Town Council - Regular Meeting

and welcome to the town of Garner Council work session for February 24th, 2026. And of course, it's another beautiful evening in Garner. Spring is just around the corner. We have an exciting agenda this evening and not too long. That's the other good news. Uh, at this point I will ask the deputy town clerk to please call the role. Mayor Gupton here. Mayor Proim Dinger here. Council member Singleton here. Council member Matthews here. Council member Stallings here. Council member Vance here.

And that brings us to item C on the agenda this evening. And that is the adoption of the agenda. Uh, I believe council members have had a chance to look this over. If there are no objections or no further discussion, uh we'll accept a motion to approve the agenda. So move I'm sorry, Mr. Mayor. I had asked to I'd requested a close session be added to the agenda. Is that's on my agenda. I resend my motion. Say again. I said I resend my motion. I had said so.

Oh, you need you need to have that for the record. Okay. So be be aware that adding to the agenda that you received is also a closed section at the end. Okay, that being said is the only thing that perhaps did not show on your agenda. Is there a motion to adopt the amended agenda? So move. Mr. Stalin makes the motion and a second is by second. Mr. Vance. Okay. Uh so all in favor of adopting the agenda, please signify by saying I. I.

Any opposed by nay? Hearing none, we will move to item D, presentations. There are none of those this evening. We'll move right along to item E. Our discussion item of of the day, uh, is downtown opportunity site project update. And the introduction will come from our assistant town manager, John Hodes. Go, John.

So, thank you, mayor and members of council. Um, at your work session last week, we gave you a bit of an update and and some history on our downtown opportunity site that we've been working on for some time now. Um, and let you give you a preview of what we're going to be discussing tonight. Tonight we um have our team members from LMG. U Peter Floats is here as well as Connor Bath. U Nicole Jenkins, a member of their team uh that works on our team is not in person with us tonight. Uh and then also we have our consultants from DFI, the development finance initiative, uh Marcia Parrot and Eric Thomas, uh director and associate director. Um DFI has been working with us since the beginning of this initiative um to work on the the site uh and going out for bid for our development partner and then has been advising us along the way. So they are both represented here tonight. Uh LMG has a presentation that they're going to share with you and then we have some time for some discussion. The DFI team is here tonight to listen. Uh they are do not have a specific presentation, but they're here to listen to our uh conversation and any questions. Uh and then if we move forward uh with the proposal, then we'll be working with them as our consultants, continuing to work with them as our consultants on the project. Um I will note that there are revised slides at your each of your places tonight. These have some additional slides added to the beginning. We asked uh LG if they would go back and pick up where we left off with the history at the council retreat last week. So there's a few slides added to the beginning uh from what is in the packet that was not available last Thursday. So you have those more historical slides. So I'm going to uh get the slides up for LMG and turn it over to them uh for presentation. Um Nate I should have mentioned also that our economic development team Nate Groover and April Wood are here. Um, and then we also u may uh chime in a little bit as uh LMG is walking through some of

the the history and catching you up on where we've been uh with the project. So with that, I'll turn it over to Peter and Connor. Thank you folks. Uh for those of you who weren't here when we started, my name is Peter Floatz. I was a lot younger when we started this project. This was black. Um, and to, as John said, the purposes tonight is to catch some of you up on the history of what we've been working on here for the past few years. Um, and state our intent about moving forward at this point and try to get an understanding if you all agree that it's the appropriate time to move ahead or if there's other things you want to talk about or add or subtract. So, um, there's just twice as many heads as there were when we started. payroll keeps getting bigger every other Friday apparently. Um so in May of 22 we executed a development agreement that originally had required us to do somewhere between 60 and 80 units of apartments somewhere between 3 and 6,000 ft of retail and a target of about 150 140 parking spaces. Um, originally intended was that you all would participate in a partnership with us where there was a public parking garage that you would contribute five million dollars to and we needed to make sure that the project had some kind of meaningful public component to it. Um, in September of that year, we amended the MDA. Uh, we added units uh primarily because we were able to take advantage of some parking near the railroad. Uh we also wanted to get uh additional units in that had flexibility for workforce and some mixed income. Um we had uh 111 spaces available for you all to use and about a $24 million total development

cost at the time. Um unfortunately as things went forward from there, inflation took hold a little bit. I think uh we all live through the same thing. saying I don't have to tell the story over and over again, but between interest rates and cost of construction, what we had hoped for didn't come true. It ended up being about $7.5 million for the garage. Um, we started getting constrained by storm water issues in the area and we were in a a a market that just constantly kept surprising us in a bad way. Um, we couldn't find financing. we couldn't really make the returns work. Um, and so we were talking about maybe making the project bigger. And so some of what you see on here are sketches of bringing some of the buildings down on the south side of the central lawn there, trying to use some of the storm water areas to the west. Um, we were trying everything at that point to get the project to to make some sense. um year before last and last year we spent some time looking at maybe what we do is we do a smaller project where we don't do any sort of garage where you don't have to make any kind of investment. We do 24 units with an entire ground floor of commercial. That was very important to everyone from the town that we try to have some sort of retail presence and essentially not create what we would call a missing tooth in the smile where you've got commercial commercial commercial down that street and then suddenly you would have a hole and then the community center. We were trying to bring that commercial down. Um God bless Nate. He spent a lot of time meeting with and and you may want to tell the story on your own, Nate. Why don't you for a second if you want to talk about it a little bit, but we really needed to get tenant commitments to get this size of building

to work and that's what you're all as a good partner, your folks spent time on with us. And I Nate, I'll let you tell the story. I'll just keep talking about.

No, absolutely. the end. I kind of appreciate the um kind of historic look back on it and um was was going to start kind of when I got here. So, end of 2022, beginning of 2023, uh working with Mr. Hajes on okay, let's go out and uh recruit recruit some specialty retail and food and beverage in here. Um so, kind of understood uh a little bit of the program that was um preferred. So, reached out to my network. uh obviously in the economic development real estate community uh acting as a tenant rep uh for this project and uh with with a full understanding of you know that we were and are looking for um locallyowned food and beverage operators u that have a proven concept uh in in our region. So with that specific target um that we were trying to work with uh like Peter mentioned and appreciate his kind words uh really just started cold calling uh any any um restaurant tour or brewery or any any business in that kind of space of just trying to to spread the word of the project that we had and the asset that we had and the partner that we were looking for. Um, so that went on for a little while and then uh luckily April uh joined uh our team here and uh I think one of the first things we talked about was okay April you have a strong foundation here. So she started reaching out uh to the folks in the food and beverage community that she knew of. So I won't get into all the gory details of all the different uh you know first meetings we had and phone calls and folks just trying to explain what the project is. Uh and then that ultimately led us to kind of explore some other um solutions. So we reached out to some folks in the real estate community of okay what would it look like if um you tried to market this um uh site for us.

