was on the association's 555 committee which helped craft, I would say, the best opioid memorandum of agreement in the country. And so that

was a big deal. And Bobby, thank you so much for your leadership on that. It was five county attorneys, five county managers, and five county commissioners from across the state of North Carolina that negotiated with the attorney general at the time for the opioid settlement. And so those funds are coming directly to your county. I Louisiana's got us beat, but they they found out after we did it, we had eight we had 80% of all of the proceeds from the settlement going to the counties, and that was not the default. Um, so that's a big deal and again crafted by um your own uh county manager here was a part of that negotiation. Now I have a long list here um of things to talk about because this is where um you may know us the best in our advocacy space. You know about our uh legislative goals process. So if you have an idea, if there's something that you want to bring to the association to raise up for awareness or adoption by the full membership, we have a goal setting process. It's pretty remarkable, the association, I think, that we're able to have such a process that brings 100 counties together and and forward a legislative goal set where we can all agree upon that. Um, some would say uh maybe maybe the state and the federal government could take some lessons from uh the ability of our commissioners to get together and work some of these things out.

See what they think about structure. [laughter]

And it and it also takes into account that we know that we have the mountains and we have the coast and the Pedmont region with all of the uniquenesses that counties bring. uh we recognize those things and we try to put those things together in legislative goals that we can work on collectively down at the general assembly. A lot of what you um a lot of what we do you may not see. It's a lot of defensive work and I know I'm looking at the board yall know what I mean. uh down at the general assembly or in Congress when um members get together there are a lot of great ideas u and some of those ideas have unintended consequences as it relates to the impacts on county governments unfunded mandates and and such and rules that we would have to follow that would um be ownorous to our county residents and so a lot of the work that we do is behind the scenes in committee uh making sure that those bills are modified so that they don't have those negative impacts um that you you see one uh and this was a particular segment of our our counties about 19 counties or were in the state health plan. It came out that they were going to have increased u premiums and it was a surprise. So we worked quietly with the treasurer as well as members of the general assembly to get that delayed. And so the sort of those things that are quiet and behind the scenes, a lot of things also are on the defensive side. Um I'm thinking about property taxes. This year we saw an unprecedented amount of legislation that wanted to pass property tax exemption and exclusions. I take I take uh I take issue with that. Uh, and so does your lobbying crew down there because your advocacy team, that's the state government saying, "We want to

give certain segments of the population a property tax exemption." And if they want to do that, that's fine, but they need to use their state dollars to do it and not use your dollars to pay for what they're passing. That is an unfunded mandate. And again, I was in committee talking uh um about these different groups of folks. And it's not like we're against wanting to give property tax uh relief to certain groups, but it's again, it's the issue of the state government wanting to spend your money to do it. And so we were successful in uh fighting back against some of those things or modifying that language that was uh in the in the House Finance Committee. Another uh specific issue I'll raise to you is land use and zoning. Um there's been a lot of conversation about affordable housing and the homebuilders association whom I'm friends with the homebuilders association uh executive director. It's a tedious issue about affordable housing, but they want to um there are certain elements in the general assembly that want to take away your land use of ability, your your right to regulate your your land and zoning in your county. And uh and we're we're not for that. That's your decision. You are the people who are elected by your community, by your county to make those decisions about how to best adopt policies related to land use and zoning, not the general assembly. So those levers need to stay with you and that's the position of of the association. School funding, lottery funding, I know there's a big issue. We worked a decade on uh making sure that the funding came back to school construction out of the lottery. At one time it was um it was

down to 17% and now it's what it's over 50% uh of the lottery dollars come to our counties for school construction and we were able to help modify that for renovations as well, not just new construction. I'm going spend a moment on federal policy because I have found myself this past year working more at the federal level than I ever have. Um I've been to Washington uh in the past three weeks three times um to talk to uh Senator Bud and Tillis. In fact, less than a week ago, we were sitting with with both of them talking about Helen recovery uh and members of the House. If there's an opportunity for you to get engaged on FEMA, now is it. And I would encourage [clears throat] you to do so and I can help you if you want that. We were up there advocating on Helen, but being down here at Dare County, y'all know hurricanes better than anybody. And right now, my assessment of what's going on with Helen recovery, and this is what I told both senators and representatives of the White House last week, is we're caught in the middle. are reimbursements. In fact, I called some of your staff to talk about this that is this normal this lag on reimbursement. It's not fast. We all know that. But it's really slow right now going on in the mountain counties. And my assessment is that the president came down and he said, "We're not going to forget North Carolina and we're going to fix FEMA." And what [clears throat] they've done through their FEMA task force is they've taken the gears apart and it's sort of laying on the garage floor right now of the motor. And right now North Carolina is in limbo. And so this was the message that I took to Washington last week. But here's why I think this is critically important for this board and for people down on the on the coast. We got to work

together to get this fixed fast. And I know that y'all have already taken steps to put money aside in case you got to go it alone. And we can't go it alone. We've got to fix FEMA. Whatever that looks like, um I'm not sure yet. There is a bill in the House in the US House. Um and I can get you the number. I can't remember it off the top of my head, but we were lobbying on that last week in Congress. and NATO, the National Association, has a a disaster task force. We played our uh hurricane Helen documentary for them and we likely will be doing that again in February, March at the National Legislative Conference. And that's where I think if you want to get involved and lobby on making sure FEMA is working by next season, the press is on to do it during that time frame. And happy to get y'all connected with the folks. uh there and we can work together to to do that. It's imperative that we do this together uh to get this before the next storm hits and the odds are the next storm's going to come down here, not up in the mountains. So, that's advocacy. Again, I could talk uh we could talk about Medicaid and SNAP and all of the things that uh that's another reason we've been really engaged lately is uh House Bill 1, HR1 that passed is going to significantly shift responsibilities to counties in North Carolina for the redetermination eligibility of of certain folks who are on Medicaid as well as SNAP. And that's going to put pressure on your Department of Social Services. Um so I know y'all are already aware of that. It's something we've been pushing hard on and I've been working directly with the uh North Carolina Secretary of HHS about how we're going to tackle that in the next year because you're going to have to start looking at that in your next

budget cycle in the spring of next year and how that's going to impact things. So that's that's advocacy. Um our conference and events, I've seen many of you all there and we wish that you would come some more. uh annual conference will be in Durham next year. It was good to see many of you in Pit County. I hope that y'all enjoyed your time there. Uh one of the great benefits of of your association, as I said, is knowing that you're not alone and meeting people across the entire state to come to our conference and you can uh find out what's going on in in their county. We produce uh I put a map book in front of you. Uh it's at your dis. Uh there's a lot of great data. We just released that in August. Uh it's a great tool that you can use to compare yourselves in the region or across the state. But we can also do tailored research. In fact, today we just hired a new director of our research, our past director. Uh she left us because she's now head of the local government commission, Denise Canada. Not a bad person to have over in that in that spot. Um but we literally today our our new research director started. So if you got a if you got some work for us, let us know. We'll we can get her on that right away. We do a budget and tax survey. Good good information that's broad-based across the entire state. I mentioned our documentary and I um I attended your your second meeting I believe it was of the coastal county fisheries uh meeting and we did talk about maybe and I've already talked to Chris our director about maybe getting some video and working with uh with Dorothy on that and um and committed to making sure that we tell the story of our coastal communities, coastal counties and the importance of fisheries through our communications channels to do that. So, um, we have opioid technical assistance, financial technical

assistance. Y'all don't need this, but if there's ever a search that you need for a county uh, senior county uh, professional staff, we can do do that. That's a lot of the work that Denise does uh, for this area of the state and the counties. Um, the things I'm telling you really, we're the only association doing some of this work in the nation. The General Assembly gave us funding to provide technical disaster assistance, helping work through the complexity of of FEMA paperwork, which y'all know far too well about. And I wish that we had had this previously uh when y'all were going through some, but my aim is to build a team that will do this for the future uh for all of our counties across the state because you can't go it alone. Um y'all have a remarkable staff here who are doing things, but we can help you not only in the technical assistance space, but in the advocacy space as well. I've already talked about the robust network. I know I'm going long, so I'll try to wrap it up. And uh if you want to get involved, we'd love to have you involved. There are plenty of opportunities through the meetings that we hold, but also the steering committees that we have. If you want to volunteer to be a chair because you, you know, you just don't have enough to do already. Um you might want to volunteer to be a chair of a steering committee which is appointed by our president. Um so, uh you would you need to start talking to those uh incoming presidents about about that. But a great way to start is just to volunteer to serve on a steering committee, learn about statewide issues. Again, the network of people that you will meet um will is tremendous. And I think that's about it. There's a lot of resources uh that we've provided to you, Mr. Mr. Chair. Thank you again for the time. I hope that wasn't boring

or too long- winded. Um if there's anything that you ever need, please know that we're here. And as I said, you're not alone. Your association's here to help you. Kevin, we certainly appreciate you being here today and and yes, thank you for your support of the U Coastal County Coalition. I know we spoke at the last meeting and I appreciate your help and certainly working with our staff with that. Um it's um pretty critical and we need all the help we can get there and I thank you for your support there. Yes, sir. means a lot to us. Anybody have any thing they'd like to ask of Kevin or

I I love the video educational on our coastal coalition fisheries, what we're trying to accomplish, the impacts. So, ASAP, what what can we do to help move it along and provide you what whatever's needed to get it done? We've already got a 23 minute video we did a few years ago still. [clears throat] Great.

