City Council - Regular Meeting

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we get to something where that our uh our system is still getting prepared then we can vote by hands. We got backup plans right. So with that, welcome everybody. Uh distinct uh privilege to be able to welcome uh Troop 258 from Pine Forest Church uh Boy Scouts. A wonderful surprise. Great to see everybody there. If y'all don't mind standing just for just for half a second. Thank y'all for being here. [applause] Now y'all sit down. That's the only time I'll call attention to you. So the rest of the night y'all can uh y'all can relax. And if y'all do see that uh at a certain business point, if you hit the the time aotment that you need to step out, just step out that way and we'll we'll make it work. So with that, that is our call to order. We will begin this meeting in our traditional uh traditional pattern of having an invocation this time by our archbishop Slater, our fire chaplain, followed by the pledge of allegiance.

Good evening. Good evening. Let us pray. Our father and our God, we thank you for this moment of gathering and with the meaning of the minds. We thank you for the heroes of the day, the ones who are out there in the public. God, we thank you, Lord, for our council and all that they're doing and even the city of Gold as we grow and as we go. Father, we thank you, Lord, as you continue to bless us and even bless those who are on the way and even those, Lord God, that are here to make a difference. And Father, we thank you in advance in Jesus name. Amen.

Amen. Please join me in the pledge. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. [clears throat] As we take our seats, please be reminded to silence cell phones, iPads, watches, all of the things. Inevitably, I forget one of them. So, please do just take a moment. And with that, uh, Miss Getts, a roll call, please. Mayor Gayler, present. Mayor Pro Tim Weekes, present. Councilwoman Jones, present. Councilman Boyette, present. Councilwoman Taylor, present. Councilwoman Matthews, present. Councilman White,

present. All right. All present accounted for. As always, appreciate the amount of time that goes into this to to serve. Um, thank you for being Thank you for being here. Next, we'll move to an adoption of the agenda. Council, an an agenda has been prepared and presented for consideration. Mr. Livingston, are there any recommended changes from staff? No. No, sir. Mr. Mayor, council, are there any uh recommended or requested changes from council? Hearing none, we'll move forward with the adoption of the agenda as presented. Is there a motion? Some moved.

Motion has been made by Councilwoman Weeks, sorry, by Pro Tim Weeks and seconded by Councilwoman Jones. We'll vote by show of hand. Is there any debate? All in favor please uh all in favor of adoption please vote by show of hand. All oppose same sign. Seeing none motion passes on a unanimous vote. All right that should be the only one that we wish we had had our little system here for just a minute. So next we will move into uh section four of our agenda recognitions and presentations. This first one I'm going to hand over to our our city manager, Mr. Livingston.

Uh thank you Mr. Mayor. has been a little bit of a pattern that we've done is recognizing significant hires and uh this one here is a very significant hire. Uh we as part of our organization plan, it was recommended that we have a deputy police chief, a sort of second in command, if you will. And we had a really good team of applicants and a good pool of applicants to choose from uh internally. So, that's always a good thing. And I've got the police chief here to introduce our new deputy police chief. So, we'll have that succession line possibly going in the future. [clears throat]

starter. [laughter] Good evening, Mayor and Council. Good evening. Good evening.

After an extensive hiring and promotional process that included both an internal and external uh applicants, I selected Jason Adams for the position of deputy chief. Prior to joining the Goola Police Department in August of 2009, Jason served eight years of the United States Air Force. Since joining our department in 2009, he has steadily progressed through the ranks serving as an investigator, corporal, and a sergeant uh in crime prevention where he also coordinated with Crimestoppers, the GPAC program, and other successful programs as well as uh helping to rebuild our SRO program. Uh and then later he was promoted to captain and also served in community police services. and in February of this year, he was promoted to deputy chief. He brings a well-rounded background in both operations and community engagement along with an experience and leadership that I expect in this role. I selected him because I trust his judgment, his work ethic, and his ability to help lead the department forward. And I'm confident he will serve this organization and our community well. So, I present to you Deputy Chief Jason [applause]

[applause]

Well, first I want to say thank you to Chief West, um, city manager, council, and mayor, and also the citizens of Goldsboro for the opportunity. Cuz without anybody, um, in my corner backing me up, I would not have been where I'm at today. um all those uh things I've done and progressed through my career has been because of my family and because of the citizens and the community that um we've built here over the last 21 years um that we've lived here um at Seymour Johnson and then um now with Goldsboro Police Department. So I just want to say thank you uh for the trust that's been put into me and for the opportunity and I look forward to to be an asset and learn as much as I can from Chief West and our officers and from our council mayor and city manager. So thank you.