So and understood a little bit of the challenging nature of the cost and that um again without leaving out all the gory details that kind of brings us to where we are today. So I'll pass it back to Peter. Yeah. What was what was really important that your folks were very very helpful with was an understanding that on a on a project this small where one-third of the income would come from the commercial space, there was really no good way for us to get anyone to loan us money for the project without a commitment for that space. And to his credit, Nate had a beer at every brewery within 100 miles. And then April delicious non-alcoholic beer.

Yes. and April went and had a whiskey at every distillery and still we couldn't get anybody. So, um that brought us back to the original vision. Um we went back out to the contractor market. Uh that's what Connor's been doing for the past six months and priced the project all over again. And you know, you guys are doing this every day, so you probably see it on the front lines better than than we see it in terms of trying to zoom back out and look at the data. But because of how much multifamily in particular permitting has fallen off in the last say 13 14 months across the state. We were suddenly getting really aggressive pricing and getting cheaper pricing than we were getting two and a half years ago. And so suddenly the garage went from 7.5 million to 5 million, 5.5 million. The apartments came in about $2 million lower than we thought they were going to and the project suddenly starts making sense again in its original form. And so a lot of what we're here to talk with you about tonight is we very much were in love with what we were proposing at the beginning. We were bullish on it then and came back to you after four months and said we want to do more units than we originally said and we went from 60 or 80 to 100 and that's the project we want to build now. Um there's a fair amount is the next slide the market stuff that's the site plan. Um, I'm going to ask if you could kind of talk through from here on the market stuff that you were doing research on.

Y, Connor, we're at Tai, so pay attention.

Thank you, Peter. So, here's some of this the latest updates that I and the LMG team have been working on in the last few months, getting some of the latest numbers to where we are today. If you look at the GC pricing in the bottom left, those are all recent quotes from the last uh 45 days or so with the Weaver Cook number coming in the most recent. Someone we've got a lot of experience with and who they have personally said they really want this project for Q4. So I think that we're both the contractor and us are very aligned on trying to meet that number there. And then I don't have to talk about location. Y'all are very well aware for where this is. uh some market research that I've been doing on in terms of rent projections. Uh scrape just a standard co-star report that'll tell you where the average vacancies are today, which have slowly been creeping down over the last uh 12 to 18 months, even though they've been fairly high. And you can see the the average rents there of 1580. And then on the right side, I just did some personal research looking at properties that I thought were uh good comps, getting to that same asking rent of 1580. That's being advertised today. And a majority of those products that you can see on the screen are also offering um a fair amount of concessions, often one or two months. Just showing a lot of the weakness in the supply that's currently online, which is a big reason why none of the permits have been pulled in the last 14 months. And then you can see on the right there, the biggest takeaway from this one is the market asking rent has been extremely stagnant since the beginning of 2022. So even though there are still a lot of pressures in terms of asking rents in terms of affordability, in reality the asking rents per unit have been extremely stagnant, which all feeds into exam story from where these developers are coming from of rents haven't gone up in three years in this

market. It's pretty tough for us to break the shovel, but we kind of want to be on the forefront of that is kind of where my logic is. But Peter's one making decisions Uh this is just some more background data that we're looking at internally in terms of affordability. Our current market projections to where we think this product will come online as we believe that our asking rents would be around 1650 when they first come out of the ground which are at or below the 80% AMI in Wake County. We're not advertising this as an affordable product. That's just and we're not planning on making any motion in terms of that. Just showing where we are in terms of the rest of the market. This is where we're looking at for operating expenses. We've got several products in North Carolina that are on the smaller uh scale of things. The smaller the product, the more difficult it becomes from an operating standpoint. We've got some experience on what it takes to get those kind of products online. But for majority of developers, they're really looking for 180 units plus in order to get those operations at scale and create some efficiencies there. Uh, but this this is essentially showing how I use my underwriting to get to a 40% operating expense for this product. Here we've got our financial returns from an IR standpoint and yield on cost. If you look at the bottom there, we're currently showing in year three a 5.8% 8% return on cost, which is not quite the returns that are needed per Peter's guidance on what will make a project come out of the ground, but it is incredibly close. So that's why that 5.8 number probably wasn't as high even 12 months ago, but today it's starting to look more and more feasible. This is CPACE. It's another avenue that we've uh explored. We recent recently reached out to New Green Capital, someone they've already closed the first CPACE deal in North Carolina with uh we

were in contact with them last week about this project. They're extremely excited about us and gave those terms on the left that you can see there. Uh just rough today, but they extreme expressed extreme optimism in this project and also agreed that if it were to come to fruition, CPACE could could potentially be a good marriage if that were to all play out. What is Cai? Yeah, I was going to ask if you could explain CPACE because that's a term our council has not heard.

We're proud to say we closed the first CPACE loan in in North Carolina last summer. Um CPACE is a um method um of providing a it is technically not debt but it's technically not equity. It's a form of financing that comes through the tax assessor's office. Uh it is not public debt, it's our debt, but um it's underwritten primarily by New in this state uh who manages an awful lot of pension fund money. That's what they're doing is investing it. The money costs somewhere around 7% right now. Um and it's a way of substituting for equity. The money that you spend from CPACE has to be spent on energy efficiency of some sort, whether it's water use, air conditioning, electrical, whatever. Um, so it's not about necessarily solar panels as much as it is about making sure you're using efficient refrigerators, efficient air conditioners, you're doing water limiting, showerheads, and things like that that we do anyway. So, their program likes us. It's a it's a product that we don't have to change our design for. Um, and it helps us kind of climb up the capital stack a little bit, need a little bit less equity. Um, these are Connor's really pretty tables. Uh I don't know what they mean. Um and so what I think to wrap I don't know if you John want to say anything in conclusion we open up

really quick on CPACE. Let me just mention that um for us to be able to use that. I think Wake County is looking at adopting um an authorization that municipalities could tag on to. So stay tuned if if we move forward with things. will be coming back to you with more detail about details about CPACE and how Wake County is um potentially paving a path forward for us and other municipalities to be able to use it. So stay tuned for more about so clear the way the way the project or the way the system

the way the product works is the county it's been authorized at the state now it has to be adopted county by county and then once a county adopts it if you're in a municipality then the municipality has to has to also adopt it. They have written sort of blank page resolutions already that would authorize us to use the program. It costs you all nothing. It's not an obligation to the taxpayer at all. Um but it's as I understand they're deliberating now, right? They're starting to schedule public hearings. That's what I understand. So hopefully by the fall they'll have it ready and you all could be doing a resolution to just allow people to use it in your town. So with that, um,

could you just one more thing could you shed some light on for council when we talked about the most recent smaller project. It 30% of the project was going to be the commercial space at our request or assistance and that percentage didn't allow you to go get financing. Can you just speak to how the fact that with with more units and um the ratio of it still gives us significant commercial but it the ratio allows you to move forward with financing without committed tenants for the commercial.