I would be remiss if I didn't point out that Chris Balkam, who I mentioned earlier by first name, is a Dair County alum, too. He used to work on your team here. And so, um, I'll make sure that we get up with Dorothia. Uh, and, uh, and by the way is she's going to also be helping us teach our chairs training in January on crisis communication. So, we appreciate you you doing that. But we'll get together with you about getting that video and as much of the the raw footage as we can to do that.

Well, thank you again, Kevin, and as always, Norma, nice to see you here. Appreciate appreciate all you've done over the years. And uh Denise, we appreciate you being here as well. We'll uh we'll have to start um loading up your email box. [laughter] You go for it, Mr. Chairman. Members of the board, thank you again for everything and we're always here if you need anything. Thank you, Kevin. Thank you. [clears throat]

Chairman, that brings us to item six on the agenda. This is a resolution to repeal a portion of our ordinance with regard to the recording requirements for documents and our registered beach, Cheryl House, is here for that presentation. Good morning, Cheryl, and thank you for being here.

Thank you. Um, I am asking which Bobby will read the resolution shortly. Um, to have actually it was 1979 there was an ordinance put out that required the return to be put on all real estate documents. 1979 it was necessary. 2025 it's not. We have um most of our recordings are done electronically um or brought in. Very few are are mailed in anymore. Even if they are, we still have the prepared by that we can return these documents to. Right now, if we get a document that does not have the return to, no matter which way they're recording it, we have to reject it, which takes time. if we have to mail it back, that can stop them from getting the funding that they applied for. So, what I'm asking is that that part of this ordinance be removed.

You want to read that uh Sure. resolution, Bobby?

I will. Uh whereas the Der County Board of Commissioners previously adopted an ordinance requiring that the register of deeds not accept for registration, any map or instrument affecting real property unless both a the name and address of the person to whom the document is to be returned and b the grantee or owner's permanent mailing address were affixed on the face of the document. And whereas the board of commissioners recognizes that modern recording procedures and electronic filing systems now provide an automatic means for the return of recorded documents, making the return to address requirement unnecessary. And whereas the board finds that repealing the return to address portion of the ordinance will streamline recording procedures while maintaining the requirement for this for the grantees or owner's permanent mailing address to ensure accurate property records. Now therefore, be it resolved that the Der County Board of Commissioners hereby repeals that portion of the ordinance adopted pursuant to NCGs 161-30, which requires that the name and address of the person to whom the document is to be returned be affixed on the face of the document. Be it further resolved that all the provisions of the ordinance, including the requirement that the grantees or owner's permanent mailing address appear on the face of of the document, shall remain in full force and effect this the third day of November, 2025. Pleasure of the board.

Motion to approve. There's a motion to approve by Commissioner Balance. Do I hear a second? Second. Seconded by Commissioner Burus. Is there further discussion? county man.

I I have no opposition. I just have to confess. I read this and thought this is like a knit. Why are we even putting time? So clearly I didn't understand. I was going to ask you just for a moment for me. Why is this a big deal that we should repeal it? And again, not that I'm opposed to repealing it at all. I just don't understand why it adds so much complication to your life, Cheryl. So, if we get a document mailed into us and it does not have the return to on that document, we have to mail it back to them. That with the mail today, depending on where it's going, can take a week to two weeks. During that time period, if someone has applied for a loan and that time period ends, they possibly have just lost their interest rate.

And in losing their interest rate, they may not be able to buy the property that they were wanting to purchase. If we're able to go ahead and record it without that on it, it fixes the problem. So, it was originally I may look the county manager on this. It was originally passed by this board for a reason or do you think we were just being extraneously in the past complicated? In the past, you didn't have e filings. So, every document that got recorded, you had to walk to the courthouse and hand them a piece of paper. Okay. Thank you. Yeah, that's all I need with e-recording today. It's just really not necessary.

Anyone else? Okay, with that being said, those in favor of the motion signify by saying I post like sign. Motion carries unanimous. Thank you. Thank you, Chairman. Item seven on the agenda is an update on the Thrive OBX initiative and Sheila Davies and Amy Montgomery are here for that. [sighs] Good morning, ladies. Good morning. Thank y'all for being here, Sheila. I know. It's all right. Don't look at this. Okay.

Good morning. Um, you know, as I was thinking about Amy and I coming before you this morning, I was thinking, you know, on your agenda and just some of the stuff that you're dealing with, we're dealing with in the county is so heavy and so [clears throat] stressful. Um, I was even thinking, gosh, is this the right time to bring this update to you? And then I thought, yeah, it actually it really is because um what we're going to share with you, the update on Thrive OBX, it really is something uplifting and hoping the county can continue to embrace this. Um as tough as things are, there always needs to be bright places of hope and where we can actually um engage with our citizenry in well-being and thriving and living. And that's what this initiative is all about. So um I'm excited that Amy and I are here now to to talk about this. Um we the county and Outerbanks Health Hospital have had a long-standing relationship and really many many successful initiatives. Um interestingly Amy and I actually go way back as well. We actually um competed on the same softball team in high school back in Suffach, Virginia. Um one of us is a year older than the other. I won't say which, but anyway. So, our partnership as well goes way back and it's kind of neat to see that we're both here in Dair County and both working for some amazing um

softball team. Are you kidding me? Yeah. Yep.

Pretty amazing. So um but in taking that spirit of partnership and camaraderie and working towards wellness and well-being um we are going to you know continue to push this relationship between Dair County and Outerbanks Health forward and Thrive OBX is going to be a great way to do that. Many of you were involved when um we worked on bringing the blue zones here to examine you know what would that look like in Dare County? Is Dare County poised and ready? Um and after um some great uh conversations, initiative, engagement with community stakeholders, taking what the blue zones brought back to us after the community an community assessment and analysis, our committee met and decided, you know, we already are, as you may have heard, uh you know, kind of a nice shade of blue. we have we believe we have the resources and capacity in Dair County to actually take that initiative on ourselves as a community um instead of having to pay a consultant to lead us there. So um I'm excited. I'm going to turn it over to Amy to talk about where we are going now and the initiatives that um we're hoping to get you all involved as well as well as the community moving forward.

Thank you, Sheila. It doesn't look like you'll be playing softball anytime soon, but one day. [gasps] I think there's a PowerPoint if we could pull that up. Thank you. And we're on Yrip Thrive OBX. Maybe the third slide. Oh, I have it. Thank you.

There we go. Good morning. Thank you for having us this morning. Uh, so Sheila got us started this morning in terms of why Thrive OBX. You do recall we brought the Blue Zones experts here to Dare County to do an assessment. Many of you were involved in that assessment. Um, and we did it because as Sheila mentioned, we already believe uh that Dair County has so many of the assets of a Blue Zones community. Um, a community that's it's already been mentioned this morning that has uh just really strong um assets for fresh and local food, seafood being one, right? Um, as a connected community, a community where there's a lot of social support for one another, a community where there's a lot of connection. um a community where there's a lot of ability to get outside and move organically, walk on the beach, use one of our parks, the many of the assets that you all protect. So, thank you. Um we decided not to go uh bring the blue zones all the way to town and become blue zone certified um because we've heard this morning there's a lot of uh funding needs in our community. Um, and the Blue Zones wanted $8 million to certify us. And we decided that was not a good investment for our community that we could do this work ourselves. We have the talent of Sheila and her team and our team at Outer Banks Health to continue on this path to well-being in our community without sending $8 million to Minnesota. So, I think we made a really good choice there. Um but a really good reason too that why we're continuing on this path is what we know uh by uh lots of longitudinal research of millions of people uh over time proves time and time again that our well-being and our longevity is really tied to the decisions we make each and every day and our lifestyle. So 60% of our well-being and our longevity is tied

to the decisions we make every day and the environment we live in and whether it's a healthy environment. 30%'s tied to our genetics and then 10% and it is important uh is access to essential health care services. Um and we work hard on that with you all every day as well. So, we just uh really do feel like it's the right thing to do to be in the space of helping individuals in our community, live in a community that promotes well-being and longevity as well as know the things that they can do on a daily basis, the decisions they can make to improve their well-being. Um, you know, much like the conversation about uh, you know, cleaning up, you know, that individual responsibility as well as what the county can do. Healthc care is the same way. It's a shared responsibility and this is our part in educating the community. Um, so what is Thrive OBX? Thrive OBX is a community initiative designed to inspire well-being and longevity. And what our local team did, the health department and folks at OuterBanks Health is we took the Blue Zones Power Nine, you probably remember that from a year. Yeah, I know you do. Um and then the six pillars of lifestyle medicine and we combine those into five things just to keep it really simple for people. So what are they? Nourish. So uh everything we put in our mouths is important, right? The good things and the things we shouldn't uh put in our bodies. And so it's, you know, basically a plant-forward diet with lots of fresh local seafood um and all those things that are healthy for us as well as avoiding harmful substances. So that's one of our pillars. Uh movement, our bodies were made to move. So um any movement that we can do to keep our bodies moving is essential for good health. Um purpose. Uh what they found

through the blue zones research is it's really important for individuals to know their purpose. Why do I get up in the morning? Why does it matter that I show up? Um because giving having a purpose gives you a reason to live, right? Um and then engagement. We talked a lot uh this morning. We heard from uh this nice young woman planning the event for older adult services coming up in November about engagement. She said the word connection a few times. So, I hope we have a Thrive booth there. Um, but it's uh human connection is really essential. And that doesn't mean you have to have 50 friends and go to big parties every weekend, right? That means do you have three people you could call in a pinch. Um, it means do you belong to a faith-based organization, doesn't matter what it is, where you have social support, where you can go to a place, a third place, people know your name, people care about you, and are looking after you. We have a lot of that in this community. Um and then balance rest uh restoring uh you know the stress relief and sleep. Good sleep is essential to well-being. So we are uh implementing Thrive as we speak. So Thrive OBX initiatives we've started in Dair County schools. We have a Thrive liaison in every school and uh we are implementing Thrive activities in the schools and we're letting the schools choose what do they want to focus on. Some schools are getting pedometers and engaging with activity and movement among their students. Um, some schools are choosing to focus on their teachers and doing uh some connection activities after school. So, it just depends on what they want to do. Um we also are engaged with food forth thought uh the program that uh county supports um where uh students uh take home food on Fridays because uh you know they need food over the weekend and so uh our lead uh nurse uh Dar uh Debbie