Welcome. Welcome. Thank you. [applause]

Wonderful. It also shows that there's a there's a pipeline of talent and I am glad that we chose to vet our internal pipeline of talent against external pipelines of talent that the only good things come from making sure that you're doing your due diligence. And uh in this case, uh, Deputy Chief, congratulations. Welcome. Uh, never stop learning. We're going to continue hiring the best we possibly can around you. And don't ever forget that every single person brings their own perspectives to the city and to patrol and make sure that you do everything you can to find the strengths and absolutely every person that's put under your under your watch. So, thank you. Next, we will move forward with item 4.2 on our agenda. Uh, Miss Gets, we have someone to come forward and receive this proclamation. So, what we will do if it's okay with with council and everyone, then I will read the proclamation and then uh those who are designated to come forward and receive the proclamation, we'll walk down, hand it to them, and then allow them the microphone if they have any comments that they would like to make. Okay, everyone clear on the logistics? And we do have a charger coming for you. Okay. All right. Item 4.2, teacher appreciation week proclamation. Whereas the city of Goldsboro recognizes that teachers are essential to the strength, growth, and future success of our community by educating and inspiring the next generation of leaders, workers, and engaged citizens. And whereas educators within the city of Goldsboro and Wayne County public schools dedicate time, talent, and energy to fostering academic achievement, personal development, and lifelong learning for all students. And whereas teachers consistently go above and beyond the classroom by preparing engaging instruction, supporting diverse learning needs, encouraging student success, and serving as mentors and role models. And whereas the commitment, professionalism, and compassion of teachers contribute significantly to the

well-being of students, families, and the broader Goldsboro community. And whereas teacher appreciation week provides an opportunity for the city of Goldsboro to publicly recognize and express sincere gratitude for the unwavering dedication and impact of educators. And whereas the city of Goldsboro acknowledges that strong schools build strong communities and strong teachers are the foundation of strong schools. Now therefore, be it proclaimed that the Gsbor City Council does hereby proclaim May 4th through the 8th, 2026 as teacher appreciation week in the city of Goldsboro and encourage all citizens to join in honoring and celebrating the educators who positively shape the lives of our children and the future of our community. [snorts] And witness whereof, I hear to set my hand in a fix to seal the city of Goldsboro, North Carolina, this the 4th day of May, 2026. Sure. [applause] Within reason. [laughter]

Tell us where to go. As nicely as possible. teacher. [laughter]

Good afternoon. My name is Brian Weekes, assistant superintendent, human resources for Wayne County Public Schools. Like to [clears throat] take this opportunity to extend our sincere gratitude for this council taking the time uh to recognize the teachers of Wayne County. um all research that is available to anyone would suggest that the single most important factor for a child learning is the classroom teacher. And so we are excited to have the opportunity to join in with community partners and to recognize all of the hard work that teachers do. Um the title of teacher is a bit misleading because teachers do much more than teach. If you've ever spent any time in a school building, you know that teachers teach counsel. I was a math teacher and I always joke that I taught math but I taught interpersonal skills. I taught students how to get along with other people who had different beliefs, different values than what they had. So the work that our teachers do often uh goes a bit unrecognized and it's they are not thanked as often as they should. But on behalf of Dr. Richard, our superintendent, Wayne County Public Schools, we want to offer our sincere gratitude once again for you taking the time to recognize this very special group of people in our community. Thank you so much. [applause] Now we'll move to item 4.3, Small Business Week Proclamation. Whereas America's progress has been driven by pioneers who think big, take risks, and work hard. And whereas from the storefront shops that anchor Main Street to the high-tech startups that keep America on the cutting edge, small businesses are the backbone of our economy and the cornerstones of our nation's promise. And whereas small business owners and main street

businesses have energy and a passion for what they do. And whereas when we support small businesses, jobs are created and local communities preserve their uni their unique culture. And whereas because the country's 36 million small businesses create nearly two out of every three jobs in our economy, we cannot resolve ourselves to create jobs and spur economic growth in America without discussing ways to support our entrepreneurs. And whereas the president of the United States has proclaimed National Small Business Week every year since 1963 to highlight the programs and services available to entrepreneurs through the US Small Business Administration and other governmental agencies. And whereas Goldsboro supports and joins in this national effort to help America's small businesses do what they do best, grow their business, create jobs, and ensure that our communities remain as vibrant tomorrow as they are today.