Sure. Sure. So, um, both Fanny May and HUD limit and they guarantee our long-term financing ultimately in these multif family projects. They limit the amount of income you're allowed to have from commercial space relative to multifamily because they don't want their programs to be used for commercial developments. They want it to be used to build housing for people. So, somewhere between five and 7% of the income can come from commercial space. That's about where this is going to fall. I don't know what were you assuming any income from the commercial on $15.

Yeah. So $15. So we have the ability here now to go forward on a spec basis with this space which will be more likely that some of the good friends that Nate made during the process will come out once the building is up and actually want to lease space from us as opposed to us trying to get them to commit before there's even a building there. And when when we have we currently have leads that are just waiting to see where we go with this. And what they want to do is to be able to walk into a Shell building with steel standing and envision their concept in that space. And then if they think it's going to work, then they would work with LMG to say how much of the upfit, you know, is covered, how much is in my lease and so forth. And that's what we heard time and time again was

we literally had people standing on the green space beside the rec center going, "It sounds good, but I just can't envision how my concept's going to work standing on this green patch of grass." And so the the the ability to move forward without having the leases committed really gives us a huge leverage tool and and I really think two of the folks that we've been talking to forever are likely going to end up being tenants here. They just needed us to be able to get to the point of knowing construction was happening. Where's the timeline and how can I envision myself once there's steel standing around me? I hope one of them is the butcher. I it it was great. They were bringing us one tenant after another and every one of them had really cool concepts. It just that

that little bit of hesitancy and I don't blame them. It was risky for them. So with that, mayor, we hand the floor back to you. A question. Excellent. Hang on. Yeah. Excellent. Very excellent. Now it's our turn to ask some questions. Yes, sir. And we'll start with Mr. Dinger and we'll ask a question each and then we'll go back around and ask some more questions. Mr. Dinger. Okay. Just two, one on the commercial. You said all your projections are based on not non occupancy of the commercial space. It's just on the Okay. And another question. I wanted to see the pretty chart because I really wanted to understand what's going on here. Yep. This is a matrix. I don't even know how to draw.

This is a matrix that I made just using our current model that we're using based on all those numbers that I gave you. basically just showing that the project hard cost on the left for that bottom chart. Uh that was a variable for us for a while. What's what are the contractors going to come in at? So our most recent number just came in at 26.1 hard cost. And that using the top variable of 1650, which is what we're projecting our average rents to be uh at the time of first occupancy. You can kind of follow the chart across the middle there and get to that 5.8 number, which is what you also see in the top left of the chart. basically showing that using our current assumptions of $26.1 million as a hard cost with the 1650 average rent of stabilization, we get to a 5.8% yield on cost. So you can kind of see how those two levers pulling. Okay, if rents go up to 715 750, you know, two years from now project's going to pencil. If rents stay stagnant today at 1550 where they are, uh, you know, if rents don't move in two years, it will not pencil. So that's just kind of showing all the different situations across different options there.

And what's the the 5.78? That's the yield on cost. So total development cost divided by NOI over total development cost at uh year three of stabilization. And the range is that for the sake of just creating the graph and getting your numbers in there or is that's not related to any of your actual price point. Okay. So I'm just trying to make sure I understand. It's more him being tired of me saying what happens if the rent goes up a hundred bucks

or more likely down. And this will be ultimately the underwriting that lenders and equity investors do will follow exactly this. They'll stress test and say, "Well, what if you can't get the rents that you say? What if we get a recession and you have to give away a month of rent and now your net rent is down 200 bucks a month? What are you going to do?" And it's more for us to prove to ourselves that in fact we can still make the mortgage payments. So, thank you. A good opening round of questions and we'll come this way. Mr. Salons, questions, comments in general. I know you may be one of the newer ones of this project, so feel free to ask anything.

And and you said um the latte information and the affordable housing information was just for information purposes only. Okay, Mr. Singleton on uh the feasibility snapshot, how town support and reshape the deal. It it talks about the town contributions to the parking garage materially improve feasibility. That's something we already talked about. The the $5 million neighborhood is shown on here. $5.5 million is was shown on here. Correct. Yes, sir. It's the same one. Same one. Yes. what we agreed to

pointing out that to make the project work at the rate at this now that would still be a commitment that would be needed. I'm not getting to the right slide for you, but yes. Yeah, that's that's all right. It's it's just that's what stated on here. I know we talked about the 5.5. You said that the CPACE has to be done county by county. And John, you said we might have a resolution in the fall. Is that what you said? Um coming forward. I I don't have a timeline. We're tracking what Wake County is doing. We're assuming that Wake County is going to be adopting that and then once they do, we can tag on to that. So, similar to other things in which we join Wake County, our authorization would have to come at a local level after the county.

Okay. And so, we need to be approved with the CPAC program before you can move forward. Is that correct?

We are not telling you that at all. We're giving you some information. We're looking into it because we like that program. We're using it both in North Carolina and in New Hampshire. um we will look to take advantage of that. But if we get an offer for equity that's more advantageous for us, then that's what we'll do. I I just what we're we're going to end up I'll give you the punch line now. What we're going to end up asking you tonight is are you all comfortable with us going back to the original deal because that's where we want to go. What we all talked about and negotiated at length at that time, that's the deal we want to do. So if you're all good with that, that's where we want to go. Okay. and CPACE is just one of the financing options. That's cherry on the cherry on the top if we

It's one of the ones that will take an action by council. So, we wanted to make sure that you were aware of it now so that if you were to see something come up in the future about CPACE, it it was not unexpected to on your behalf that we were going to be bringing it forward. Okay? Nor will it be on our behalf. I want to make clear, we're not going to come here asking you to do it for us. Naveen would come or the CPACE program would come and ask you to do it. Period. And then it would be available to every developer in town. All right. Okay. Good. Good round. Mr. Matthews, nothing right now.

