Town Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening and welcome to the August meeting of the Edgewood Town Council. If you would please stand for the pledge.

I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all. pause for a moment and just keep in your thoughts and prayers those who have been suffering from any of the wildfires and um flooding across our country. Thank you. Miss Tan, may we have roll call, please? When I call your name, please state here or present. Mr. Reed, Mr. Riggs, here. Miss Faren, here. Mr. Far here. Mr. Picket

present. Mr. Leak. Let the record show all council members except Mr. Reed and Mr. Leak were present. Thank you.

Okay, Chief Vanderver, you're first on the list. Okay. Um, for the month of July, we had 51 EMS calls, of which we transported 15 individuals. Fire, we had 10 calls. Um, casino check, pole fire, small things that you know really went too bad. This weekend, next Saturday is our MDA boot drive for musculardrophe. So, we'll be at 32 and Park Road. So, please come by and donate. If I know you and you don't stop, come after you.

Where are you going to be again? I'm not telling you. I tell him again. And reminder, October 4th, we're beginning to advertise for it is Dan's fish fry. It will be fish and chicken this year in October one. So, a little change. It was October 4th.

October 4th. And the last thing I have is we had a tremendous loss last week. Our ex fire chief Robert Grder passed away last Thursday night. And Bob was our fire chief in 2013 to 2015. He was a great guy. He he received his master firefighter in February of 77. He actually joined the department on May 31st of 1970. Everybody loved Bob. If you knew Bob, you loved it. And he was a great guy, Bob Mayor. And yes, and so he passed away. So we'll be uh honoring him being in the funeral procession this Thursday. We will be out of service for a couple hours. Uh we'll take care of covering that. But yeah, Bob was if you know him, you love him. You know, he was just calm and collected. So So put him put Bob and his family in your prayers, please.

Thank you, David. Hey, Captain Aman.

But this is not my special.

Okay. For the month of July, we had 59 calls for service and um 16 arrests or citations. Um most of those on traffic stops. We did have um another ordinance violation since court. So that's two by count by official because I sent one last week we have three going through court. So somebody else not following by our rules. Um two weeks ago tomorrow we had national night out which in my estimation was a good success. Um we had about the same amount of people we had last year probably 190. We're down a little bit. Last year I estimated about 200. This year is about 190 185 somewhere around there. We did give away 20 bikes, one of which is still over there because it hasn't been picked up yet.

Okay,

I'm going to give them a call soon. Remind them. Um, and we also had uh some gift cards that we gave away. Um, our donors, I'd like to take a moment to thank them. If I got them all, I don't know if I did or not. Vendle Lawn Equipment, BNB Seamless Gutters, Andrew Hannah, Anderson Police Department, Officer Brandon BS, The Rothstein Family, Wild Dazzled Freshies, Swept Away Cleaning Solutions, Hudson Reynold, and Anderson St. Vincent Anderson Ascension St. Vincent Anderson. They all donated bikes and Unified Group Services donated $500, which is what we bought the gift cards with. So, thank you to all those sponsors for helping us out. It's greatly appreciated. It was we didn't have that last year.

It was something I felt was missing and it turned out just to be more. I wanted one or two bikes, maybe three, and we handed out about 20. So, I had I had the Hudson rental guy when he dropped off the port, he dropped off a bicycle. So, I mean, we were getting them the day of, too. So, it's just

it seemed like non-stop. But, I'm so grateful for all them for for pitching and helping us out. And Jessa has a visitor she'd like to introduce. So this is Flint. Um we are hoping through the PD that we're going to be able to send him to therapy classes. No.

Okay. Uh to be a therapy dog for first responders in the county or wherever he might be needed. So we've got some sponsors hopefully going to donate some money. so that we can, you know, make this happen. Um, I think Anderson has the only one and he doesn't go out in the public very often, but that's our goal with him is that he'll get to go out and meet with you guys and help support our first responders if he doesn't fall asleep.

Yep. So, I'm taking care of like all the dayto day and then the PD will hopefully we'll get the sponsors through the PD to do all his training and everything. So, he can be called the traumatic events and stuff like that. So, you'll start seeing him here more and more around the police station and fire station. So, he's very much mama's boy. You can't tell. So, and he's afraid because there's so many strange people there. Yep. It's okay. Thanks, Jess.