[clears throat] Now therefore, be it proclaimed that the Goldsboro City Council does hereby proclaim May 3rd through May 9th, 2026 as National Small Business Week in Goldsboro, North Carolina, and declares support for our small businesses, recognizes the innovations and contributions of small businesses, and urges the residents of our community to support small businesses and merchants during small business week and throughout the year. And witness whereof, I have here to set my hand in a fix the seal of the city of Goldsboro, North Carolina, this the 4th day of May, 2026. [applause]

Thank you, mayor. Thank you, council members. Thank you, city manager. Um the city of Goldsworld has always recognized the importance of the small business as a cornerstone of uh the prosperity of the city and as always every year we come over here to receive this proclamation and I just want to remind all of you to shop local. Small businesses are the cornerstone for our prosperity. Without them, Goldsboro would not be Gbor. Thank you. [applause] Next, we'll move to item 4.4, mental health awareness month proclamation. Whereas mental health is essential to everyone's overall health and well-being, and whereas all Americans experience times of difficulty and stress in their lives, and whereas prevention is an effective way to reduce the burden of mental health conditions, and whereas there is a strong body of research that supports specific tools that all Americans can use to better handle challenges and protect their health and well-being. And whereas mental health conditions are real and prevalent in our nation. And whereas with effective treatment, those individuals with mental health conditions can recover and lead full productive lives. And whereas each business, school, government, agency, healthc care provider, organization, and citizen shares the burden of mental health problems and has responsibility to promote mental health, mental wellness and support prevention efforts. Now therefore, be it proclaimed that the

Gsbor City Council hereby proclaims May 2026 as mental health month in Gsbor, North Carolina, and call upon our citizens, government agencies, public and private institutions, businesses, and schools to recommmit our community to increasing awareness and understanding of mental health, the steps our citizens can take to protect to protect their mental health, and the need for appropriate and accessible services for all people with mental health conditions. and witness whereof, I have here to set my hand and affix [clears throat] the seal of the city of Goldberg. [laughter] This the fourth day of May, 2026. [applause] [clears throat]

You can peek me on the outside, right? Told me what to do for a while. We got one.

Thank you, council. I know we've been here every year for a long time and I feel like I'm being somewhat redundant redundant, but mental health continues to be something we need to be aware of. And we thank you for supporting us because we try to make the word out there that mental health is as important as our physical health and we have to have it all together in order to be successful and to be productive in this world we're in today. And we have a lot of challenges. So we do appreciate that you acknowledge it and appreciate those who are here today that realize we care and we just wanted you to know that. Please reach out if you need to that someone will help you very much. Thank you. [applause] That's my For those wondering, yes, I am getting my steps in and my watch will tell me how many after the fact. But [laughter] this is the good part. This is the good part. National Day of Prayer Proclamation. Whereas the National Day of Prayer is an annual observance established by the United States Congress and signed into law by Harry S. Truman in 1952, designating a day for all Americans to turn to God in prayer and meditation. And whereas the Ronald re whereas Ronald Reagan amended the law in 1988, setting the observance as the first Thursday in May each year, which in 2026 falls on May 7th. And whereas this day provides an opportunity for individuals of all faiths to come together in unity, reflection, and hope seeking guidance,

strength, and wisdom for our nation, our state, and our community. And whereas go the city of Goldsboro recognizes the rich diversity of faith traditions among its residents and respects the freedom of religion as a fundamental right. And whereas prayer and reflection have long served as sources of comfort, inspiration, and renewal for individuals and communities during times of both challenge and celebration. And whereas it is fitting to set aside a day for citizens to reflect on shared values of compassion, service, and mutual mutual respect, and to set the well-being of our community and nation. Now therefore, be it proclaimed that the Goldsboro City Council does hereby proclaim May 7th, 2026 as National Day of Prayer in Goldsboro, North Carolina, and encourage all residents to observe this day in accordance with their own beliefs and traditions. And witness whereof, I have here to set my hand and cause the official seal of the city of Goldsboro to be affixed this the 4th day of May, 2026. And I would ask our two chaplain to please join me.

[applause] [laughter] Be careful. You're asking preacher. Congrat Congratulations. council. Uh, thank you very much. And I'd like to say follow up something that you said a couple minutes ago that mental health and physical health are equally important. I would add spiritual health to that as well.