Okay. We'll come back to Mr. Vance and we'll go around again. But just let me remind everybody what we're doing here tonight is getting information. We're we're not making the agreement. We're not voting to approve this project. We're gathering information. We will be making a decision in March of whether to extend our our contract, our marketing or development agreement with LMG to proceed on this. So, this is we're not going to make a decision tonight. We're gathering information. We'll have other opportunities, but keep keep asking the great questions you're asking. Mr. Vance, I have no questions at this time. Okay. Mr. Mr. Dinger,

can you Yeah, it's been gone through different iterations. Can between you and John revisit the parking and I know at some point there was a lease back or something. Where does that fall into let me tell you where I'm coming from. Where I'm coming from is we have to pay if we decide to do it we have to pay for it right

and it has to pencil for us too. Um so trying to again kind of refresh our memory on any of those revenue streams associated with the property and the deal and since it's been quite a while. there there will be a purchase of the property that the project sits on from the town by LMG. Um and then we um we had worked into one iteration of this to do uh the town would purchase the parking structure back and at one point in time there was a lease back for some of the rental units. Now, Peter, I'm not sure if in the current market uh once we had the additional parking available on the railroad, which we didn't always have available to us or and putting you on the spot, but are y'all envisioning that we would still pursue the any lease back parking for your tenants or to be determined on that or what's

I think we'd come back at another meeting and talk about that because I I don't know. We have to really hone the numbers. that some of the pressure to do that is alleviated because we have the guarantee of the parking on the railroad and the last time we talked about that that was a sort of a dream and it's now u being bid soon so it's reality so uh we know we have those additional spaces to ease some of the parking crunch okay

dreams come true in Garner um you may also be remembering there was a conversation at one point where we talked about us financing the parking garage and leasing it back you so that you didn't have to write a check for $5.5 million. That's not on the table right now. I don't It's going to cost you more. It's probably the wrong way to do it at this point unless you tell us there's, you know, there's no other way. But well, I I think if council authorizes us to move forward with this, one of the things we want to go back to with our consultants is DFI is just look at all the elements that went into this and make sure that we're all three parties are taking advantage of all of the most uh the best opportunities that are available to us at the current time. Is that fair, DFI team? Okay.

And I think the last question for this round is with the sale of the property and the the price and that thing is sort of a refresher maybe from our town attorney on public good and what role it does or does not play in what's being proposed now would so because this would qualify as a downtown development project. We have a little more latitude than we do with other conveyances of property. But as the deal was structured, it would be a minimum payment for for that portion of the parcel um or the appraised value. And we had they had an appraisal done um last year. I think

you all Yeah. So So we have that that value. Whether that needs to be updated in the future, we'll have to look at. Okay. Thank you. That's the only questions for Excellent. Mr. Stalin, another round of questions. Oh, no question.

Okay. Well, I'll I'll go ahead and interject one thought that I've had in this. This is a a relatively new concept for the town. This partnership this particular way to go. Uh and we we're all in favor of boosting downtown. I think it's safe to say I have to say that particularly with with Nate and April sitting right there. Uh you know, downtown is very very important. This is a key part. We want to see it happen. That's for sure. One of the questions I'm going to be asking throughout this process as we get input from DFI or consultants about the financial end is how does this work financially? Uh if the town invests $5 million for example, how long will it take us to justify that through the property tax, the sales tax, not to mention the soft development project thing that we want, not to mention the generalized good, not to mention the good we might do with some affordable housing, etc., etc. Just what are the numbers? if if we if we invest X million dollars, how long will it take us to recoup our money through the property tax and through the sales tax? So, that's something you'll be hearing a lot and we should be asking that. Council should be asking that on every single project, particularly commercial projects as well as residential developments. What are the cost? What are the benefits? Is this a charity case or is this something that will add to the the town's revenue at the end of the day? Net revenue. Mr. Mayor, we'll be ready to answer those questions as we although I don't know if that's a DFI role or a developer role that then DFI ter

I think we'll all share in answering that question. I think currently though, mayor, I'll answer it this way. Currently, this project would be um uh owned largely by DFI with the exception of the parking structure. Should should the town buy that back, we've got to figure out how that would long-term factor into the valuation of the property. John, not to not to interrupt, but I'm not giving it to DFI. It's an LM it's an LMG project.

I'm sorry. Did I say that backwards? Sorry. Um, but so so basically, you know, they're looking at a building, a structure that would probably have somewhere in the range of a $30 million tax valuation. We've got to figure out how the parking deck would be structured. If it's if it's owned by us, would it be tax exempt, which it traditionally would be, unless we look at a different mechanism to hold the parking deck. Um, so then we would we would realize, you know, in rough numbers the the tax revenue off of a $30 million project. So that's probably in the $150,000 a year kind of range right now currently. Um, but that it would be it would go on the tax roles as taxable and it would be a mix of commercial and residential.

Exactly. And that's why we've engaged DFI, Marcia, and Eric to help us figure this out. What's the ownership structure? What's the lease back? What's the period? how how does it work to our to everyone's advantage in the long run. So, we're glad to have the teamwork on this. Still a little new to us. And moving right along to Mr. Singleton. Yes. John to confirm on the the 39 annual parking spaces on Main Street. You said that's getting ready to go out to bid. Yes. Is that what you said? Um it is on the March 3rd uh agenda to award to award the bid. So, it's it's already been out for bid. It will be awarded I should have said March next week. Yes, sir. Okay, that's okay. Thank you,

Mr. Matthew. Okay, let's start back. No, let's end with Mr. Vance on this round. Uh, yes. This may be a far-fetched question. Any way of determining the the tax return on this project to the town? Yes, sir. That that's the the $30 million valuation is what we're thinking. And, you know, that current day that would roughly be $150,000 a year in tax revenue. U, that could fluctuate. Again, we could structure the ownership slightly different on the parking debt, but in big round numbers, it's it's a positive return to the count to the to the town. Um, you know, the the first year it's on the books. Okay. Thank you.

Yeah, those are indeed the kind of questions we'll be working through uh as as we re-engage to study this before we make a final decision to spend our money in this way. Uh, and it's it's very important. One of many many details. Another detail I'll go ahead and tell you, one of the secret dreams of several of us here is that we end up with a rooftop meeting place on here. But we think Nate could do a lot better in his economic development. When he sits up there on the fourth floor, he looks and say as you can see that was the mayor prom's line, wasn't it? You guys are switching on me. He had that idea, too. Golly, what a what a visionary. What a visionary. Great mind.

All right. But but think about Nate sitting up there w with an economic development prospect and we can see Raleigh. We can see the capital shining. He can point and say there's Interstate 40 and just beyond those trees that's 540 and just look at what you're looking at here. They'll be signing on the dotted line. I know they will. So noted mayor. Okay. And let's keep ask another round of questions. Mr. Dinger, I'll I'll second the roof.

Yeah. Thanks. I appre um couple other questions. Um ju just to reiterate what's been said. I think really that conversation about what is the the net cost to the town over and over what period of time and what offsets there are going to be for that. Um you mentioned the storm water and how it initially had been issued. How was that resolved? It is not resolved. So storm water for this project is resolved. Right. So the storm water for this parcel is included in the um SCM that was built when the rec center was built. Once this is done, then we're pretty much capped out. Well, we are capped out for downtown

for everything for downtown. So, Miss Harrison has been working on downtown stormwater study, have gotten some preliminary information back that we'll be packaging to share with you. But the the the short uh highle answer is there's some opportunities we think for doing some regional storm water so that when Peter gets to come back and build his six-story building that the rooftop bar will be even more attractive from, then there's some from that one that there's some opportunities to do that. So, this one does not need any storm water. It is in the counts for our current SEM. I like the idea of dueling rooftop. That's amazing. Great concept. Yeah. Yeah. Um Yeah.