Dutton is leading that project where we're having Thrive information in those bags on Fridays. So that's one way we're engaged. And then the Thrive Bites trailer. You'll see it pictured. If you attended our Cancer Shucks events a couple of week a couple of weeks ago, you saw it there. Um, but this is our mobile food trailer where we're taking healthy eating and recipes on the road. We'll bring it to the county for county team members, I'm sure. Um, and we have a great partnership with your uh emergency operations center with Thrive Bites. So, uh, next time you guys are sequestered for a big storm, we're going to have Thrive Bites and our chef on site to cook for you. Um, and in return, uh, EOCC is going to shelter our trailer so it doesn't rust and, uh, is no good to us in a couple of years. So, great partnership there. Um, and then thrive OBX in the workplace at Outerbanks Health. We're implementing it with team members and, uh, Sheila and Elizabeth Riley and your team are going to do that here. So, Dare County team members will benefit from some initiatives. And last but not least, if you're here during the month of February, we have designated February 2026 and every month every February thereafter is Thrive month. Um, so we are we have 25 different activities in all the five categories and we've set it up similar to the 12 bars of Christmas. I know some of you have participated in that. you buy a punch card and you you know you go and uh so you can buy a punch card uh for Thrive and then participate in healthy activities on an honor system punch your card and then we'll have prizes at the end of the month. So this will be a communitywide initiative where during the entire month of February we're focused on well-being and longevity. And then our website will go live very soon. Um, and these are our social media sites and websites, Instagram, Facebook,

uh, Tik Tok because we'll have some movement dances and things like that and YouTube. So, um, this is Thrive OBX and we're happy to share it with you and thank you for your interest. Thank you. Thank you. Any questions, Amy? Will there be the gayla event in February or March that was last year? Blue zones. Yes, it will be February 28th. So, it will culminate the thrive month and we're just going to have lots of fun activities. Save the date. Save the date. February 28th and that funds a lot of our initiatives. So, thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Um, thank you. Lady Sheila, um, while I got you, um, would you bring us up to date where we stand with SNAP and how it's going to affect there and do we have any alternatives or whatever? Can you do you have a minute to up?

So, um, as you all may know with the government shutdown, um, there's impacts to both SNAP and WIC. um SNAP benefits, uh the ability to provide additional funding, um ended on November 1st. So, what that means for SNAP recipients, [cough] which there's, um about 1,800 in Dare County, it fluctuates between 16 and 1,800, but as of a report this morning, it's in the 1800s. um any of those individuals who had benefits on their SNET their EP card already, they could still use those, but they don't get any additional money allocation for November. So, their monthly allocation um and that's the way it is unfortunately until the the government opens up and then fortunately when it does reopen um it would be very quick for us to be able to then issue those benefits, whatever their benefit status is. But until then, until the government opens, we have no ability to provide any additional funding. Yes, sir.

1,8006 I'm not trying to pin you to a number. I'm thinking out loud. A quick percentage. Wouldn't be accurate to say 37,000 people live here. 1,800 people or sort of 1,800 individual clients that may have several people supported by them. No, it's 1,800 individuals. It's about just over a thousand um accounts and then those accounts because you might have children on your account. That's what I was getting. Yes. So just over a thousand and equals about 1,800 individuals. 5% would be a fair estimate of county individuals. Individuals.

And then wick right now is about another 650. Um so on the uh wick side of that the wick is women infant and children program that's for um basically it's for breastfeeding support um formula support uh it's for up to children age five um those benefits uh it's also federally funded um the state there's enough allocation for North Carolina we just received word this morning we thought it would go until November 15th but they ran recap. They're calculating all the time, run, man, managing the numbers. WIC benefits look like they'll be able to extend until November 30th based on the money that's in the state to support WIC. Um, but SNAP ended effective November 1st.

What did we do? We know what an average monthly is on the SNAP. Um, it ranges. I can tell you um last month um collectively for those roughly $1,800 it was about $375,000. Wow. Food benefits but a month. Yes.

That's lower than I thought. I was doing some projections. So, our portion of the county to administer those programs, uh, it's roughly about $60,000 a month um that we typically get from the federal government to pay for the staff to administer those benefits on the SNAP side. And it's just under 20,000 on the WIC side to administer the benefits to the WIC um individuals. Do we have staff that's specifically [laughter] assigned to SNAP?

We do. Um, and the The tough thing there um is their work doesn't stop even because the the government shutdown. We are still contractually required to accept applications um to monitor the applications to validate to make sure that we're only giving benefits away to those individuals who are eligible. Um that work did not get suspended. So our staff still have the work to do. we just can't give out the actual um support. Um on the wick side um staff are still we have the funds right now from the state to keep operating wick until the end of November. Um and so you know staff are still needed in that role and even if the government shutdown were to go beyond that for WIC um they can still provide case management um they can still help our families try to find resources. We have been in touch with all of our local nonprofits that either provide aid during gap time or our food banks or those who can assist. Um we did issue a media release on October 29th that lists all of the different food resources or resources for those who find themselves financially um in stress during these times. So that's on the county website, but it um explains what's happening at the federal government and then also where people can go, who they can reach out to locally for some support and assistance. If the if the government goes back in, are are those um payments prrated? Like I know sometimes they do.

That's still up for debate right now. Okay. So, we don't have a definite answer. So, we when we talked or I talked with Chuck last week, the

the staff cost that goes on during the shutdown, whether we get the funds or not, we have the ability to cover that until when? Um on the health side, we calculated into the into the uh probably the spring. Um and on the social services side, Chuck feels pretty confident probably into February, March without an issue right now. We would be doing that through lap salary and you know, moving money, but so we're we're feeling pretty secure with our staff and being, you know, with those positions even without the funding. Hopefully though, we do get the reimbursement for where they haven't been funding us, but we just aren't aren't sure yet. So that $80,000 a month for those two programs, if the shutdown prolonged, then we can keep the staff that were required to have whether they pay the benefit or not indefinitely without having to pull out come to you for additional funding,

right? We don't have the ability to cover the benefits at right $400 and some thousand dollar a month. Yeah. 375. You said 375. And then Wick as well. An additional How much was Wick? Rick. Wick runs anywhere probably about 80 to 90,000. Okay. Sorry, I missed that one. Yeah. I got a question, Sheila. Yes, sir.

And maybe you can help me with this, maybe you can't, but I'm hands-on with the Rono Island Food Pantry. And obviously now that SNAP benefits cutting out, we you've listed on the website all the resources available. I'd also add that a lot of our local churches you can reach out to and there's tons of people willing to help in these type of situations certainly here in Dair County and uh I'm proud of that. But wild game, can we bring that to a food pantry? Do you know? I don't believe you can. I don't know for sure, but I don't state. Is that a state law or a federal? I'd have to get back with you, Mr. Croo. I'm not sure.

Okay. because we need to change that because I could stock food pantries around here with meat through our numerous hunting clubs in the area for long tenur periods of time. Uh I've always thought it was the responsibility of charity to take care of people and not the government anyway. But needless to say, there's numerous resources available and uh please come by our local food pantries and we we'd take new applications and be love we'd love to help. Thank you. Anything else, Sheila? Thank you for that update on snap and work. I really appreciate it. So certainly thank you. Hopefully um

hopefully the uh folks in DC will wake up. Maybe they'll have an epiphany for the days over. Who knows? I I did hear a credible news story over the weekend that implied after tomorrow's election that either Tuesday night or Wednesday there would be a breakthrough on this. Yeah. And [clears throat and laughter] uh we'll see. But I heard that story. Well, we'll see. Funny how that happens. Yeah. All right, county manager.

Sure. That brings us to item eight on the agenda. This is a modification to our lobbying contract. In the past, we've paid our lobbyist uh $5,000 a month while the legislature was in session. And so what's started to happen is the legislature never goes out of session even though they're not working. Um, and so we were paying for sessions where there was nothing to be done because there was nobody there to lobby. Um, and so we were talking about that and it was suggested that rather than do it by session because you don't know when they're going to be in session, you don't know when they're going to come back for two days or whatever, that we just go to a lump sum on a 12-month schedule, which is what the legislature seems to be on now. Our lobbying cost obviously would be about 60,000 a year. Uh they suggested maybe we cut that to $50,000 lump sum and then we don't have to try to figure out whether they're in session or out of session. They'll work for us 12 months out of the year doing the things that we need done up there doing the research, whatever we want them to do uh during that period. And again, the way the legislature is operating now, that would potentially save us around $10,000 a year. I'd make a motion to approve.

Second. There's a motion on the floor by a vice chair, seconded by Commissioner Baitman. Floor is open for discussion. No brainer.