And I, you know, just like this lady said, if you have issues, please reach out to them. I just did a quick Google search. You would not believe how many churches pop up if you just type church near me, particularly on the 7th. If you'd like to pray, reach out to one of those churches. They'd love to pray with you. [applause] Item 4.6, National Nurses Week proclamation. Whereas National Nurses Week is observed annually from May 6th through May 12th, culminating in the birthday of Florence Nightingale, whose legacy continues to shape the nursing profession. And whereas nurses play a critical role in safeguarding the health, safety, and well-being of individuals, families, and communities through compassionate, skilled, and evidence-based care. And whereas nurses serve as the front lines of healthcare, demonstrating resilience, professionalism, and unwavering dedication in hospitals, clinics, schools, public health settings, and beyond. And whereas the 2026 theme, the power of nurses, recognizes the profound impact nurses have on patient outcomes, health care systems, and the strength of our communities. And whereas nurses are essential leaders, advocates, educators, and innovators who contribute to advancing healthc care equity, improving access to care, and shaping the future of medicine. And whereas it is fitting and proper to recognize the invaluable contributions and sacrifices of nurses whose commitment improves lives, strengthens our community every day. Now therefore, be it proclaimed that the Goldsboro City Council does hereby proclaim May 6 through the 12th, 2026 as

National Nurses Week in the city of Goldsboro and encourage all residents to join in honoring and expressing gratitude to nurses for their dedication and service. In witness whereof, I have here to set my hand and cause the official seal of the city of Goldsboro to be affixed. This the fourth day of May, 2026. [applause]

[snorts]

On behalf of all the nurses in the community, I want to say a sincere thank you from all of us. You know, we have a job that we come every day and we we show up for and sometimes it we feel like maybe it's not appreciated, but this is just from the bottom of my heart a sincere thank you from all of us. We're grateful for the city's appreciation and support that they have shown us in recognition of this day. And this just gives us a friendly reminder that what we do every day does matter. and it inspires us to continue to give that quality of care to our patients every day and just hope that we can make a difference. So, thank you so much. [applause] [snorts] Okay.

[sighs] [snorts]

For those of you wondering, May is a bit of a popular month when it comes to uh proclamations and those of you who this is your first time in a meeting. This is a larger volume, but you know, things are deserving of recognition and they happen when they happen. And so we're, you know, we're proud to be able to to recognize them. So I appreciate each of you, you know, staying with me on these Peace Officers Memorial Day and Police Week proclamation. Whereas the Congress and President of the United States has designated May 15th as Peace Officers Memorial Day and the week in which May 15th falls as National Police Week. And whereas members of the law enforcement agency of the city of Goldsboro play an [clears throat] essential role in safeguarding the rights and freedoms of the citizens of Goldsboro. And whereas it is important that all citizens know and understand the de the duties, responsibilities, hazards, and sacrifices of their law enforcement agency. And whereas the members of the Gossboro Police Department recognize their duty to serve the people by safeguarding life and property, by protecting them against violence and disorder, and by protecting the innocent against deception and the weak against oppression. And whereas the men and women of the law enforcement agency of the city of Goldsboro unceasingly provide a vital public service. Now therefore, be it proclaimed that the Gsbury City Council does hereby uh proclaim the week of May 11th through the 17th, 2026 as Police Week and May 15, 2026 as Peace Officers Memorial Day in honor of those law enforcement officers who through their courageous deeds have made the ultimate sacrifice in service to their community or have become disabled in the performance of their duties. And let us recognize and pay respect to the survivors of our fallen heroes. I further call upon all citizens of the city of Goldsboro and all patriotic civic and educational inst organizations to observe this time with appropriate ceremonies in which everyone may join in commemorating law enforcement officers past and present who by their faithful and loyal devotion

to their responsibilities have rendered a dedicated service to their community and in so doing have established for themselves an enviable and enduring reputation of preserving the rights and security of all citizens. and witness whereof, I have here to set my hand in a fix to seal the city of Goldsboro, North Carolina, this the 4th day of May, 2026. [applause] He's got the uniform. Yeah, you were That would be me. [laughter]

Laura's trying to get ready for the for the next.

Are y'all going to rock paper scissors right here? [laughter] See, that's what happens when you do a deputy chief. we're going to sit back there and flip for it all the time and I'm the one who wins or loses. Um anyway, thank you, mayor. Um I'm very proud of the the the men and women of our police department and on their behalf, I accept the recognition here tonight. Police Week is it's a time to remember those that have paid the ultimate sacrifice in this profession and also to recognize the work that our officers do in this community every day. Uh, I'm very thankful for our officers and I'm very proud and thankful for the support of our mayor, our council, and also our citizens. Thank you. [applause] Great.