The other kind of question I have too and is we it sounds like we have a lot of work to do on some of the the parking and the numbers and the cost on our side and and your side. um in looking at the numbers and the rents and what they are now. You know, we've had two years of an affordable housing task force doing work and defining that and you've drastically increase the number of units which is good. Um, so I think there's some conversation to be had around some of those being, you know, our our definition that we came through of two years of work really to meet the needs of sort of staff level is 50 that 50% AMI level. Mhm.

And so it'd be nice to have some conversations around a few of those units sort of being there or being offered or however we work that because I think in thinking really long term about it. We want to have try to build in some affordability permanently into anything we do and again it's a part of the public good or part of the numbers and how we swap that out or um but just that probably be part of the conversation. We're not talking 20%, we're not talking 10%. Understood. just uh we want to make sure we're setting a good example for everyone who wants to do business here. So, um that's all the questions I have I think right now. Did you think another question?

Um yes. I'm trying to wrap my head around this project being being the new guy on council. Um so, first quick question. So, this is bigger. The 26 version is bigger than the 2425 version, right? We're back to the original vision which was in 22.

Okay. So, in the 2425 version, I know it says on the presentation, the town support has shifted towards tenant recruitment versus garage funding, and certain tenants were hesitant to be the first anchor downtown. Um, and I know in the 26 version, we have um some commercial some retail seemingly at the bottom. Are we going to run into any problems with the recruiting of retailers for the commercial space at the bottom?

Well, I I think uh Nate might have spoken to that and I'll I'll I'll welcome his addition to whatever I say, but the the bottom line is we we had a fair number of people that were very interested in being here. We had nobody who was willing to sign on the dotted line for a lease until a building was up. And so what bringing more units in does is it dilutes the effect of that commercial on our proforma allows us to get the building financed because we're not depending on that commercial income to make the difference between feasibility and infeasibility and then have the space available no different than we did in Canapapolis or in Concord and Gastonia and the other places we've worked where then we're bringing people to a empty shell and they can envision their space in So again, I hope it's the butcher. Um I know we want an ice cream store, Alderman. I'll go ahead and say that ahead of time before you get a chance to next time. Um a rooftop ice cream store was his ask last time. Um Mr. Stallings, I'll add on to that with an answer. Um again, this goes back to that ability to build the building and have the shell there to lease. I fully believe that a couple of the tenants who we had talked to previously and may still be in the running are going to likely be contenders for this space when it can be start to be built before they have to make a commitment. We've got folks who want to be in downtown Garner. We have folks that understand that they could be sort of trailblazing with bringing us some dining establishments that we don't currently have. They the risk was just so great to them to sign a lease before anything was done. And we were literally about I mean when we were we were about to come to you to say when the April 15th agreement expires the only way we collectively see a path forward is if the town were to guarantee a lease for the whole 10,000 square ft of commercial. And none of us think that's a good idea. So that's how that's how

much we had had tapped out the the market with that structure and that's when Peter's team went back and said we think we figured out a way to bring the other program forward. So, we don't believe that it we will have any trouble with the the 5,500 square foot of feet of commercial space and and that's bigger. The 26 commercial space is bigger than the 20 25.

The original was 5,500 uh square feet of commercial space. When we changed the building dramatically, we we sort of roughly said, "Okay, just make the whole foot plate of the first floor commercial." Well, part of part part of what we realized is it was hard to lease that without a building being there. We also realize that 10,000 square feet is a lot for us to absorb if you think about the fact that that pretty much doubles our commercial square footage for most of our downtown already. And so we think the original 5,500 square feet that we were all excited about several years ago was a very meaningful amount to add and we think it's probably probably two of the the anchor type restaurant tenants um would be able to fit in a 5,500 foot space. Most of our interest was in the 2,000. the 2500 to 3,000 square foot uh in range was the interest we had and that pretty much fits our two two of our our key u our key prospects perfectly

plus an ice cream store plus an ice cream store. Don't forget it's ice cream store. An ice cream store for those who weren't there came up um in our community meeting we had many years ago. So Peter is going to make sure that he that y'all know that he has not I may be serving ice cream in there. It was a big topic at the community meeting. So Peter Peter mentions it sort of in justest to make sure you know he he was listening at that community meeting. Maybe we perk a good humor.

So I got one last question. It's kind of piggybacking off of Councilman Vance's question. So I know you John had quoted a number of what the town would receive in terms of of revenue off of this project. Um but how much of that is contingent upon the commercial space being successful? Well, the the building will go on the tax rolls at the appraised value when it's completed. And so that the tax bill will be the tax bill. And so that will really not I mean ideally for Peter to be able to pay the tax bill, he's going to want it to be leased. But the the tax assessor's office does assesses the property with its proposed value and it's not it's not really dependent on it being um completely dependent on it being vacant or not yet. But I know also in in the larger picture of things if there are retail businesses there there will be some sales taxes that may find back to

yes sorry my numbers were not trying to make any estimate of sales tax because that's far too complicated of a formula that's handled a very different way and so sorry I should have clarified mine was just a round number for property tax only and any additional that would be from sales beverage prepared food taxes all of that would be on top of that but not something we could project.

Exactly. And that's where we'll be looking to not only our development partners, but our financial consultants to help us figure out the best way to structure this, what's realistic, so that at the end of the day when hopefully the the town invests in this project, there will be some return in the long run that at the end at the end of the day, we're coming out ahead moneywise or we're getting our money's worth. Uh, and we're getting the the other benefits that we think this brings. And I just want to second also the thoughts on affordable housing. We have spent a lot of time thinking about this. And while we understand that it's not appropriate for this whole thing to be affordable housing for for a number of reasons, we've also learned that for everyone that's below average rent, there needs to be one somewhere that's above average rent or above average sale price. So one of the details we may be talking about further particularly in in uh concert with our financial consultants is that uh there in addition to some affordable units there could be some superior units that are immediately adjacent to the ice cream store on the 41 first

I think so. Sure. Sure. Ice cream convenience is important amenity in our buildings. Yeah. There's room there's room room for both in here. Creativity and that's why we're working with LMG. Mayor, I would say, and you've heard the story before, but I'll say it for those that weren't here at the beginning of this, um, LMG is not an affordable housing developer, right?

We're not a LITC developer. We don't know how to do those things. We don't pretend to. However, there's not a project that we've done in the past decade that did not have some component of affordability in it because every city council, every board of alderman in the country right now has that on their minds. And so, we're being asked, you know, can you put 5% in, can you put 10% in or whatever? And we always do. So,

excellent. Thank you. And again, my last comment on affordable housing, the other thing that we've learned is that uh I can quickly drown in the details. I can drown into the statistics. I I can focus on stories where we can pick 10 or 20 of our employees here at town and say, "How would it help you to be able to live there at any one of these things? What what's in it for our employees? What's in it for our firefighters, our police, our town staff, etc. And it's things sometimes it's beyond money. It's the ability to be first in line. Those kind of things. Some creative approaches. And we'll keep seeing if there's any other questions. Mr. Singleton.