Um, well, let me just This this came from them. So, I'm I um I'm I'm really pleased that they're looking out after our interest. But with that being said, uh, the fishing coalition, you know, it's been recommended we hire a lobbyist, but that's going to go over like a lead balloon. I just like everything else we're talking to the rest of the coalition about. I've had a conversation with u Harry and he's entertaining this that we um anytime we have a issue or resolution or whatever countywise that would support the coalition that um he add this to his list of to-dos for us. So, and I and I'm hoping without any additional funding. So, we'll I'll wait to hear back from him. he's going to talk to uh his um co-workers and he'll get back to me. But just keep that in the back of your mind. We need to for them to lobby for us especi especially with resolutions that our board's putting out uh to the legislature. So that's an FYI in in that regard though if we ask him to lobby on fishery issues for Dair County that's part of our contract. if we throw in the coalition that they've got to figure out what they want to do.

That's correct. All right. Any further com any questions, comments? All right. Hearing none, those in favor of that motion signify by saying I. Oppos like saying motion carries unanimous. Thank you.

Item nine on the agenda is the consent agenda. Uh you have the approval of the minutes from October 6th. You have the tax collector's report. You have the budget amendment for the A250 committee. You have a public works utility easement. You have a mini Brooks exemption resolution. [clears throat] You have a budget amendment for disaster recovery fund. You have a budget amendment to close out the affordable housing grant. You have a proposed Dair County Public Library Advisory Board byWalls. You have a Hatteris Water Plant reverse osmosis water treatment unit sleource resolution. And you have the Dare County DHS Public Health NC DHHS Office of Rural Health Telealth infrastructure Grant. Pleasure of the board. Motion to approve. Okay, there's a motion on the floor by the vice chair. Is there a second?

Second. Second by Commissioner Balance. Any further discussion? Hearing none. Those in favor signify by saying I. Post like sent. Motion carries unanimous. Item nine, I'm sorry. Item 10 is your board appointments. Uh you have the older adults at services. Uh Claudia Hennessy's term expires this month. She does not wish to be reappointed. The Older Adults Services Council recommends that Betsy Kelly be appointed to fill Hennessy seat and to appoint Don Ascu and Laura Fitzgerald to the other two vacancies. Pleasure of the board. Motion to approve. Okay, there's a motion on the floor to approve. Is there a second? Second.

Seconded by Commissioner Burus. Any further discussion? Hearing none, those in favor signify by saying I. I oppose like sign. Motion carries unanimous. Next is your veterans advisory council. Anthony Imperial Alli's term expires this month and the comm and the council recommends his reappoint. Motion reappoint. There's a motion on the floor by the vice chair to reappoint. Is there a second? Second by Commissioner Creef. Any further discussion? Hearing none. Those in favor signify by saying I

post like motion carries unanimous. Mr. Chairman, we need to go back to the older adults services include on the list should have been Commissioner Burrus's seat as well. We need Okay. Him. Is there a motion to approve? Commissioner Baitman is second. Second. Commissioner Balance. Any further discussion? Hearing none, those in favor signify by saying I. Oppose like sign. Motion carries unanimous.

Um, next is your upcoming board and committee appointments. In [clears throat] December, you have the equalization review board with five terms expiring, the special motor vehicle valuation review committee with three terms expiring, the tourism board with six terms expiring, the working waterman's commission with one term expiring, and that's in January. And then in February, you have the planning board with three terms expiring. And that would be your agenda, Mr. Chairman. All right, county manager. Appreciate that. That brings us to item 11 and that's commissioner's business and county managers business. Um, do you have anything else for us today?

Yes, sir. I do. Um, first of um we've been Commissioner Balance has been working down in Hatter's hard on trying to help us with some daycare issues down there and from that some other things have occurred. Um the state recently updated and I I say that because we've got this is about a daycare issue and that's a critical need in Dair County now. Um state recently updated the definition of family hair uh family care home that would allow 10 children in a residential uh setting if it was adopted in a local amendment. Um there is a local provider that's going to come to you. They haven't done it yet, but they're going to come to amend our ordinances to allow that 10 care in-house daycare. Um, however, there's a $400 fee to ask to request our fee schedule requires you to pay a $400 application fee anytime that you ask for a text amendment to our zoning code. And they're asking that that fee be waved. Um, I don't have a particular problem with waving the fee, but the issue is I don't think you can wave a fee for just one person. You can't wave my fee and then charge it to Darthy next week. So, if we're interested in waving the fee, then we need to do something more generic that's treats like people alike. Um, so that we if we're going to wave it, we wave it for, you know, daycare providers who are seeking amendments. will will not be charged the fee. And in that way, anybody that came in to amend the zoning ordinances to to do daycare, we wouldn't charge that fee.

Who who is the requesttor again? Uh this came from Sarah Samson at the Children and Youth Partnership. Uh the prop the person that's the local provider, somebody named Melissa Cooper. So this is a local resident saying please wave the fee for my application to correct the be approved to to amend the ordinance to allow the 10 person inh home daycare. So up to 10 children package. Why don't we just decrease the fee so it would be more applicable for them to be able to do it. I was getting ready to say the thing you know 50 bucks. You all set the fee schedule so we can do it. Do you want it 50 bucks for anybody who does a budget amendment period or just for just for daycare?

Daycare. All right. So, and my thinking of this and I talked to Bob about this other folks back in the day, you know, on Poor Ridge Road. We had three dayc carees and they had three to five children per daycare that was there. Everybody operated in everybody was happy and it was like, you know, family kind of thing. Now all of a sudden they're going away because the state came in and said you had to have that this. The county said you had to have this, you had to have all this other stuff. So we've got major daycare problems, not only in Had Island, all over, it's all over the place. And it's not going to get any better because the fact those folks that operate in the large daycarees can't make any money and they're not going to do it for nothing,

right? So we even have to revert back to how we used to be and allow those people and give them the opportunity to make a living at the smaller daycare level and hopefully that can maybe alleviate some problems or even that we support them and we can't support every daycare in Dair County. Again, we can do whatever you all want. So I don't I'm just amount of times that daycare has asked for the fee that the revenue part of it is insignificant. So it's just a matter of whatever you think is best. Do does do they have to allow like so they can is that this the 10 the number 10 is that coming from the state or is that the state says you can

that's the statute. How are they being um so how is are they being inspected or regulated or anything like that? don't know the answer that they just basically what what my information says is that the state changed the rules to allow for 10 in a residential setting if if adopted through a local text amendment. Uh the county ordinance currently limits the definition to eight with no more than five of the eight children being preschool age. So they're asking to change the eight to 10. I need to think about that more. Yeah. You know if if that if that they haven't made the application yet. This is if that's the request for the fee.

I don't have any problem. I don't mind reducing the fee. Yeah, I don't mind reducing the fee either, but the change to the ordinance, I'd like more time to Yeah, they haven't applied yet, so I don't know what she say. She just related to your to your question, if you're worried about the numbers, um being a licensed childare center, then they are going to be required to be monitored um for quality and there's metrics that they have to meet. That does fall under um SmartStart and the part of Children Youth Partnership to do that quality management piece. So, they would be inspected because they're licensed. They would be they'd have to be but they'd be allowed to be in their license would allow them to have that many kids in their home. Correct.

Okay. Mhm. Gotcha. They would be legally able to operate. Okay. So, nothing changes except the number goes to 10 and our ordinance says eight. Move to reduce fee to $50 for child uh prek. Second. There's a motion on the floor by Commissioner Ross. It's been seconded by Commissioner Baitman inside. Trying to help where I can. [clears throat]

Any further discussion? Hearing none. Those in favor signify by saying I like sign. Motion carries unanimous. I put a tax map in front of each one of you. The red lot there. We own all the land. If you if you hold it up like this and you see Haven Drive across the top, we own the land that touches the the bottom part, the south side, if you will, of Sea Haven Drive. We own this lot here. There's a flag lot right here, and then there's a little strip that goes out to Highway 12. Um, where is this? Se Haven Drive is in Rodanthy. Um, it's It's just north of We own the red lot.

We And we Well, we own the red lot. We own the flag lot. That's right joined to it. And we own the the strip.

The strip. This is property that someone subdivided and had wetlands and basically said, "I can't develop it. It's got too many wetlands and I'm out." And would and abandon it to us. That's how we got it. So, the fell that owns this first house right here in Rodanthy, he wants to buy this lot from us and he wants to um move his house onto that lot and want to know would we sell it? And he also I tried to get him to buy all of our property there, just get rid all of it. So, we're out. We we don't have any use for it there. Um the flag lot he he says doesn't have any value. Hos and his folks walk it. They said it's a buildable lot. It's worth $90,000. The guy didn't want to buy it. He is willing to buy the little flag down here by the road. That's about has a tax value about 3,000 or $6,000. So, he's

I'm hearing you. I'm not I'm not I'm not either. I'm not that. So, look the red lot. Then there's a lot that joins it starts at the canal. And if you look, it looks it's got a Is that the L? The L-shaped one. I call it a flag, but yeah, that's the L-shaped lot. All three lots have road frontage on C. Yeah. And then the little there's a line and there's a little narrow strip about halfway down that goes out to the road. That's the strip lot. Sorry, two people talking. I appreciate it. No problem. The last part. All right. So, if you look at the L-shaped lot, it it narrows down and then it has a little teeny line where the terminus is. Yeah.