Okay, good evening everybody. Um, little update on the parks. We're in the parks. Uh Carl Fox has been really hitting the mulch and the flower beds and things very very hard all through the through our parks at the moment. Um summer help is uh this is his last week. He's getting ready to go to college. So his last day will be Friday. And then um started to do we bought some new swings and some uh toddler baby swings. So, we put some new ones out over redwood and painted the uh swing sets themselves. So, they're not a pristine paint job, but it does look better. So, we're just trying to touch things up and move on. Next park off will be uh Windsor and then will be Wilkerson and then White. That's a lot of W's. Uh the other thing I wanted to bring to attention is is that the the late weeks of September we're going to start the uh rebuilding of the other water filter this year. And then also the uh town needs to be on notice. We are going to do hydrant flushing again this year and that is going to begin on September 10th through the 30th. um with our new website and if I ask nicely, I think I can get it on the Facebook's pages. Also, I will actually put out a list of the hydrants in order of the way that we are going to do those. I know that we're supposed to start on the 10th. So, when that list hits and

you read that list, it'll go 1 through 75. We're going to go in order. One, two, three, four. They have the addresses with those. I will tell you where we will be going next. Um, I don't know how fast we're going to get done. I'll try to keep everybody informed. If I get 15 done the first day or 33 done the first day, I'll try to see if I can get that posted and then we will start on the next number. If things go really well, we can get it done in easily five days. try to give myself plenty of time in case of emergencies or anything like that that might come up that we wouldn't be able to get out. I know last year we done it right before Thanksgiving and it was cold and when you get wet in cold weather it's not real nice. So we're going to do it in a little bit nicer weather. So other than that it's all I've got at the moment.

Thank you. Okay. Member reports. Mr. Re, I don't have a report. You don't have a report? Okay.

Uh, all I have is that we received just in the last week two uh neighbor complaints regarding uh lawn maintenance or the lack thereof. I've followed up on both of those and we'll be moving forward with contacting the homeowners. Okay. Uh, no report. Don stole it. Don, I want to thank Don and Carl for the work they've been doing in the parks, but uh, we'll have something next month. Okay, that was unusual for you. Not to have anything to say. Okay. I didn't say I was done talking.

Oh, okay. Gotcha. Mr. Austin. Um, only thing I worked on and I just sent out a proposed ordinance before the meeting tonight. Dale had requested a update to section 93.02 of the ordinances about fees that are charged uh for it could be a cleanup for a gasoline spill, for example, or it could be a fire run. And so, and those fees really were remain pretty much the same with just a couple exceptions. And so, I took a stab at writing an ordinance uh applicable to these fees. And then the other thing uh that Dale requested was uh if there's any fines imposed for open burning violations. I doubt if we're going to have anything in that. We don't we've not historically had anything like that, but that be deposited in the town's fire department ambulance fund. So, these are fees. So, for example, there's a run that is made uh there would be in certain circumstances there would be a fee uh involved or that could be charged and that would go into the fire department. So, and this is something that was just circulated. So, it could be something we act on tonight, but if the council requires more time, we could always defer defer this and uh then consider it the next meeting.

I think we probably need to look at it and have some discussion. Yes. Yeah. And and yeah, and I think the look some of these fees are fairly old. So, so uh and Dale, we want you to to take a look and make sure these are the fees you want locked in for the council. So, I thought we were going to use the town's uh fee ordinance. Well, we're talking about the fees for an incident, for example, a spill, things like that. Okay. So, that would be you requested that that stuff came from like the state fire marshall's office. That's been on our book for several years, but the vehicles and things that come in plus that. So, yes.

Okay. So I think the probably the way to approach that would be everybody take a look at that see if there's any questions suggestions anything else should be added to this and then we can consider this as an item of business at the next meeting. Okay and I think that's all I've got. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Surveys. I don't have anything new to report at this time. Okay. Miss Tanner, I don't have anything.

A boring month, right? Okay. Do we have any old business? I don't remember any.

Nothing about the website or anything? Well, I guess I could talk about the website again a little bit. Um, it's just it's up and running. Um, we did discuss putting some stuff on there like a survey for the town. I'm in the process of working on that. I talked to Jess a little bit just a few minutes ago. And then I've got an email out to the uh the uh to the state who runs the website itself for with some questions to see how we go about doing that. And that's about all I've got on that right now.