Yes, sir. A couple more. The storm water uh you said this will max out what has been developed down there. Is that mean the existing stormwater device at the corner of Monu 70? That that'll be max that up. Okay. Uh the parking how many spaces will that will be built under this? Back to the original 102 unit. How many? 140 spaces. 140 spaces. Okay. And that in was that 140? uh that includes the spaces that the the parking structure will be on top of. So I think there'll be a total 140, but it would it that would include a reconfiguration of spaces that are on the ground. So it's not going to be a net ad of 142. It will be a total of 142.

Once it's once it's redone, it'll be 142 space some space on the bottom and the other space for the tenants up top. Okay. Yes, sir. All right. And mayor, it sounds like you're looking for higher higher uh to balance out uh rents. It looks like that four story floor that our economic development team is going to be sitting on. Might be but might be the highest uh per square foot leasing spot they're going to be up there serving beverages and looking at downtown Raleigh. Uh I don't think we want to call it a lounge. But anyway, that's what it sounds like you're snaking it sound like. But anyway, um thanks for the information on the on the parking. That's Matthew question. Nothing. My concerns everybody's already talked about and uh me and I have one.

Yes. Yes, sir. Uh Peter, I know last year we took a trip to Canapapolis and Concord and we saw how LMG were made developments that were unique to each one of those municipalities and uh what are your thoughts about as we move forward and we start to revise the plans? How will this fit into the the Garner historical district? What's your thought process there now?

Right. So, we're highly sensitive to context. It's one of the reasons this is a this is a three-story building on the front and a four-story building in the back, not a sevenstory building like we built in Canapapolis. Canopoulos wanted as much density as they could possibly get as fast as they could get because those poor folks had had 4,000 people lose their jobs overnight and the mill disappear and then it was empty for a decade. and they were looking to make a really significant impact very very quickly. We have to fit in if we expect people to live here. The most important part of what we want to do is bring 102 new families into downtown. That's going to have and DFI will bear this out when we're looking at the numbers, but those people living in the downtown will make more of a difference. Not just about money. I mean, it'll there will be taxes and they'll be act, but they'll go into the businesses that are there today to help ensure that they stay open and they're supported. They'll help support new businesses that we'll bring to the downtown. But most important, you'll have people in the downtown and that's what makes it safe and it what it's what makes more people want to live there. So, this is a stepping stone. The places we build are places for his age, not yours and mine. But then they grow up, they buy a townhouse, they buy a house, you now have a Garner resident for life. And that's what we're trying to do is just kind of get that entry going. Again, it's not necessarily affordable, but it's there at a price point because of the size of the units that we build that an awful lot of people can afford it. The Canapapolis project is full of we have a fair amount amount of nurses in there. We've got people from the planning department at the city living in there. The fire chief was living in our building for a while. I mean, we, you know, that's who lives there in

Garner. Three of the city council people live in our mill building. Um, I guess you guys don't get paid much, but they, you know, we have police officers living in that building. It's it's like that's the product we're building and that's what we want to do. And I would like to add that uh if I'm not mistaken the the revitalization of Concord, there was a there was a maintaining of historic facades that were also used to uh be u for for the development which I which I saw was very interesting how you how LMG blended uh the historical aspect into the modern aspect as well.

Yeah. In fact, we bought a couple of the historic buildings around us because the owners were afraid we couldn't protect them while we were building. And so, we bought the buildings from them. And we have, in fact, restored them. And this morning, I signed I signed a lease for one of them at a new restaurant's coming into downtown there. Have you been back since they did their streetscape? It looks terrific. It's Oh my gosh, it looks so good. Yes. Okay. Very exciting. Yes. Well, thank you for that. That's all I have. Good. Maybe we get another tour to go see before and after. Rent the bus. Let's go. Yeah, it it was worth it. And John, would you like to give us a little wrap up here about what what we're trying to do tonight?

Yes, sir. So, our our desired outcome from our direction from council tonight was consensus to move forward revisiting um the master development agreement based on the concept as presented in consultation with DFI. Uh, and I will just note that as was mentioned, I think the mayor mentioned earlier, um, a next step will include either the execution of an amended master development agreement or an extension of the existing agreement on the April 7th agenda ahead of the current April 15th expiration. So, that is not a need to rush, but we will have to count council's action on some document on April 7th just because our current extension expires on April 15th. So, we're looking for consensus to move forward tonight and then also an understanding that you'll see a document that could be the new document if everything's going great and we we're ready for it or it could be an extension of our current an extension of our current one just so that it keeps everything moving.

Yeah, I think that's the bottom line. We're not here to vote tonight. As we mentioned, we're going to have opportunities to vote. We had lots of good ideas, lots of concerns outlined here tonight. Uh and certainly I I personally I don't have a vote here uh and we were not going to take a vote but it certainly seems that we want to move ahead to continue to talk about this and then we'll decide in April whether to extend uh the consulting agreement or or move directly into the master development agreement have have several options but clearly we want to be working on this idea between now and April. That that's my thought and that's and I guess you're looking for just looking back to move forward tonight.

I think what would be helpful if we decide to move forward is for staff to create a timeline so we can kind of see where all these decision points need to be to keep it moving forward if we decide to move forward, but also timelines for getting some of the information we're requesting back on taxes and conversations around parking and all that kind of stuff. So they also kind of be aware of what our schedule and timeline is for having those conversations. I guess my my go question about the the agreement is would all is the I guess we would have all those details set by April 7th probably. So

probably not. So more than likely you'll see an extension um and an update as to where we are on April 7th. when we settle all that stuff that would go into another revised. So actually if we were just to if we were to continue working on a revised MDA what we would probably do if we're not ready to bring you that back is we would just bring you an extension. So the last time you approved extensions you authorized us to each request another one without coming back to council. We've utili we've used those up. So, this would probably be a very simple one-pager that just extends the current document we're working under just to keep our our relationship going forward. And then you would get back the the revision to the the master development agreement for this project at a later time. Thank you. That answered that.

Excellent. Yeah. And just a reminder, too, even though we don't plan to have this on our official agenda until April, there's still plenty of time for questions to be asked, ideas to be floated, communication. we can do some little mini tutorials uh for council. Just please share any any thoughts, questions, should you give us the authorization to move forward tonight, just share any of those that information with the manager and we'll incorporate it into our discussions. Excellent. Excellent. So, were we kind of given the thumbs up to keep moving ahead on this? Is that kind of a signal? Okay. Yeah, I'm seeing head shaking.