He wants to buy which one? And and then you'd start from that line and then go to the road. There's another little strip lot. Yeah. He wants to buy the big lot in red and the strip lot down by the road, which is kind of irrelevant to me. That That's not a buildable lot. The The only reason he's offering that is because I asked him to try to buy the whole thing and take us out of this property and so we didn't have to mess with that. Doesn't make sense. Doesn't make sense. So, but it's it's it's a $6,000 strip. It didn't he didn't care whether he bought it or he didn't buy it. And how much how much are we asking for the red?

186,000. So 180 for the this lot and six for the little strip. That's the tax value. So we figured that was the closest to the value. 180 and six. No. Six [snorts] and 180. Yes. Yeah. No. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. [laughter] I thought you said 186. My team total. This is what happens at the end of meeting [laughter] all of the maps and location so that it's easy for me to tell myself. So Jesus I mean what would we need that piece of property for? We don't sell it you know. Um

so what here's there's a process we have to go through if you all are prepared and I'm trying to help expedite it so he can move his house before it goes in. Um, normally we would come to you with a a resolution and do a bunch of other things well in advance of this meeting, but I just got this Friday, so we didn't have time to do that. So, what I'm asking you all for is two or three things. One is to agree that you're prepared to sell it at that price. Two, authorize me to sign a contract to sell at that price. Three, authorize us to do whatever resolutions we need to do and sign those. and and then four, um authorize us to publish whatever we need to publish. Um I'm hoping I can do all this ahead of our next meeting so that we can get it done and don't have to wait whole 30 days. I don't know if we can get through and I don't know if the statute lets us, but if it does, we'll expedite it. If not, you may see this for some more approvals at the next meeting, but that's what I'm looking for to try to move this as fast as I can.

So, he owns that house at the very point. Mhm. of that red neighbor just south of it. Yeah. Yeah. I'll make that motion. Bobby. Yeah. 124. I'll second. All right. There's a motion on the floor by Commissioner Baitman. It's been seconded by Commissioner Bur. Floor is open for discussion. Have we heard anything from the guy on the other side of him? I didn't ask him. He's off the property. They approached us. I mean, they I mean, what's the significance of that? Well, from looking at the lot, is it subdivided? Should we sell half of it for 90 to one get the other? Well, just from looking at the map,

this is typically wetland and this high land is just it's a lot of wetland on that. Bobby said you can't get but one house in there from what I what I'm hearing that that's how it was subdivided. Crazy been this is a subdivided track and that's how it was subdivided. Okay. And let me just finish my last thought there. take over. You refer to it as a flag lot. That's the piece adjacent to it. The L shape the middle. We will sell the red block. We will sell the little tiny strip going out to Highway 12. And we will retain ownership of this L-shaped the L-shaped wetland. Correct. Well, we'll also retain ownership of the very front line, right? No, there's only three parcels there.

One from the ditch to the ocean front. He's getting that other little It's always Well, yes. Yes. No. Uhuh. There's a L-shaped block, then there's another strip, and then there's another strip. No, there's a line drawn through there. We only own one strip. Well, there's a strip is just adjacent to the road. Well, there's a line in there. It makes me believe it's it's a third piece of property. If you say it is a one, two, three. One. No. Yes. No. One, two, three, four. There's a line right here that makes me believe it's another. I mean, you're telling me otherwise. I'm just saying.

Let me let me see. I don't know what you're talking about. There's three flags. Yeah, but we just own the first flag. The one that's adjacent to the road. He's not referencing the three flags. I'm not referencing the three flags. And we own whatever's left on the ocean. Come over here. I'll show you the line. [laughter] You sure you want to get involved in this government stuff? There is a line right here between this this strip. This strip right here all the way there. There's right there that makes me believe. This is what happens when you see the end. That's a printing error. There's only one strip there. And then you should have told me that it's a [laughter] That's all right. I pointed it out to you and proved you wrong.

Boys, boys. for I guess my concern for this for did these other property owners realize that was available and they just like I I don't know I just they could have done the research like the one fell I mean I get that but you can't put two houses on there I don't know what the significance of moving to one is where you going to put it right here I guess I guess as far east as he He goes back. Yeah. As far east as he can. I'm going tell you on that map when you're looking at those GIS, go on there sometime and put your finger on there. 500 ft. It's not a long ways on that map. Yeah. It's a very small little

Yeah. So you think it's not much of a difference, but it could be a thousand feet. When we sell it, our contract, we make it's whereas however it is, no warranties, no nothing, no representations about anything. They're we're just they got to do their own due diligence. Well, let me ask you this. Is it worth having our folks look at that red piece of property and see if it is subdividable and and can be a house built on each of the pieces subdivided? I I can I so that so that if that if that person south of the one that's wanting to buy

wants to move their property. I I could have I'll tell you that what I would think is this property was subdivided. As you look at your map, it has the pieces we've talked about. It has this piece and then it has four oceanfront what used to be buildable oceanfront parcels on the ocean front. See those lines that go out into the ocean? Yes. So, a subdiv a developer came in and subdivided this property to get as many buildable lots as he could. And the only way he could make this lot buildable was to do if he could have gotten more lots, he would have done more lots right then. I'm guessing um I mean I can have it evaluated, but that that would be the likely scenario.

Yeah, I'm not pushing that. get two septics for two separate smaller lots that close to the ocean. So that close together. I yield to the pleasure of the board.

Do we have We had a motion. Who did that? Oh, [clears throat] that's right. We did. We had So, we just need to vote. We had a a motion and a second. That's correct. Sorry. All right. Those in favor of that motion signify by saying I. I. Oppos like sign. Motion carries. All right. And I have two cleanups. One, we have a a software agreement uh that you all approved. It's with the University of Utah at your last meeting. They've sent it back. They've added

some identification numbers and some paragraph renumbering, but they've changed nothing on it substantively. and they've asked us to resign it. And since it's not exactly [clears throat] the same as what you approved, I'm asking you to approve it with those identification numbers changed and allow me to sign it. It just doesn't change anything. It's just an edit. Change anything. Motion to approve. Okay. There's a motion on the floor by the vice chairman to approve. Is there a second? Second. Second by Commissioner Bur. Any further discussion? Hearing none, those in favor signify by saying I. post like sign. Motion carries unanimous.

And then finally, I have one of our favorite kind of contracts. Um, one that's non-negotiable. We either accept it or we don't. This is with Blue Cross Blue Shield. It's a data sharing memorandum of agreement where we share data with them, they share data with us. Um, and it has all the privacy things in it. Um, for our protection, if you will, there's a 30-day out, so we can cancel it anytime we want. We're not locked into it forever. Uh, but it does have some things we wouldn't normally agree to, like the venue for any disputes is in Wake County and things like that that we typically wouldn't agree to in a contract. But if we want to do this, we've got to do it this way. And we really don't have any choice because we need to share the data with Blue Cross Blue Shield as one of our providers. And so, it's a multi-year contract. So, I need your authority to sign it.

Sounds like we ain't got much of a choice. You're right. [laughter] [snorts] So, moved. Motion on the floor by Commissioner Balance. Is there a second? Second. Seconded by the vice chair. Mlo is open for the discussion. Hearing none. Those in favor signify by saying I. I. Post like sign. Motion carries unanimous. Mr. Chairman, you need a close session whenever the appropriate time is up. Yes, sir. Uh, public information officer, Miss Hester, do you have anything for us? No, sir. Nothing at all. Not even the green light. [laughter]

Well, you already did the green light. That was on my list of things to do. And if I would say if um anyone has a shines a green light to send that photo or send a photo to us at darecount PR at darnc.gov go because Caitlyn's going to pre be presenting at the veterans lunchon at the Dare County Center and so many of our veterans might not get out. What's the date of that? I'd have to let you know. Okay. I'm pretty sure it's Monday, Dorothy. Yeah, send send us that if you will.

Pretty sure it's Monday. Yeah, I don't have the date, but she's going to share some of the photos that are submitted so the veterans in attendance can see those because, you know, a lot of them are not going to be out all over the county [snorts] in the evening seeing the green light. So, that's something I'll add to the operation green light. Okay. And I will follow up and let you know the date of that. Thank you. Monday, all all offices are closed Tuesday, so it's got to be Monday. That's what I have on my calendar. Okay. Thank you, Rob. [clears throat] Finance Director Matt, you got anything for us? [cough]

Um, yeah. So, we're navigating the release of with the FAA for the public works property. Um, and so we're delaying our issuance from November 19th tentatively to the first week of December. Um, we're not anticipating a material impact to the timeline or the cost of financing as a result. Thank you, sir.

Just on that issue, Mr. Chairman, of course, the shutdown is complicating things and there's nobody at the FAA for Dustin's been he had a contact that he was talking to and now he doesn't. And then on top of that, the person that he dealt with at the state aviation who was helping him try to get through to the FAA has now been moved out of that position. They got a new position there, somebody that isn't there. And now they've asked us for more information that we've already given them. And so it's getting to be complicated because all the changes and all the shutdown. And we're trying to get them, whoever them is, on a conference call so we can sort of take them through everything that they have. I mean, we're talking about replacing something on that property that's been there since like 1972. Um, you wouldn't think that we would be going through this where they're wanting to see, you know, the deeds and the what are the all the authorities and all those details that have been there for a property that's been there over 50 years. So, nonetheless, that's what we're up against. And so, I don't know what's going to happen. And I think the longer we're shut down, the the more complicated it's going to get. So, just be aware.