Okay. Anybody else have any old business? Okay. Any new business? Nothing.

Oh, I can't see you back there. I know. I'm hiding. Not as fire chief. Well, I guess as fire chief and a resident of Edgewood. Uh when are we going to address that tree on Tower Road? That big tree trunk laying there right next to the street because it's so big and if someone would hit him with a car, it'd be the end. Can't think. Yeah. That's one of our citations in Yeah. Okay. Anyway, thank you, Grant. Uh but yeah, that's I mean they had put more reflect these stickers up so it

okay. Okay, any comments or questions? And you do have to come to the podium. Thank you. And just say your name. Uh Brian. I got a couple questions. Um, number one, under old business, um, back in the June meeting, there was a discussion at the house on Leighton that was donated that somebody said that they were going to try to burn down or do a fire thing or something like that. That was done back in June wanting to know what the status of that is. [Music] I had the EPA there.

Oh, okay. But and uh he said you cannot burn it down unless you have all the asbestous out of there. The ceilings in the entire house are filled with as back wall to the outside of the exterior. It's a desk is asphalt and he said no. And when I poke the ceiling, he about had a heart attack. What are you doing? So, yeah. Brief in here. I can get quotes if you want me to get it torn down. Clean all the garbage out of there and the junk. Well, I saw about $4,000. Was that right? Somebody sent that to you.

Yeah, we can. We could. I'd love to burn it down, but it cost a lot of money to get all that aspect. Oh, sure. Sure. Well, that just brought up in June meeting and I we haven't heard anything since then. So, thank you. Um, we do use that for our training. Mhm. Okay. We're there at least once a month. We go in there and, you know, rescue people and things like that. So, you know, it just be Okay. Okay. So, we're using a meeting with Robin something. Oh, I'm sorry. I have a question. So,

Dale, so we're using a building that's filled with asbestous to train our personnel. We put on air. Okay.

Yeah, we probably need to rethink that. Is that okay with the fire commissioner? We probably need for us to train in there for our guys to train using that. I know. But is it okay with the fire commissioner to use an asbestous building to train? Well, our training officer is more strength than anybody else. He requires us to have as we go in. Maybe don't disturb the asbestous. Don't poke the Don't poke the ceiling. Go ahead. Okay. Um Robin, back in the June meeting, you stated that you're going to get a formation of a park committee. How how is that shaping up?

Uh I have held off on that because of the recent talk about getting the committee together for the pool. So as soon as that gets done, then we'll formulate that. But the the whole idea behind it was to create I think you remember create a a group of people that can help us make a plan for what we're going to do down the road. a fiveyear plan, a 10 year plan for the parks, right? So, we're just holding off on that and let's get the pool committee and that up and going, then we'll go that route. Okay.

Um, there was something brought out in the other meeting about if we had insurance on the pump that was flooded. And I don't know if there was a or I missed it, a specific answer to that. Was there insurance on that pump? Okay. What was asked was there a warranty because it's a year old, right? And there's a warranty, but if it is submersed in water, right, that voids the warranty. Yeah. Okay. So, the insurance is a $5,000 deductible and the pump cost 4,000 [Music]

and it wouldn't matter because the whole piping system is gone. So, Right. Okay. Okay. Um, there's been a lot of speculation due to things not being presented to the residents of Edgewood and one of them is has been the transparency of the books for the Edgewood Pub and Dining and Golf Event Center. Um, I have a copy here of last year and for the first four months of the year. Um, just wondering why why why aren't these made public to

What? What do you Where would you like them to be made public? They're public. You have them. Okay. Sure. But I'm just one person. But where did you get them? It doesn't matter where. Well, yeah, it does because if it's public, then you have them. These were given to me. I paid the fifth on that. These were good to

I mean Okay. So here you want the tax return. I got those for you. I'm just saying Patty you asked me to bring financial combat now. I think she said where would you like them to be made public? Yeah. In the town office. Well, I think online would be better. That way somebody from Bogishu can see what our finances are. Actually, it's not ran by the town of Edgewood or government. It's ran by the LLC, which is not government, but everything on the town of Edgewood is public record. I mean, we can put them out there. You'll post them for you want them every quarter. We're bringing them here every quarter. You got last quarter.