Can I make one comment? your time. This timing is really good because uh when this project was initially proposed uh down around uh the uh Garner baseball area, none of that had been developed out yet. Now all those town homes are being developed and it wraps right up to the uh to the uh the center right where you're going to be at. So on the retail side there and all that's walkable which is something great and uh so that be a little bonus on it uh as we move forward it's going to be even more business there especially on the commercial side and uh so uh that that was a little added bonus I for how many units were down there do you recall on the town homes built

30 28 it looked like 30 28 28 and they're very nice and it's a good looking project and they're selling goes now. So, yep. I think the time is really good on this whole deal.

Mayor, if I may, uh, just one last comment. I want to express to you our gratitude for John and his team. They have been talking to us now at Nauseium for four years, every week. I think it's every Tuesday. Um, and they don't give up. Um, and all joking aside, they've worked as hard as anyone on our team to try to make this move forward. They've entertained options. We've been in lots of very creative sessions. So, similar to this meeting tonight, I love coming to Garner. You folks are easy to talk to. It's like sitting around the living room and talking about an idea. And that's the way we want to do our projects is we do them together as partners. Um, and again, without John and his team, uh, we'd have given up a long time ago. So, you've got a great cheerleader here. We appreciate it.

Well, thanks. Thanks for the observations. We're excited to have our team working on it. The three-way, three major partners here. We're really glad everybody's help is going to take every bit of it. Thank you. Looking forward to success. We'll be break ground before the end of the year. That's our goal. Wow. Thank you, Mayor Council. That's good news. Thank you very much. And that brings us to item F on our agenda, updates to council. And we'll start with manager reports. Manager Miller. Yes. Good evening, mayor, members of council. First um report this evening is the development activity map and I'll ask Mr. Trezenberg to step up to the podium to review the activity map.

Good evening, mayor, council members. Um unlike last month where we were catching up and there was probably a little more to talk about, uh not much new to report to you this month. Um there is one project that has been added uh to the map and that is uh this project here at 108 Garner Station. Uh it's a continuation of the flex commercial industrial office space um that is already out there. Um so nothing really out of the ordinary. Um again uh fairly large flex industrial space um for this some uh employee parking in the front and some ve uh truck tractor trailer uh bays in the back. Um, so other than that, that is the only project that is new, but I'm happy to either take back any questions or um touch on any of the other things that are on the map if you would like. Um, but this is just a site plan application. So, this one is being re reviewed for administrative compliance with the rules in the UDO.

Okay. Any questions for Mr. Trezenberg? We'll start with Mr. Matthews in questions. Uh, no sir. Mr. Singleton. So, I'm assuming you know this that the the tractor trailer uh entry would be from this the road from behind it between that and lot 109. That is correct. Okay. I didn't I just it wasn't clear when I This is just a Yes. Not off of Not off of Linux, please. Thank you. Y Mr. Talons, no questions. Mr. Dinger, no question. Mr. Vance, no questions. Okay. Thank you very much. That was short and to the point.

All right. A second item before you is your March 2026 pending agenda report. U just want to spend a few minutes on this council. Uh this is this is the the first time we sort of talked about the new format publicly for the pending agenda report. Uh this report moving forward will look like this. We're actually able to create the pending agenda report in our escribe agenda software. So you are seeing it as it's going to appear uh in the uh agendas for your upcoming meetings. What that allows us to do is also add some additional information on the the items included in the pending agenda as council's requested. So um as we move forward, it's going to be a few more pages because it's actually in the agenda format. Um but it's going to provide more information to council members and the community about upcoming items. So, I just want to spend a few minutes walking you through uh what we have planned for the March meeting. There have been a few things that we'll be adding to the agenda that came out of our retreat that I want to highlight as well. So, looking first at to your first meeting in March, which is March 3rd, under presentations, we'll have our annual PFM investments update. And so, this is the firm that we use to help manage our investments. And so they come every year to provide an update on the town's investment portfolio. Under consent agenda, as you as you heard earlier, the bid award for the Main Street parking project will be coming forward to council as well. Um, under new old business, uh, the, uh, conditional reszoning requests for the Rock Quarry Assemblage Project, if council recalls, this was a case continued from your February 17th meeting, will be coming back at your March 3rd meeting. Uh, there'll also be um coming back to council as comp plan

implementation, residential, and mixed use. This is work that we've been talking about for a while. Coming back to council for final discussion and possible action. And then the Bennett North Apartments project, the uh resolution for authorizing affordable housing bond issuance will also be coming back at your March 3rd meeting. Looking ahead to your March 17th meeting, we have a few other items um that we'll be adding to this agenda. Um, first under the consent items, two items that came out of your retreat at the end of last week was one to move forward with our storm water utility study. And so we'll be bringing forth a budget amendment to fund that study and that'll be part of your consent agenda. Also, council spent quite a bit of time on Friday afternoon talking about your rules and your code of ethics and there are some updates and revisions to that. So, we'll be working on providing that to council ahead of this meeting. If everyone on council is comfortable with all the the final edits, we'll be adding that to the consent agenda for approval as well. Looking forward to your public hearings on March 17th. Uh we will have our initial FY27 budget hearing as well as uh opening up and introducing our budget portal for the FY27 budget. I have a I have a question about the the budget hearing. What information will be available to the public prior to the hearing to give feedback on?

So, so we'll we will post the slide presentation that council saw at the retreat. Uh really the the initial public hearing is an opportunity for for comments and questions and and information sharing in terms of what the community thinks about the upcoming budget. it helps us sort of um kick off our community engagement work with the budget process. So, we'll we'll share those slides. Thank you.

Excuse me. And looking ahead to new old business on the 17th. Um some right ofway and easements for the Lyall's property. So, that will be coming forth and we will also be adding additional information and discussion under signature authority. Council's been discussing this and we'll be bringing that back for further consideration. And then you have your standard monthly reports including the talk of the town as well. And finally, moving ahead to your March 31st work session, we've got several discussion items um scheduled for the the work session. The first is a continuation of the code revision project, an update on that. Uh if you recall, the council has been working with the legal services team on those updates. Uh we'll be looking uh to finalize the town's legislative agenda as well. We're hoping to have more information about some of the issues that were going to be uh discussed and become topics during the short session. So, we we'll be bringing that back for final discussion and approval for council. Another topic that came up during your retreat last week was council wanting another opportunity to kind of check in on the FY27 budget and CIP sort of new information things we're working on. And so we're going to dedicate some time at your work session to provide any updates on that work as we continue to move forward. And then we also have our manager reports looking at our development activity map which we've done this evening. And then uh we will be looking ahead to your April uh meeting agendas as well. So that is a brief uh update and review of the append of the um pending agenda. As as always, these are the things that we know about now. There may be some items that are added to the agenda as we

get further into March. We'll make council aware of those items um if they if when they're added. um as well as some things may get moved around a little bit to help with the load balance for the meetings as well. So, I'm h happy to answer any questions that council has. Yes, sir. On the uh where was that here? The legislative agenda. Um is it possible we could have uh Mr. Bridges come in and maybe kind of update us on anything really important or pinning out there that we need to be aware because I know there's lots of things but just anything that's really big we need to be paying attention to that he might be aware of because understand there's some things kind of floating around out there and it would be nice to know what is the status

certainly. Yeah, we'll reach out to Mr. Bridges and make him aware and ask him to be prepared just to provide a brief update. Appreciate that. Thank you. Other observations, questions, as based on our conversation tonight, would the work session on the 31st be too soon to bring some of the LNG work back? I don't know what the staff's thoughts were. I guess John's out there on timeline for back and forth.