Okay. Thank you. Speaking of um bids, what what are we bidding the nourishment for Buckton and Avon in January? Um I for I think it's sooner sooner. So sooner, but I don't know if it's November or December,

but it's it's on the radar to rock and roll. It is. I was with the our consultants on Friday and I told them everything they had to do to expedite everything because soon as the weather got good, we wanted them guys out there pumping sand and and repairing groins. And u [cough] one other one other issue, the business bureau has the event site on their plans in December meeting for the

for the [cough and clears throat] the sport that you hit a plastic ball with. I'm not going to use the P word in public. [laughter] I'm not doing it. I didn't either. So, that's on there. That's on [laughter] their That's on their December agenda. All right. Cool. Is that it, Matt? [snorts] All right. Thank you, folks. That brings us to um um commissioner's um business. And at this time, I'd like to ask Mr. Burus if he would kick it off.

Yes, sir. Thank you. I would like to uh first wish a very happy birthday to Miss Goodlo Murphy, 80 years young. I would also like to say um we do have Veterans Day coming up and I would like to thank all the people um who have served this great nation and afforded us the freedoms and liberties we have. Um, it's it's no small effort and uh I I appreciate everyone who has put their name on that dotted line and went out there and defended our freedoms and their service to this great nation. Um, I look forward to this month. This uh brings in the the time of year that I love the most. Uh I come from a large family and this is a very big family time of year with Thanksgiving leading into Christmas and New Year. So uh I know there will be a lot of of agenda items, a lot of people inviting us to a lot of different meetings and gettogethers and I I really look forward to getting out and uh being a a part of everything that I can be um in the coming months because this is a time of year which I absolutely uh love and look forward to. And that's all I have. Thank you, Commissioner. Appreciate it, Commissioner Balance.

Um, so I also want to extend a happy birthday to Mary Helen who has been taking pictures of my son in a Red Rider uh wagon since he was born. Um, every year at the parade, which is coming up on December 13th. Not sure he'll be in a wagon this year. He is 25 now. Um, but he'll be pulling it. He'll be pulling.

But thank you for all that you Thank you for all you've done over your 80 years young to um to be supportive of and inclusive of government our government as well as Hatter Island and all of the things. You're everywhere. I don't know how you get where you get, but you're everywhere. Um, we did go to a I did attend a housing meeting for the UNCC School of Government this this past couple weeks. um the DARE Housing Foundation nonprofit. I signed the papers um to be a part of that board uh last week. So, we are moving forward. Um we have a meetings coming up in the next two weeks to get get that hit the ground running on that and I'm really excited about that. Um November 7th for veterans. Again, my father was a is a veteran and I my father-in-law and my soon to be daughter-in-law's parents both. And um so November 7th, the Cape Hatteris Secondary School, they do an annual um celebration, veteran celebration. And if you guys have an opportunity to come down, they do they invite all the veterans of Hatteris on Hatteris to come for breakfast and they all eat breakfast in the cafeteria and then they go down and do a ceremony with the whole school. It's a really moving, wonderful um event. Um I had the pleasure of attending the DARE art celebration with saw Mike there um and the cancer shucks this uh last weekend. And it was a great event. Um, a lot of fun. I even got my husband out. So, yes, he does exist. I know not many of you guys have met him, but he's there and he's he's

Is that true? Yes, he was there. Mold. [laughter] Um, I'm not going to talk about Bucks. I think I said all I had to say in the last comments. Everybody knows where I stand on that. And I appreciate everybody here's support and reaching out when things when those events were going out. Y'all checking on me, texts from Irvin and you guys. It means a lot. Um, thank you. And I'm going to close with what something that the reverend said. He talked about, you know, in his opening prayer about free will and personal choices and um or best choice available. And I offer that kindness is always the best choice available. That is all.

Thank you, Commissioner. Well said. U Commissioner Ross.

Thank you, sir. I will be brief. On the 25th, we had a terrific dare to scare funr run event at the Tillet Center. Um, I was there dressed as one of the Pittsburgh Steelers, runners. There was a lot of uh candy given and it appeared to be a very very successful event. So, shout out to Laura Lewis and her team and the entire committee. The Dare to Scare event was great. Uh obviously I'm virtually 99% sure the Veterans Day lunch is Monday at noon at the Tillet Center Monday the 10th. Uh, we also had a very successful, I just checked with Amy Montgomery earlier, the cancer shucks uh, sort of dinner dance auction fundraiser raised about $80,000. She told me for the OBX Cancer Center and to continue to provide services so critically needed for those uh, dealing with and fighting through their battles with cancer. Mary Helen, I know the secret. You have superpowers. That's how you do it. None of this chemicals or anything else. You were just born with superpowers. So, I've answered the question. Case closed. Full stop. [laughter] And lastly, on a sad note, um the uh Nags Head uh Golf Links Comm uh community rather lost a a very dear friend and and a dear friend of mine uh young guy just turned 60, Tim Schistler. and I wanted to send my sympathies and condolences to his family and all of his friends. He

[cough] uh he was a part of our tournament team on Friday against the North uh Kuratuck Club. Uh we were at the club s Friday night having dinner and bemoning the fact that we had gotten whipped pretty good on Friday, but by God Saturday was going to be revenge. And an hour after he left the co uh club, he suffered a massive cardiac event and passed away. and it was it stunned us all. So yeah, rest in peace Tim. That's all I have. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Vice Chairman.

Thank you. Uh once again, I join the rest of my fellow and commissioners. Marielen, happy birthday. You have been a guiding light for all of us here and we look forward to every time we have a conversation with you because you do treat us fairly and we cannot thank you enough for that and cannot thank you enough for the service you provide not only for Hatter Island but for all of Dair County and from my heart happy birthday. Um as we said uh we have Veterans Day coming up. Uh I want to thank all of our veterans and coming from a long family of uh veterans for myself and also from my wife. We also recognize the uh that a lot of times our veterans get a lot of thanks but the families they have behind also suffer and sacrifice in the same ways. [snorts] So I would also like to thank our veterans families on this veteran day as well. Um we got a few things coming up in our fisheries. Uh one thing that they've just put out um the nocom division of marine fisheries on Tuesday, November 4th. They will be uh reviewing documents provided for uh the marine fisheries and changes to the sheep head management and uh prompted by requests from three separate meetings of the marine fisheries commission member Tom Roller uh cited concerns of the current recreational limit is too high. Um so they will have a meeting on the uh sheep's head and also um coming up on Wednesday, November 5th [clears throat] uh at 6 pm at the

Washington Civic Center in Washington, North Carolina. They will be having a stripe bassformational meeting uh and that will be presented for the stripe bash amendment twoformational page. uh the stripe bass decision document and analysis of the new and Pamlicico rivers and strike bass data and uh so that'll be coming up too. They'll have an online meeting tonight at 6:00 um also to address the uh the seabbass webinars. So like I said that just came out u actually this morning. So, um, also, uh, coming up very shortly, uh, December 1st is a due harvest reporting requirement will impact recreational and commercial fishermen.

[snorts] The state law will now require any person who is recreationally harvest a red drum, flounder, spotted sea trout, stripe bass, or weak fish to report that harvest to the North Carolina Division Marine Fisheries. Wait, [snorts] one fish, even if you catch one of those fish. Yes. Of course, rack or commercial, any fish. If it's one of them species. Yep. Um and uh you're as as a as a recreational fisherman, this is the first time they're asking you ma making it mandatory that you report your c. Mary Helen, this has got to stop. We need the power of the press here.

Um this applies to the coastal coastal fisheries uh waters, joint fishery waters, and inland fishery waters adjacent to the coastal and joint fishing waters. So basically, if you catch any of these fish, you've got to report it and it's an online thing. [snorts] Additionally, it requires anyone holding a commercial fishing license who is engaged in a commercial fishing operation to report all fish harvested to DMF regardless of sale. So goes even beyond your trip tickets. And here is the attempt to take data, right,

and manipulate it even more because why? So now a commercial fisherman has to report it twice. They have to report it when they get it to the dock from the fish house and they have to report it themselves. I I think only if you harvest it, not [snorts] release. So it's the way it was told to me by Chris Lee because I asked specifically about my nest. You you have to land the fish. Yeah, you got to land them. So everything else still goes on just the trip tickets like when you take it to the fish house. It really the main thing is the recreational side. They're going to have to report every fish they harvest now. And you go online. Yeah. Just like the Wildlife Outdoors app for hunt deer tags now is online. The same similar situation.

Yep. Uh, so if I'm if I'm surf casting at the inlet and I catch one of them bad boys Mhm. I got to report it. If you catch it and take it home. Yes, you have to report. That's what I'm saying. If I catch it and take it home. Yep. What's the timeline? Uh, looking at the law, I think I think it gives you three, five days. Okay. I'm not exactly sure. They don't they don't they don't Yeah, that that's been in that meeting with time roller.

That's where they're not going to have accurate recording because I mean I look at all those online forums almost every person on there says well I ain't reporting nothing that screw the government you know same old same old. Yeah. Yeah.

So I mean it it's out there. It's something that uh over the years um you know a lot of the commercial fishermen are saying well recreation doesn't have to report their catch and you're using this astronomical u algorithm to figure out because they have uh less than 1% of commercial fishermen report their catch of uh recreational fisherman catch. So then they calculate that uh by some algorithm and multiply that by 100 and that's what what they've been using to calculate recreational catch which we all know is not the way to do that. It doesn't come out right. Um so this was one of the things that a lot of people have been asking about. recreational needs needs to start um being responsible and calculating their catches and this is how DMF has now come out with how they can do that. Um, but like I said, if I'm on the back of my dock and I don't see a um uh not that I would do this, but if I was on the back of my dock and fishing and I caught one of these things and there's no resource officer around, what's my obligation to report it other than

it's the law, Steve? Other than, you know, it's law. I'm not saying I would do this. I would report it, but I'm saying the general public. [clears throat] No, they ain't Yeah, exactly. They're not going to be totally inaccurate like everything [snorts] else they got.

