Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Thank you.

Good evening. We will call our July 13th Town of Garner Planning Commission to order. Roll call.

Yes. Good evening, commissioners. I will call the roll. Shane Banks.

Present.

Mariah Bishop. Present. Ralph Carson. Present. Phillip Jefferson.

Here.

Gian Hodges. Present. Ben Mills. Here. Michael Voiland.

Here.

Thank you so much. We are now moving into swearing in our newly appointed and our reappointed commission members. So I'll turn this over to our staff.

Sure, so the new and continuing members can kind of stand up. Approach the podium.

Hi, I'm Mariah Bishop, due solemnly and sincerely swear the laws of the United States, that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to the state of North Carolina and to the constitutional powers and authorities which are or may be established for the government thereof, that I will endeavor

I, Ralph Carson, do solemnly and sincerely swear that I will support the Constitution and laws of the United States, that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to the state of North Carolina and to the constitutional powers and authorities which are or may be established for the government thereof. I will endeavor to support, maintain, and defend the Constitution and laws of said state, not inconsistent with the Constitution of the United States, to the best of my knowledge and ability, and that I will faithfully discharge the duties of my office as Planning Commissioner for the town of Garner, so help me God.

I, Ben Mills, do solemnly and sincerely swear that I support the Constitution and laws of the United States, that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to the state of North Carolina and to the constitutional powers and authorities which are or may be established for the government thereof, that will endeavor to support, maintain, defend the Constitution and laws of said state, not inconsistent with the Constitution of the United States,

And in just a moment, we're square in our new members. But first, I would like to just take a moment to recognize our two members who are leaving us after six very busy years and I'm definitely thankful for your faithful service. Phillip, thank you very much for stepping up as the chair here most recently. Your input has been very much appreciated and I hope that we will be able to continue some kind of COOPERATION WITH YOUR TEACHING ENDEAVORS. IF WE CAN BE OF SOME ASSISTANCE AND HELP HERE WITH TOWN PROJECTS, I THINK THAT WOULD BE GREAT. MR. VOILEN, Thank you again so much for your, particularly your expertise and attention on the environmental details. It's always been great to have someone who has that kind of background because that's not always something that is very easy to find. So we do very much appreciate that. We'll miss your Bojangles updates, though. We will try to keep that alive. But they're opening. So we do have certificates for both of you, but I did want to just also offer We have Mr. Dellinger, council member who is the liaison to the planning commission as well as the mayor here tonight. So didn't know if either one of you had anything that you wanted to say to our departing members.

And the main thing I want to say is thank you for the service you've all put in. You've gone above and beyond. This is a very important role here. My congratulations to the people joining in and getting reappointed too. It's a big deal. And Council Member Dellinger and myself were talking just earlier this afternoon. We plan to get a whole lot more work out of you in the coming year. You have a whole lot more to do. We want to give you more opportunities, more information, and more works. And with that, I'll pass it along to David.

I don't always have to speak, but I will this time. I just want to thank both of you for your years and years and years of service in this explosive period of time, explosive growth time we've had in Garner. It's been a lot of work, a lot of hours you guys put into this work that people don't see. backed by staff and supported by staff, but we really, really appreciate your volunteer service on this board and your commitment and your results for this community. So thank you both very much for your service.

Thank you. If I may? You certainly may. I have two feelings. The first one, as I think back about all the weekends when I had to read and study material, part of me wants to say, free at last, free at last. Thank God almighty I'm free at last. But the other part is that it's been an honor. This is a wonderful planning department and I hope the town council understands how good it is. It's been an honor, the staff, both the ones who were here and have left and the new ones are excellent, all under your leadership, which is excellent. So I just wanna say thank you for having me.

Thank you. Thank you so much for that. I echo that as well. It has been an honor serving in this role for Town of Garner. I very often use what we do here in my classroom And to show my students what their voice can do in the public. And that's why I'm in these spaces, is to show them that architects and designers don't just draw and that's it. We are part of the planning process. And I am just so very proud of Towne McGarner and Our council and our planning department, you all do a wonderful job. And we really have had some of the best people that are part of our staff. You take things ahead of the game. You're kind of the first. You think about things ahead of time to be a representative of our town. To our returning commissioners and new newly appointed, always remember to keep the town and its residents in your planning process. What we do here is to make our town as well planned and designed as a place as possible. And our feedback helps to direct that. And we are always representing our residents. Each of you are representing a particular area of our town and its residents. And I'd like to leave that with everyone remembering that as you continue to go along. And if I can be of any service, please do reach out to me and my students. So thank you again and we leave you in good hands.

Well, as a token of our appreciation, we do have certificates for you, and you also will get to take your name tag as well.

Well, at this time, I am stepping down and I will turn over the role of chair to our vice chair, Mr. Carson.

And we will continue with the spurring in of our new members.

I, Kenneth Tapper, do solemnly and sincerely swear that I will support the Constitution and laws of the United States, that I will be faithful and bear true allegiances to the state of North Carolina and to the constitutional powers and authorities which are or may be established for the government thereof, that I will endeavor to support, maintain, and defend the Constitution and laws of said states, not inconsistent with the Constitution of the United States. To the best of my knowledge and ability, and that i will faithfully discharge the duties of my office as planning commissioner for the town of garner

I, Bruce Frederick, do the Constitution and laws of the United States that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to the state of North Carolina and to the constitutional powers and authorities which are or may be established for the government thereof that I will endeavor to support maintain and defend the constitutional laws of state not inconsistent with the Constitution of the United States to the best of my knowledge and ability and that I will faithfully discharge the duties of Commissioner for the Town of Garner, so let me go.