That's That's fine. And I even brought the tax return because you asked for that. And what was that, Patty? I'm sorry. last year, the 2024 tax return. Great. Great. But I'm going to keep it at the town hall so somebody can go over there and see it because just having it out circulating is really Yeah. And then when we get them quarterly, we'll post them on the website so anybody can look at it. Yeah. Right. Okay. Is that fair? Okay, that that's fair. Um, also when I'm show am I going over time? Yes. But go ahead.

Go ahead. Okay. um been brought to the due to what I perceive as lack of transparency. Um there's been a lot of rumors um speculation things like this about the edge. Um one of them is that there is uh people using edge equipment for their own personal use. Okay. Another speculation is that there is somebody working full-time that's on total disability wanting to know how that could happen. I mean there's just if this is true if this is not true I mean there's no there hasn't for the past year and a half or two years has been any transparency as far as the edge is concerned

I like to differ with that but I'm not going to get in an argument about it right uh it doesn't you know when you hire someone do you ask them do you have disabilities are you disabled no you can't ask people that okay so I don't have any disabled people working for me. You don't have anybody that is collecting disability that works at the edge? No. Okay. And thank you. Who who what kind of equipment are are you talking about? What do you mean equipment? You said that people are using equipment for their own use. The lawnmowers in specific. Excuse me. Which? No. No. The big ones. The big ones.

I'm talking about the residential ones that somebody can get on to and use for their own personal use. done. So, I mean, you can check into it. Yeah. I will look into it, but I I have not seen any of that. So, okay. Thank you. Thanks.

Okay. Anyone else have a comment or question? First, I'm sorry because I just got done working on your smell. Uh, I just got a question. Your name, please, sir. Fritz. Thank you.

Um, when you call the police department, you get a thing saying if it's emergency, call 911. bubble. We had the other police department. No matter when you call, they'd answer. If they were busy, they would say, "I'm holding a car." Like she pulled somebody over says, "Well, I'm done. Unless this is emergency, I'll call you back." And they did. Why can't we have the same courtesy as we did with the other people? Because when if you're calling the police, there's something that needs to be done. If somebody's breaking in your home and you're old, don't have a weapon, nobody picks up, that could be somebody dead in our country here.

Well, that's okay. I want to step out of out of So, if if somebody's breaking in your home, please don't call police department. Call 911. That's going to get you to the dispatch center, which is going to send you to wherever. But I understand where you're coming from. So something else like my neighbor's dog is barking or something like that, you want to talk to a local a non-emergent issue is what you're talking about, right?

Okay. And that'll be something for the police department to understand. But yeah, if you're if it's an emergency, it's just please call 911. It it's we Yeah, calling an officer specifically, it it never is going to work out for an emergency because they have too many other things that need to be coordinated. And if your home is getting broken into, I will guarantee you're not just going to get an Edgewood officer. You're going to get Edgewood County lapel city. It's coming. Yeah. So, well, so that but Randy, I'll let you address the rest of the the new phone etiquette. We shall say thank you.

Um that the phone issue is a a choice by Chief PCL. Um when officers are driving around, there's a new law that says you can't talk on the phone while you're driving. So, you know, it's not an inconvenience to pull over to talk, but you have to, you know, the phone's ringing. You can't pick it up and answer. You have to pull over first. and it's it's just a danger to the officers that are driving. And we also had several calls for people asking us for ambulances, which is a 911 call. If you ever need the fire department, don't call us cuz we're going to tell you to call 911. Um and that just I had that instance three or four years ago. Um the resident had passed and his wife called me and said, "I need." I said, "I'm on my way, but you need to call 911 and tell them everything they need to know." So, so with dispatch cuz we don't we don't create calls in our cars and dispatch does create a call. So, they put all the relevant information in there that that we need to know and that's something that we don't do while we're driving on the road or while we're parked on the side of the road talking to people on the phones and it's it's just out of officer safety thing. I think we were probably the only department in the county that still took calls like that. Everybody else has forward them to the dispatch where they do a voicemail system like we do now. So it's just it's just us catching up with the times too. That's that's probably the lower end of the what am I trying to think of the perspective

I guess but at the higher end is more of an officer safety. Randy on that that phone call you if you call that number you can leave a message correct? Yes. Okay. And it's Have you been able to leave a message? They get back with you then or Oh, yeah. Okay. And at that point, it's up to Comcast because we do get it does send an email to us which comes to our department phone. So, we're notified that there's a message. We can actually read through it before we hear your voice. And so, some my voice there there have been sometimes I'll get a call and I just go straight to the address without calling them back because I know it's something I need to be there for. So rather than trying to make a call, I just go there and deal with whatever they need. Thank you.