Yeah. So, um big thing that's coming up at their uh next meeting and a little bit later on this week, uh not this week, but um this month is uh blue crab. And blue crab has been kind of a hot topic. Um the Marine Fisheries Commission has now kicked this down the road. Uh they were originally supposed to vote on this thing back in April, I think it was, and then they kicked it to one other meeting. Now they've kicked it to the November meeting. Uh so that's coming up. Um and they're not going to kick it anymore. It's going to be either discussed uh at this next meeting and done something with. If you want to know information on the on the blue crab, there's the pamphlet. Whole bunch of it. Um, a lot of things have been discussed uh not only with uh uh the blue crab industry but also members of the commission and you have two members on the commission that are blue crab fishermen and uh they brought up some very valid points and uh they're trying to get some things uh changed as well. Uh, one of the things that u the the really alarming part and this is the first time I've actually heard a majority of the marine fisheries division say the same thing exactly. We're trying to pass fishery management plans on data that is not up todate.

We're trying to pass fishery management plans that they do not have up-to-date data on. Okay. Understand every everybody understands how absurd that statement is for everyone to hear by those in authority to pass and approve such plans. Correct.

Okay. The stock assessment they're currently working with on the blue crab was done in 2018. There have been some stock assessments since then, but there just been preliminary stock assessments, not a not a full in-depth stock assessment. [snorts] They are, however, working on an in-depth blue crab stock assessment as we speak now. But those do uh uh those uh findings will not be published until 2026 when that stock assessment is complete. Um the current amendment to the blue crab by state law it has to have a when they do this it has to meet a certain criteria within a time frame. from what they're seeing with landings is that they're not going to meet that reduction that they were looking for. So that's why they've implemented this new change to try to meet that reduction. Now, one of the things is even in the the assessment for the blue crab, you notice a line that goes like this for participants in the crabbing. Less crabbers from numerous years coming down to now. You've also number it goes a parallel. Here's your crabbers. Here's your crab landings. Those two lines go parallel. So, what does that mean? Does it mean there's less blue crab out there, or is there less people fishing for the blue crab? All the stocks, that's all the the fisheries uh guys out there doing crabbing say it's it's coalition because you have less effort, you're catching less crab. There's still crab out there. They see crab all the time. Um,

one of the things also they brought up was to do a stock assessment on the blue crab. They do some pots, but their main focus on how they catch the crab and count them is through trollling. Nobody trolls for crabs.

You don't troll for crabs. And so those numbers and they asked them about the trollling and they say, "Well, they use the exact same net size, exact same speed in the exact same spots. They always do the same testing. As you know, the crabs, they move and they don't stay in one area. Also another thing that they the biologists did not uh come up with in their data was uh water conditions. They did not sample for toxity, did not calculate for occurrence, did not calculate for salinity, did not calculate for temperatures, and also did not have hypoxia data. All of those coincide with where your crab are and where they're not. So, um, also, uh, I know you've heard me say this several times, and I'm going to say it again because this was actually brought up by one of the, uh, members on the, uh, Mil County Division Marine Fisheries Commission. He asked point blank several meetings ago and brought it back up in the last meeting as well to have their biologist to ride with him on a boat to show him the fishery. They have refused to do that. [clears throat] So with that, um, they are requesting a possible fivemon closure of the fishery and they're also looking at a andor 10

bushel limit of the fishery. In both cases, that would devastate our blue crab fishermen. So, we have put this uh I've put this resolution together with the help of uh our public information officer and our staff. And uh I would like to make make a motion that we adopt this. And county manager, could I get you to read the resolution, please? [clears throat] This is a resolution in opposition of proposed blue crab crab harvest restrictions. Whereas in December 1998, a fishery management plan for blue crab was adopted. And since that time, three amendments and two revisions have been made to the plan. And whereas a comprehensive external review of the North Carolina blue crab management plan was performed in 2023. And whereas the most recent compiled biomass stock assessment was completed in 2018. And the North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries has advised it is currently working on a new blue crab stock assessment which is due in 2026. And whereas biomass stock assessment of the blue crab was calculated by trollling and blue crabs are caught more productively by pot fishery. And whereas many of our crabers have invited NCDMF biologists to ride along and observe the fishery as they are working. However, the NCDMF has refused to entertain this concept of fishery management data collections. And whereas the blue crab fishery is complex and involves a variety of factors such as market fluctuations, weather, water conditions, toxidity, salinity, currents, tides, and epoxia, none of which are mentioned in the current report's observations from the NCDMF biologist. And whereas trip ticket factors are pronounced in the adaptive management plan and show a parallel effect of less effort by the crabbers and these result of less landings of blue crabs. And whereas a proposed five-month closure of the fishery and/or a 10 bushel limit would

have surmountable economic impact across the fishery affecting our local communities. And whereas all the NCDMF advisory committees recommended status quo of the blue crab fishery with no further restrictions. Therefore, be it resolved that the Dair County Board of Commissioners strongly opposes any further restrictions to the blue crab fishery until the 2026 stock assessment is completed as well as a new comprehensive plan for collecting data of the fishery this the third day of November 2025. Like I said, I have a motion to uh adopt that resolution. I will second. Okay. It's been seconded by Commissioner Creek. Any further discussion? Are you going to take that to the coalition?

I hadn't finished yet. Oh, [laughter] any any any further discussion hearing? None. Those in favor of the motion signify by saying I. Oppos like sign.

Motion carries unanimous and yes ma'am. We have a meeting Wednesday the 5th and we will be taking this resolution to the coalition for their approval. There are several other counties that have already passed this similar pro u uh proposal resolution, excuse me. Sorry. Go ahead. Um, I appreciate everybody's support on that. Um, the only further thing that I have as we're approaching the holiday seasons and please uh be responsible, be safe, and we look forward to going through uh Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's uh in the upcoming days and weeks. And uh thank you all uh from Dair County. I I'm personally thankful uh for every citizen in this county who has supported me over the years and I appreciate that and I can't thank you enough for that. And uh with that being said, merry Christmas and happy Thanksgiving. Thank you uh Commissioner. Appreciate it. Commissioner Baitman.

Yes, sir. So, um I had the opportunity to go down to um visit with the Merllo Beach Civic Association on Saturday [clears throat] and um great group of folks down there concerned about their beach, their homes. Um these guys have taken a pretty proactive stance. They um through their homeowner dues, they paid for an a fee to do a study. exactly on storm water management, how to maybe regulate some of the water that's coming out of the ocean. Um maybe realign some streets. Um the total for what they're probably looking at is two to $300,000 that their homeowners association will be responsible for. Um the only ask they had of me um was the fact that if we could get DOT to just look at Highway 12 that runs when you hit the circle runs to the north. If DOT could um create ditches on the east and the west side of Highway 12 in order some of the water that comes in there would have a place to go and maybe it could be drained off their property. Um, very very very nice folks, very cordial. Um, had a great meeting with them. Um, so anyway, and just Bobby, if you could check in that for me and kind of let me know what they what you find out. Um, the other I also went to Buckton uh the same time and of course they got a mess down there on the same in that same area down there. I was there. I had a chance to meet with a family and I don't know if you guys remember but more than a year ago I brought a resolution not a resolution but a issue withratom to you guys and we asked to have a standalone

bill to go to the house and go to the senate and hopefully it would pass and to getratom um regulated for the um unadulterated and then the adulterated credum to be banned in Dair I talked to Bobby Haney this morning. That bill is gone. It's not going to go anywhere. Talked to Keith Kidwell about a month ago. He says the same thing. It's not going to go anywhere in the house. So, they're not going to do anything about this at all. In the meantime, while I was down there and Buck's not a visit with the family in Avon, um their son was there. Um he is on a new intense quality of cratrum called 708. I think that we talked about this at the health and human services. I think I brought this to your attention that's 40 to 50 times more potent than what the um regular cratom is. This guy was a shell of a person. I could hardly have a conversation with him. The family's devastated. It's not going to get any better. What I would like to do is possibly have some kind of vehicle so we could do a maybe have Sheila, myself, um maybe the county manager, Bob, and maybe Jeff Daringer to sit down there and look at it and see if we could get a bill just for Dair County so Dare County can ban the adulterated but the adulterated to allow that to be still be used in Dair County and see if it's enforceable. let Jeff look at it and say, you know, this is what we can or what we cannot do. Um, I need you guys support on this though because

I love the idea, but I'll drive 10 minutes to Kurak County and buy it and then I'll drive back and that's fine. We got to start somewhere. Maybe Kur County. Hey, they they're doing some some very good things with their saving lives task force over there or their equivalent to that and we're drug court. Maybe they can follow suit. You did you have any conversation with Haney or Kidwell or or Goodwin about a single bill? The single bill. They stuck it into a bill without trying to legalize marijuana. You know where that's going to go? Nowhere, right?