Lastly, we will conclude the recognitions and presentations portion of our meeting with a proclam a proclamation recognizing National Travel and Tourism Week. Whereas travel and tourism play a vital role in the economic prosperity, cultural enrichment, and overall quality of life in the city of Goldsboro. And whereas the travel and tourism industry generates significant economic impact by supporting local businesses, creating jobs, and contributing to the city's growth and development. And whereas visitors to Goldsboro enjoy a rich blend of history, art, dining, and community events that showcase the unique character and hospitality of our city. And whereas National Travel and Tourism Week to is to be observed May 3rd through the 9th, 2026 highlights the importance of travel in strengthening our local economy and enhancing connections among residents and visitors alike. And whereas the city of Goldsboro recognizes and appreciates the contributions of tourism professionals, local businesses, and community partners who work tirelessly to promote Goldsboro as a welcoming destination. Now therefore, be it proclaimed that the Goldsboro City Council does hereby proclaim May 3rd through the 9th, 2026 as National Travel and Tourism Week in the City of Goldsboro, and encourage all residents and visitors to join in recognizing the importance of tourism and to explore and support the many attractions and businesses that make our community thrive. And in witness whereof, I have here to set my hand and cause the official seal of the city of Goldsboro to be affixed this the 4th day of May, 2026.

[applause]

Put your board in there. Yeah. Put the board me over in the middle.

Exactly. Thank you, sir. Um, thank you so much, council, um, for this great honor. um allowing us to be able to share National Travel and Tourism Week with everyone. Um I also want to say thank you to all of our partners that helped make this um such an easy easy job. Um I'm not sure if um everyone's aware, but tourism last year was over a uh $30 billion industry in the state of North Carolina, just second to agriculture. So uh we we love what we do and we appreciate you um recognizing it. Thank you. [applause] All right, we will now move to section five of our agenda, which is a uh an individual public hearing. Item 5.1. I'll turn this over to our manager, Mr. Livingston.

Thank you, mayor. Um this is a public hearing scheduled for Stony Creek area, 51.47 acres. Uh it's um vacant land. It's a donut hole within the city. And rather than have any interruption of services or confusion of what's in the city limits, what's not, we felt it prudent to annex the subject property which does belong to the city. So the city is both the applicant and the Yes. And will there be a brief just as a refresher for for council and those those present from planning? We can per provide one. Yes, sir. It's needed.

Mark, if you don't mind, again, just as this is the public hearing, we'll follow our traditional pattern of a uh a basic brief just to refresh exactly what we're talking about so things don't get conflated if you don't mind. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, City Council. Good evening, everyone. Um, we're still on this previous screen. I did have a slide presentation for you quickly. Okay, this case for you is annexation 0226 Stony Creek. Uh the property is located on the south side of Royal Avenue between North Drive and Landmark Drive. Uh the city has prepared a boundary survey showing the the extent of the annexation. Again, this is city-owned property u and the city is the applicant. Um uh the city uh on March 2nd in 2026 requested the city clerk to examine the subject voluntary contiguous annexation uh petition for sufficiency. Uh March 9th 2020 uh 20 2026 city clerk completed the examination determine the petition was sufficient. Uh sufficiency indicates the proposed area for annexation meets the standards for contiguous annexation in accordance with GS1 168-31. uh city council at their April 13th [clears throat] uh 20 26 meeting scheduled for public hearing uh for this evening. Um the property is located on the south side of Royal Avenue between North Drive and Landmark Drive. Uh property owner is City of Goldsboro. Uh the subject property is considered for annexation is 51 uh.42 acres. Uh the property is currently zoned R16. Uh the land use plan designates this property uh as suitable for conservation and the property is uh currently undeveloped in his woodlands. The subject property meets standards of contiguous annexation in accordance with GS1 16831 and that the fact that the the petition contains an adequate property description and annexation platosed for

annexation. The area described in the petition is contiguous with the city of Goldsboro primary corporate limits as defined by GS uh 168-31. The petition is signed u by and includes addresses all the property owners of real property lying in the area described. The applicant [clears throat] uh [snorts] acknowledges the zoning vested rights have not been uh uh acquired pursuant uh GS 160D uh 108 and 108.1. Um, city services are available uh at or near the site to include fire protection, police protection, refuge collection and water and city sewer. Proposed annexation meets city policy requirements. City planning has no objections to this petition and is recommended that city council approve the annexation after conducting a public hearing. Pretty much um be happy to answer any questions you may have. And this one has been has been presented to the public and the council report. Just want to make sure that we're all clear on what it is we're talking about. Council, before we open up the public hearing, are there any questions remaining for staff? Hearing none, we'll move forward with the public hearing. Thank you, Mark. And after after such time there is an a annexation ordinance that is part of the packet that if it is will of council we would either then have a motion either for or against the ordinance as presented. So with that uh we will officially open a public hearing on item 5.1 annexation 0226. That is the property just discussed by uh Mr. Helmer. Anyone to come forward and speak? Second call. Anyone to come forward and speak on item on our agenda 5.1 annexation 0226. Third and final call. Anyone to come forward and speak on annexation 0226. All right. We will close the public

hearing. Council, are there additional questions or is there a motion uh up or down? I make a motion that we approve it as presented. Okay. Motion has been motion has been made. Is there second? Motion's been made and properly seconded. Is everyone able to vote electronically at this time or do is anyone request a vote by show of hands? All right. If everyone is able to, is there any further debate before I call the vote? Hearing none, we'll call the vote. Please vote electronically if possible. [clears throat] Mine didn't pop up, but mine. Just state your vote for the record if you would please. Yes.