I'm not sure yet, but I'll make a note of that. And if if I feel like we've got some updates and things to share with council, we'll provide it at that work session. And also be nice, I think, by the end of March to do kind of a consolidated update on housing affordability track information like where those different parallel pieces are uh at the end of March would be helpful too. I think certainly we can look at that.

Um any other questions from council? Uh the final thing I want to uh just share with council and I'm very excited to to share this with you this evening is that we are uh kicking off and launching the civic academy uh program tomorrow. Uh we it'll information on how to apply for our civic academy will be available on the website starting tomorrow. If you recall, we had a presentation to council back in November, uh, where we shared with you we wanted to bring back what used to be Garner 101, our citizens academy, and we re rebranded it to our civic academy. I'm excited to relaunch that this spring. The classes will be over the April May time frame. Uh, and we'll be in coordination with some of the other citizenmies that we have with uh, public safety. So excited that we're able to bring that back. uh looking forward to sharing that with the community and please tell all your friends and neighbors and residents that the opportunity is there and we encourage people to apply for it.

How many do we have at that last one you recall? So I I don't know um I don't know that we've had one of one of the courses since I've been with the town. So we we stopped around the COVID period just because it was hard to get people it together in person and so um this is an opportunity to kind of bring it back since co So Rick will be blasting out there. He will. We're going to be posting on social media. We're going to be sending news releases out. Uh we're going to be posting on our website. Um so please share the information when it's posted tomorrow.

Very exciting. Very exciting. and very exciting to look into the future and see agendas three meetings out. Three meetings out that we know they'll change. There'll be additions and deletions, but this gives us a lot of thinking room, a little more runway. Thank you very much. And that brings us to attorney reports. No report this evening. Okay. Uh then that brings us right back to council reports. And let's And this is not just uh your committee reports, but any council reports. And let's start with Mr. Matthews,

just a quick comment. I thought, and I had shared this with the staff and and Miss Miller earlier tonight, I thought that our retreat work session was really great. I enjoyed the networking with all the staff and having everybody there. Mr. Pool's dynamic kickoff uh on that first day was kind of hard to follow. And uh but I think we accomplished some really good things there. And uh and the theme of it just taking our town to the next level is was was a mo motivating thing. We got so much going on and there's communities and and I know Grace shared down east towns do anything to have what we got going what we got going on here. And uh so uh but I thought it was an excellent retreat. We got a lot a lot of direction got put out there and plus we fellowshipped a little bit had some some time together and but and I ideally love that location. It was really great and thank you for the Rebecca and her partner providing all the food and all. It was really good. So you got a hard one to talk next year. Let's go back out there though. That's all I got. Mr. Mayor.

Excellent. Mr. Singleton. Yes. And I will agree with what Mr. Matthew said in regard to the retreat, uh this is a great location. They uh different chairs will make a big difference. Uh those of us who sit on the old chairs uh but uh it it much much more comfortable. Uh yeah. Yes. Appreciate the information and uh um it is a good location. And quick question to follow up on the future of the agenda. You said, Miss Miller, you said there was going to be some information about the budget at the March 17th meeting. Is that what you said? Did I get that correct or I missed that?

Yes. So, um, if you recall, as part of our overall budget schedule, uh, what we do in the the March time frame is we do our we kick off our community engagement work with the budget. And so, part of that is providing an opportunity through a public hearing for for residents to come and share any thoughts and ideas they have on the budget as we're putting the pieces of the budget together. Uh the second is the opportunity to kick off our online portal which is a 247 type of opportunity for residents to provide feedback and comments on the proposed budget. So that will kick off our engagement work that will take us all the way through the end of June.

Okay. Thank you. And also a followup to the email I got from Mr. pool of the question I asked at the last meeting about the how the uh dollars from Wake County hotel motel tourism funds are are distributed and I appreciate that information. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Stal. Um definitely want to ditto Councilman Matthews um sentiments. I thought the retreat was amazing especially by it being my first one. We covered a lot of different topics. um enjoyed the fellowship, enjoying hearing from staff, and I think we're off to a great start as a town.

I I'll echo that. Um I think it was a great opportunity for all of us to just sit and talk. And I think assistant manager Paul said it best. When we all agree, we're we're dangerous. And so I think through the process of of having these conversations, we may not agree 100%. But we agree enough that we need to do something. When we get to that point, we're really a force to be reckoned with. I think we kind of saw that when it came to housing affordability and pushing some of those things forward in the retreat and emphasizing the importance of of momentum on those things. So that was good to see as well. So it was a it was a great retreat. Best one I've been to. We should do it every quarter. We used to have a treat.

Yeah. Tom manager didn't hear that. Well, I've done every other corner. Well, uh, a lot has been said. Can't add to it. I agree. It was one of the best retreats that I've been a part of since I've been on the council. Learned a tremendous amount about myself and my fellow council members and also the staff. And uh, looking forward to a great year. Excellent. Excellent. And that brings us around uh we finished up the council's business at the work session. I understand there is a need for a close session this evening. Uh our town attorney could give us the details on what we should do next.

Yes. U Mr. Mayor requesting that uh council enter a close session pursuant to um North Carolina General Statutes 143-318.113 to discuss pending litigation and a potential settlement agreement. So move. There was a motion by Mr. Stallins and second and a second by Mr. Vance. Uh if there's no discussion, all in favor of moving to a close session, please signify by saying I. I. Any opposed by nay. Hearing none is unanimous. Let's move to a close session. We will return here.

from our closed session back to the open session. I'm going to ask attorney Jones to uh summarize what occurred in the closed session. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. um council met in close session and provided the attorney with um direction on uh settlement negotiations and authorize the town manager to execute the settlement agreement um should um the agreement meet the town's interest. Thank you very much. And that concludes the report there. Uh if there's no further business that the council needs to address this evening, I would accept a motion to adjurnn. So move. So moved by Mr. Allen second by second

Mr. Vance. Uh if there's no discussion all in favor of adjournment signify by saying I I

opposed by nay hearing none. Meeting adjourned. Thank you. Baby, hey.