And so this this is this is something that it's not going to go anywhere unless we do something in Dar County. I had a conversation this morning with Sheila about it and she suggested maybe having a a group to sit down and look at it and say, "Hey, this is maybe what we can do." Um, and her question, which is very legitimate, is it enforceable? Well, if we get it out of the stores and Billy Bob goes to the get-go and it's not there for him. Yeah, maybe he's got to drive to Curry Tuck, you know, let him drive to Curry Tuck. I don't care. I just don't want Derek County, right? Yeah. I mean, I' I'd support that. I mean, it's bad stuff. Okay. Yeah. All right. So, um, Bobby, I guess I'm

You need You don't need a motion to do that. We can have a consensus. Um, yes. Because if we're going to go ask the legislature through whomever for a local bill, they need to know that our board voted for that because it's going to ask I'm sorry. That's what I ask for. He's asking for a group together and then then the group. I thought he was saying let me and him and sh start doing it then I can figure out how to do it once we do it. If you want somebody wants to make a motion I'll be glad to second it. No, if you're not moving forward with the the local build, I don't need a motion from that. I thought we were going to have this group and then go forward the local bill. Okay.

If you just get a consensus to have this group together and discuss it and then come back to us. Okay. I want to give Sheila and Jeff and maybe Bobby sit and talk. to do it sooner rather than later. So that we come back in de in December. Most definitely. Yeah, I agree with that. Forward. Um the other thing uh the um at the dare to scare we had 200. Do you notice all the little kids over there running? Go far kids. Did you see them? I did.

Oh yeah. Um great organization. Um thank you very much to the coaches. Thank you very much to the organizers. That's a great way to start running and and building self-confidence at a very very young age. They had some fast kids out there. Unfortunately, I was one of the coaches, but I was not there for the last uh two training sessions or the race itself. I was out of town, but uh they did a great job and I'm really proud of each one of those individuals. That was fantastic. And Mary Helen, um happy birthday. Uh Mary Helen called me this weekend and asked me about something else. And during the conversation, I almost let the cat out of the bag. Good one. [laughter] I know. Good one.

But anyway, I didn't I didn't say anything at all. I know. But God got me say, "Oh, yeah." And then congratulations on that. Now we know who we can trust. [laughter] But I didn't do that. But listen, happy birthday. And you you do such a great job for everybody in Dair County. and and um I've never had a conversation with her that um didn't turn out although sometimes they were intense. I never had one that turned that bad. So that's good. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Commissioner Cre.

Yeah, wish Miss Mayor a happy birthday as well. Yep. Always a pleasure. Uh another thing is I actually looked into it while I was up here. There is a program North Carolina Hunters for the Hungry where you can donate whole carcass deer to a processor that is inspected by the Department of Agriculture and then they distribute it to the food pantries. Uh I know none of our food pantries here have that. So I'm going to look into that personally and see if we can get some get uh cooler moved here where we can start doing that. Uh, another thing is the uh, North Carolina Association of County Commissioners gave us this uh, very informative booklet here. And uh, I highlighted this GDP growth. Uh, this pretty much just shows by county domestic product and what the value is. where the dark green is in our major cities. You can see those are very very uh I don't know what the word to say is, but they make more money than all of our rural counties here. You see the pale yellow, all of eastern North Carolina. What that pretty much establishes is that we are the poorest portion of North Carolina there is. product, domestic product. Our farming industry and our fishing industry in eastern North Carolina has supported our rural families here dating back to the pre-revolution. Obviously, the first families that were in America landed in eastern North Carolina and eastern Virginia and up and down the east coast. The families that settled here did brave the wilderness. I know it's Veterans Day. We support all of our veterans. My family dates back to when they fought for the king against the French, then fought against the king in the revolution, and fought against the

country in the 1860s. What do we have to show for it? The poorest region of North Carolina. [cough and clears throat] It disgusts me that at the state level, we can't support small business and our fishermen and our farmers. I have numerous farmers come to me and say, "I don't know how we're going to make it. The price of everything keeps going up and the price of our product keeps going down." [clears throat] Why in North Carolina do we support foreign products over North Carolina raised products? Why do we alienate the oldest families, traditions, and heritage that built this state? Why can we not provide some kind of relief to our farmers and fishermen in eastern North Carolina? I have to commend President Trump. Nobody ever plays the real news anymore, but when he negotiated that trade deal with China recently, he secured a deal that China would buy 12 million metric tons of soybeans this year and 25 million metric tonses for the next three years, 26, 27, and 28. that that drastically just him doing that deal the other day drastically improved the prices of soybeans in eastern North Carolina and actually saved a large portion of our farmers here that were going to lose money on their crops. Why is the federal government releasing restrictions on our fisheries? Trump has sent the Secretary of Commerce to deregulate the commercial fishing industry in our waters outside of the three-mile marker. Why does our state refuse to follow suit like many other states in the southeastern portion of the country are doing? Instead, we have a marine fisheries board that now seeks to destroy our crabbing industry next at

the end of this month, which is one of the last fairly leniently regulated fisheries we have left. It is also one of the most expensive commercial fisheries to get into. A pot on average cost around $50. You need about 800 to,600 of those pots to operate. You're looking at 60 $70,000 investments in pots alone, not counting your boats, motors, gear, transportation, and everything else. If laws are put in place, not laws, should I say, proclamations are put in place like a king that would then relegate our crab industry to little to nothing. What are these fishermen supposed to do who don't have college education? They've poured their entire lives investing into their craft and into their product. Do they got $70,000 worth of pots that are worthless now? Their boats, their motors worthless. Everything that they have by the result of one proclamation can ruin their entire lives. It is a disgusting thing that we've done in the state of North Carolina where we have alienated some of the oldest families that really built this country. And uh hopefully our legislators in Raleigh can advance new legislation to either remove commercial fishing out of marine fisheries. And I know that Bob and our uh new alliance there is working on that with our some of our legislators from Eastern North Carolina. And they're doing a fantastic job, by the way. I just can't see why why are we so why are we just destroying eastern North Carolina? We're destroying it. There's the map right there. Look at how poor it is compared to the central part of the

state. It's disgusting. and uh do better. You know, this is shameful. It's shameful that all these counties, bottom five, bottom five counties in GDP, Jones, Gates, Camden, Hide and Trail, all eastern North Carolina, bottom five in the entire state. It's disgusting. So, with that, I would ask our legislators to do better and to please give us some relief from the overregulation that is literally ruining our lives. Thank you, Commissioner Grief. Well said. Well said. Um I'll follow up with a couple of things. Um the feds once again knocking at possibly our door um to um open up offshore drilling again off our coast. And typically in the past for numerous years, this board has been opposed to offshore drilling. I'd like to ask the board if they would approve um uh another resolution just we'll modify the one that we have with a current date to in opposition to offshore drilling and I I'll make that in the form of a motion second

seconded by commissioner balance the floor is open for discussion hearing none then those in favor of that motion signify by saying I

I post like sign motion carries unanimous Thank you all for doing that. I very much appreciate it. Um the um um as I said earlier um we have a meeting uh Wednesday in Carterette our third coalition meeting and I'll take this um crab resolution to them and then we this other issue from the um ones that uh Steve has um presented to us about the single catch and recording We'll have some discussions on that as well uh at our meeting. Um the um so I look forward to um attending that and having another successful meeting there. Um [snorts] our veterans, I said that earlier. Uh thank thank them and their families for their service to our country. Just a reminder that next Tuesday is Veterans Day, the 11th. And um um starting tomorrow, the 4th through the 11th is uh green light, which shows our respect for our veterans. And um just reaching out uh Bobby, we got plenty of green light bulbs in county, right?

I Darthy. Yes. work back in general.

All right, [laughter] good deal. Good deal. Appreciate that. So, um um this I have to echo Commissioner Burrus's uh thoughts about the time of year. This is u certainly truly my favorite time of year, Thanksgiving in specific because you're with your family and friends and loved ones and u and that what better time to to um share um just good fellowship with with your loved ones and I I look forward to Thanksgiving. And I hope everybody has a very very happy Thanksgiving. And u let me go really real quick back to veterans. 8.3% of our um population are veterans in Dair County. Anybody know what that is? 3,1783 veterans in in Dair County. I'm proud to be one of those 3,183. [snorts] Um, so that's that's a that's pretty good size in Dair County for veterans. Um, and last but not least, uh, Mary Helen, I I'm I'm just uh echoing my fellow commissioners uh comments. Um, this this was a no-brainer for us to recognize your your service to our county. You have been a true uh u lobbyist for us in every situation possible. you've been responsible for successful pathways and stuff on the out on on Hatteris Island and and um as as commt [clears throat]

totally respectful of um of my position, of my comments, of my voting record, never criticizing, always being very optimistic. and I can't thank you enough for that. And um please know that we appreciate you deeply. So with that said, um county manager, we need a close session. Yes, sir. We're in a close session pursuant to NCGs 1433181 111A6 to review the qualifications competence performance character fitness conditions of appointment or conditions of initial employment of an individual public officer employee or a prospective public officer. So motion uh

so move there's a motion on the floor by commissioner Ross seconded by second by commissioner balance. Those in favor of the motion signify by saying I post like sign motion carries unanimously. I'll be right back.

I'll call the Dare County Board of Commissioners meeting back to order and turn it over to the county manager. Sure. In the close session, the board uh approved the minutes of the last close session and reviewed the qualifications, competence, performance, character, fitness, conditions of appointment or conditions of initial employment of an individual public officer or employee or prospective public officer employee and took no other action. All right. Thank you, county manager. That um brings us to the close of our meeting today and I need a motion to adjourn until December the 1st at 9:00 am. So moved. There's a motion on the floor by the vice chairman. Is there a second?

Seconded by Commissioner Burus and Baitman. Any further discussion? Hearing none. Those in favor of that motion signify by saying I. [clears throat] Oppos like sign. Motion carries unanimous.