In the affirmative. All right. All votes have a tallied seven votes in the affirmative. Motion passes unanimously. Uh item 5.1 public hearing having been completed and vote haven't been taken. Ordinance is approved as presented. All right. We will now move to section six of our agenda which is a public comment period. As our clerk steps outside to grab the the signup roster, if anyone intended to sign up or intends to or desires to speak and is not signed up, please do so as she is coming back in. [clears throat] Our [clears throat] [snorts] first baker is Charles Wright. Good evening, Mayor.

Evening, sir.

Mayor Pro Camp, city council members. Uh my name is Charles Wright. Tonight, I'll be uh talking at on behalf of president for these barrel Wayne County Homeowners Coalition representing Miss Karen Sharon [clears throat] Blunt on 701 West Walnut Street. Miss Blunt was the recipient of a brand new house from Rebuild. Uh got received the keys on 527205. Very beautiful house worth about $300,000. And approximately after 2 to 3 months of living in that house, she got flooded out in her master bathroom. She called the city. They sent out something to clean out the uh the pipes underneath her house, the sewage pipes. And this she had the same problem again two to three months after that. The city came out did some work cleaned that up the first second time. Third time another two to three months they came out another time and they actually found what's called raw sewage uh leaking out right at the edge of a property into the street. uh for that she said she would have to get some type of pipe that's going to cost $1,200 and if she didn't get that soon they would be forced to close the uh close down her um water [snorts] turn it off. Um what I wanted to bring up to the city council is she just got a new house. She got what's called a certificate of occupacy. And the thing about that is that the certificate of occupancy is done by uh the inspections department. The septic tank uh not septic tank the pipes is done by engineering. Those two didn't talk together concerning this grant. Had they had talked together that $1,200 would have been a part of [clears throat] that COA cons because the state would have

paid that as a part of the grant. We have people in other counties that got brand new septic systems because of the grant. So, she wasn't made completely whole as to it was something going on, not just in her house, but what I've discovered is there was problems on that whole street, every single house with the same similar problem. So, I would like the city council to look at that. Anyone getting a brand new house from rebuild look and see if the engineering department can check those parts that would come under any expense from the homeowner. What rebuilt is saying is they contractors is only responsible for the pipes and things underneath that house up to the point where the city takes over. So it's a quagmire there. Um, and it shouldn't have been, but I like you to review that. And I also be bringing this up possibly with rebuild itself at the state level because there are things that comes down that doesn't mesh with the grant.

Thank you, Mr. Wright. And we have a copy of it. Let's we'll have a conversation about what side of the tap this thing is on and figure out what we can do. Thank you. Our next speaker is Phyllis Merritt James.

Good evening. Thank you for your earlier recognition for nursing. I would like to piggyback on the citizens as well as everyone that's here to reach out to the local or your state representatives. I don't know if you're aware, but as of November 2025, there's a proposal by the United States Department of Education to exclude nursing from its definition of a professional degree program impacting federal student loan limits for advanced degrees. While it doesn't affect current lensure, this exclusion limits student access to higher education funding, prompting both the American Nurse Association, the American Association of Nurse Practitioners and other bodies to vently oppose the classification as a dengration of the profession. We are a profession. Excluding nursing from the professional list limits the amount of federal student loans available for graduate nursing programs like APRN, nurse practitioners compared to fields like medicine or dentistry. The Department of Education proposal narrows professional degrees to specific lists excluding nursing and potentially other roles like social work. Critics warned that this could reduce the number of advanced practitioners impacting care access in rural areas, of which we are one, and limiting the workforce of educators like those at Wayne Community College. Limited financial aid threatens to decrease diversity and advanced nursing roles by making education harder to afford. Nursing organizations like the ANA and National Nursery United are fighting this classification, emphasizing that nurses are highly skilled, educated professionals with full practice authority in many states. This change has raised concerns from various healthcare leaders who stated it as a narrow outdated view that diminishes the role of nurses in healthcare. We ask that you verbally

write, call, and advocate for us because we are a profession. Thank you, mayor. That was our last speaker. [snorts]

Thank you to everyone who was uh is able and willing to come forward. All right. We will now move to our consent agenda. Item seven on our agenda. Council, as always, these are items that have either been reviewed before or are somewhat administrative in nature. I believe that every item up here is [clears throat] something that has either been seen with the exception of 7.3, which is again a bit of an administrative matter. If there are any remaining questions for Mr. Livingston, uh I'll turn it over to you, uh Mr. Livingston, if you would hear any remaining questions and then we'll call a vote.