Good question. Okay. Anyone else comments, questions? The dog. Doggy left. Oh no. Yes. You couldn't stand it. I have a question. Sure. Or a comment. or both.

My name is Susan Fritz. Uh my concern is and and a lot of people have a concern about the pool. Um what I don't understand is I've lived in Edwood over 20ome years. We've never had any street lights with security. Our park equipment is terrible for our children to be on. That's something that I think the money for the pool could go for other things that we really need an edgewood, not a pool. That's my opinion. We just we we are dark and it we have no lighting whatsoever. We all have to leave our street lights or porch lights on or garage lights or whatever to feel that we have any safety. We have a security light that we're paying for in our backyard. I think I can help that. So, one of the things that when Edgewood was built, and this was told me years ago, but if you drive around and look at, we don't have power lines that run in front of our houses when you live here. It's made that way.

So, I understand that. However, we don't have poles in our front yards. Nobody has paid to be a beautiful community. So, that's why there's not street lights. We don't have poles at the street to put street lights. And if people want those now, why can't we get them? that would be something that could be brought in compared to a pool seasonal.

I I understand that and I I agree there there are a lot of things that the town could use money for and I don't know that I would agree that a million dollars on a threemon thing is is the best use of our money. However, that's the pool and we keep going back to this ex we're going to pay for the pool. The pool is our property but there is a not forprofit that's running that. But you're wanting to assess attacks on all that that was brought up at the meeting. It doesn't mean that we're going to do it. That doesn't mean we're going to do that. That's something that's like

Well, some of us don't get on Facebook. We don't get on the website. We're not getting uh we're not getting letters uh you know that we get with our bills. We're not getting any information. So, there needs to be a little more communication. Sure. Okay. So, I agree with that. I'm just, you know, throwing it out there. Okay. I'm sure I'm not the only one. I think it's very well. And if it's not on the website, I mean, if we if people aren't looking, let's say we can mail to each individual address. Oh, I'm sorry.

Go ahead. Um, my name is Kim Clark. Um, I just want to bring up the fact with the financial information that is out there now on the pub, the dining and golf, I think it would have been valuable information for the people here on Wednesday night when everybody was putting their opinion in about the pool or to not do the pool for everybody to see the financial information for the place over there, the golf club, the dining.

Okay. Thank you. Okay. Anybody else?

Hi there. uh set price. And um I know there's been a lot of conversation about the pool lately and uh I want to give my opinion. I I think it would be great if the board would consider um maybe like a a community gathering evening over at the edge to showcase what the proposal is and maybe just meet with the community, invite everyone out later in the evening uh when everyone's home from work or maybe even on a weekend. and uh and perhaps that would be a perfect time to offer up uh the opportunity to survey and um for the community to give its feedback, but um I know there's a lot of information and a lot of confusion around it and uh certainly can appreciate that. But um it's something that impacts the entire community and aside from these you know town hall gatherings which seem to be limited um I think it would be great to get everyone out in mass to participate in that. Just a

thank you.

Anyone else?

Aubrey. No, I'm just looking at Aubrey. She's giving me the stick. Yeah. Court, I think it'd be beneficial for the town, the people who live in town to have the council meeting at 6 rather than 5. Um, I know it might be an inconvenience to some of the board members or things like that, but I think it'd be a great convenience uh to the population of Edward. Thank you. Thank you. [Music]

Okay. Anyone else?

Yes. No. I can't see around. Well, okay. If there are no more questions or our comments, um, we need to have approval of our minutes from the July meeting. I make a motion we approve the minutes for the July meeting. I second that motion. It's been moved and seconded. All in favor? I opposed. Okay. And the register of claims for August. Make a motion that we approve the register of claims for August. Second.

Oh, moved and seconded. All in favor? I opposed. Okay. Is there a motion for adjournment? I move that we adjourn. There we go. I'll second. Okay. Moved and seconded. All in favor? I opposed. Okay, we are ajourned. Thank you for attending.