All right. We can proceed to the next item.

Okay, I guess we'll move on to item D, election of our 27 officers for chair and vice chair. So we'll open it up to nominations.

I would like to nominate Mr. Ralph Carson for chair.

Do you have a second?

I'll second that nomination.

Move forward with a vote on that.

All righty, there is... All right, there's a motion to nominate the chair and vice chair and I will call the vote. Shane Banks. Just, okay, apologies. There's a motion to nominate the chair and I will call the vote. Shane Banks. Aye. Mariah Bishop. Aye. Ralph Carson.

Aye.

Jihan Hodges. Aye. Ben Mills. Aye. Christopher Frederick.

Aye.

Kenneth Tapper.

Aye.

All right, the motion to nominate the chair is adopted or approved.

I WOULD LIKE TO OPEN THE NOMINATIONS FOR VICE CHAIR, AND I WOULD LIKE TO NOMINATE GIHANNA HODGES FOR VICE CHAIR.

I'LL SECOND IT.

OKAY.

THE MOTION TO NOMINATE THE VICE CHAIR, AND I WILL CALL THE VOTE, SHANE BANKS. AYE. MARIA BISHOP. AYE. RALPH CARSON. AYE. GIHANNA HODGES. AYE. BEN MILLS. AYE. CHRISTOPHER FREDERICK. AYE. KENNETH TAPPER.

AYE.

All right, the nomination to adopt our denomination for the vice chair is approved.

Before we move on to item E, the adoption of the agenda, I wanted to take a moment and thank Philip Jefferson and Michael Boylan for years of service and volunteering on the planning commission for the betterment of Garner. They always had the vision of garner front and foremost in their mind and through their diligent efforts we come together as a commission and voted on items and relayed that to town councils so they could make the ultimate decision but there's a lot of hours that goes into this and both of you were very unselfish and just continued to do all of the diligent legwork behind the scenes so when you came to the meeting everything was well prepared and Philip you did a great job as chair and I hope I can Following those footsteps, we've had some good leaders ahead of us, so I will endeavor to do that. I would like to welcome Jihan as the new vice chair. And I would also like to welcome Kenneth Tapper and Chris Frederick as new commissioners. So now you can do all the legwork that they did. But welcome, everybody. So the first motion is the adoption of the agenda. So do we have somebody that will make a motion to adopt the agenda? Do you need a motion?

I'll motion to adopt the agenda.

We have a motion. Do we have a second? I'll second it.

All right. There's a motion on the floor to adopt the agenda, and I will call the vote. Shane Banks? Aye. Mariah Bishop? Aye. Ralph Carson? Aye. Gian Hodges? Aye. Ben Mills? Aye. Kenneth Tapper? Aye. Christopher Frederick?

Aye.

The agenda is adopted.

Next item is the adoption of the regular minutes from several months ago, March 9, 2026. Do we have any comments or discussions on that before we move to a motion? Hearing none, do we have a motion to adopt the minutes as presented?

I'll make the motion to adopt.

Do we have a second?

I'll second. There is a motion on the floor to approve the minutes, and I will call the vote. Shane Banks? Aye. Mariah Bishop? Aye. Ralph Carson? Aye. Gian Hodges? Aye. Ben Mills?

Aye.

Kenneth Tapper? Aye. Christopher Frederick?

Aye.

The minutes are approved.

On to the next item, which is any old or new business. So I would defer that to Mr. Triesenberg.

No other business tonight. So we thank you for at least knocking out the organizational details. So you are all set up for the coming year. We do anticipate there being some projects at your August meeting. So there will be, can look forward to that. Other than that, I can get to reports if you would like. Sure, yes. Okay. So the transportation plan is probably the biggest thing that I wanted to just give you a briefing on. The consulting team has kind of moved out of the, what we call the listening phase and into the production phase. And so there are a lot of things that are in draft format or are coming out in draft format here fairly quickly. Staff and the technical committee are in the process of reviewing a lot of those materials and giving some feedback. All with the kind of express intent of then getting into more of the presentation of those draft materials here coming up in the late summer, early fall. So do be on the lookout for some of that to be coming forth. Of course, you all are part of, as a whole, part of that policy committee. You just had that one meeting. There's still one more to come as part of this process. But things are moving along fairly well. in terms of, again, just there's a lot of work going on right now to get the materials pulled together into the draft format that they need to be. So apart from that, I don't have anything else to report on unless you have specific questions about some updates on previous things, because I do know it has been a little while since we've met.

Anybody have any comments or questions for staff?

Will the draft transportation plan, will they present it here at the Planning Commission or be available online?

Yes, there's an official part where, of course, you all will be reviewing it to give your recommendation. But there will be advance drafts that come out for just the public review as well. So those will be posted and distributed. And there will also still be an upcoming... I don't want to call it a public workshop because it's really not so much a workshop, but there is a another public event that where all of these materials will be kind of unveiled to kick off that process. So yeah.

I'm going to let Jihan know now that August 10th meeting, she will have to be the chair for that meeting. I will be representing the American Legion post-71. There are several of us that will be traveling out of state, and we will be gone that week and leave it in Jihan's capable hands. just to give you a little advance warning. Please, Chair, so you can handle that. If there's no other questions, do we have a motion for adjournment?

I'll make the motion to adjourn.

Second.

Second.

Adjourned. Adjourned. Adjourned.

Thank you.