Thank you, Mayor. As uh as is our routine practice, if there are any questions, I won't go over each consent agenda individually. Uh unless there is a question, we would vote on them as a single vote. Council, are there any remaining questions on these four items? Hearing none, we entertain a motion to approve consent agenda as presented. So moved. All right. Motion has been made. Is there a second? Second. Second. Motion's been made and properly seconded [clears throat] um to adopt the consent agenda as presented. Uh is there any debate hearing? None. Please vote electronically if possible.

Just refresh. I I refreshed it twice. Really? Okay.

Do you mind just stating your vote for the record for your in favor? Okay. Perfect. All votes haven't been tallied. Uh motion [clears throat] passes on a unanimous vote. Consent agenda items 7.1 through 4 are approved as presented. All right. Now, uh item 8.1 uh I'm going to offer my two cents on very very briefly. This is a very important thing that is a large subject. It [snorts] is completely okay if we end up taking a substantial amount of time discussing this with our consultant this evening and with our manager who has done this in other municipalities at other points in his career. The idea of a regional wastewater merger and expansion of wastewater capabilities in Wayne County is one that can shape and can impact the future of Wayne County far longer than any of us will be sitting in these chairs. And it's something that we take very seriously. is something that this administration, frankly, all of y'all, myself, have taken very seriously since getting on uh uh at at the DEIS and have made very intentional and forwardthinking steps from an engineering perspective as well as a financial perspective to put ourselves in a position to be able to expand and to be able to support a regionalization effort. So, this one is actually requested a vote this evening, but we're not going to we're not going to call that motion until folks have been able to uh properly hear this discussion because it can be quite substantial. Mr. Livingston, uh floor is yours.

Uh thank you, Mr. Mayor. Uh as you alluded to, it is a it is a large subject matter and uh we're going to but thankfully, you know, we've been through this a few times. I think we know what we're talking about to a certain degree. Um it's nothing of a surprise to any of the council members up here, but this process with the merger study is actually this is part two of it. This kind of sums up uh what we would do for now until we move to the final part three of it. But it's been a three-year process this uh this far thus far approximately. And it's really kind of come down to uh what is in the best interest of the county. And I've also looked at as what is in the best interest of the citizens of Goldsboro who own this system. It's not owned by the city council. It's owned by the rateayers here in the city of Goldsboro. So over a century of more of time that we've operated a water and sewer system. In this case, we're just talking specifically a sewer system. We've invested millions of dollars in a system to properly handle and treat waste water. Um, and the one of the challenges with wastewater nowadays is that uh, and if I jump around, you'll just have to excuse me because it's a kind of it's a complicated matter is the cost of it. And that's why it's getting so much harder for the smaller municipalities to to really even operate a treatment plant. So what you've seen throughout the country is mergers or regionalizations of sewer systems so that they can get economies of scale so they can meet these uh greater standards that we have through the federal government in treating uh raw waste, raw sewer water. And that's kind of where we are here in Wayne County. We're sort of a microcosm of a lot of the areas in the country. We have small towns here that are, you know, they're they're what's called nonviable utilities. And that means that they're nonviable because it's hard to sustain a sewer system with

a population of a few thousand people. Um, for example, um, some of our neighboring communities have maybe 100, 200, 500 connections, whereas in Goldsboro, we have 16,000 connections. We attribute, you know, 85% of the flow into the plant or more. In most cases, we have about an 8 million gallon a day flow into our treatment plant. Um, and we have a maximum capacity of this current treatment plant before expansion of just over 14 MGD a day. So, we have the ability to absorb these other uh towns that are outside of the Goldsboro corporate limits into our system. And in fact, we already have. So that's one of the things that's really important to remember is that we have interlocal agreements to treat sewer with Eureka Fremont and Eureka's gone so far to sign an agreement with the city saying hey uh will you take over our sewer system and so we've worked on a merger agreement where we would provide the billing we would take over their uh maintenance of their system because they just don't have the people or the ability to really be able to do that. So that's a partnership that they look forward to. We look forward to it. And for an example, in Eureka, we're actually going to reduce their bill by way over half. They were paying on average $200 of, you know, for a sewer bill, water and sewer bill. We can cut that h in half easily. So, the first step would be reduce that just on the by using an interlocal agreement and working directly through them is what we're doing now. Uh the next step would be to sign that merger agreement. We would take over their systems and start doing their billing. That's kind of what it is in a nutshell. what we'd like to do with some of the other municipalities that are willing to partnership with us. It's much more complicated with some of the other systems that have larger issues uh at hand, but Eureka is a system that has to be completely replaced. So, we're looking at the state to come in and help us with that with the funding because

we're not going to just dedicate Goldsboro funds to take uh Eureka system, you know, and help them out. We could do a little bit of that, but mostly it's going to be uh grant funds that help us manage that system, get it fixed, and and start from scratch again. And that that's so this study here looked at issues like that about, hey, how can we work with our other towns and and make them more viable as utilities? And there was two things that came out of that after several other suggestions. And there's a lot of nuances about how you can do this, but one was we can work like other cities have. Like we used the Raleigh example where the city of Raleigh reached out to um a dozen or so municipalities within Wake County and did basically a boilerplate agreement with them and that enabled them to treat their sewer. And some of them like Rollsville was on a step system which they really didn't have much of a choice or be able to expand. And that's a similar situation in like something like Pikeville. they didn't really have a way to really ensure that growth could continue uh there without having to really have to rely on gravity sewer. So those municipalities in Wake County signed a merger agreement and that allowed them to merge their system not just sewer but in this case water as well uh to accommodate their growth needs. We can do that in the same way uh here and and it didn't impede any of the ability for the municipalities in Wake County wouldn't here in Wayne County to be able to grow. They all were able to grow within their annex uh within their ETJ and through annexation uh voluntary annexation mostly for water and sewer services. And so that was one we advocated for because we knew it worked and it was a triedand- trueue method and we're open to other suggestions as far as how you go about merging. But the other option which was less palatable for us was uh at least the staff I'll

say was that we'd start a water and sewer authority and I've been in both environments with both the water and sewer authority and as a on both sides of the fence being the merging entity and the merge as you alluded to. Um [clears throat] which was helpful in understanding both sides of that coin so to speak. Um, I can understand the apprehension as a small town, you know, trying to say, "Okay, well, is this going to is this going to help me or is it going to hurt me? It's going to inhibit my ability to grow and develop and things like that." Well, I learned that it doesn't have to be that way. And in fact, it's not that way. And if you're the other side of the coin when you're looking at taking other municipalities, and I'll give you example. When I was the manager in Wallace, we merged with Burgall, which is about the same size community. They they ran a pipe up to Wallace and um you know that was I'm sorry I remember the numbers that's bad but it's about 15 million now and probably cost 50 million now the way inflation is but and we built a plant for that about that much but they were able to get out of the sewer business and be able to treat their sewer for half the cost of what they had been because they were looking at whether to replace their plant or get out of the business and run a pipe up to us and and and work with us on capacity and things like that. That's all a long story to say that you know I I've been on boards as well where I was the water and sewer authority board like on noose water and sewer authority board and they kind of came together around the same time because they were looking for a regional solution for water and um that was a good it was a good situation for them but not every situation fits us and the issue with um with us as far as Goldsboro being uh the um on a board was that they we wouldn't be the controlling entity on that board, which is problematic when you own 85% of the resources there or more. And the other issue is how do you divest that kind of uh you know um we've paid for all these

assets and you know it's [clears throat] u it's hard just to turn all that over if we were all starting from the same point and we all had the same amount of money invested in it. I think there would be and we had a common goal. Now we don't have common goals but people have different ideas about what's needed. um it's easier to start from that standpoint, but you know, in the case of Goldsboro, we've been in the business for, like I said, a century and we're we've got a good utility fund, a healthy utility fund. Um we're well on our way with um moving forward with the PAS POS upgrades. Uh also, uh got engineering design work for the modernization of our water reclamation facility underway. Um and and we've done several inflow and infiltration projects that have helped lower that flow amount into the plant so that you know maybe the expansion won't have to happen as quickly as you know um you know unless we get a huge growth rate in here o over the next 10 years it might not have to happen but maybe 8 to 10 years from now. The point is is that we are planning though for the future and we're making preparations now because it does take at least five to six years to do these expansions to get all the permitting done. We have the permits in place to go up to 17.4 permitted into the news. Right now our plants at 4.3 14.3. If we get the 3.4 that puts us up to 17.3 or four. Correct me on my math there. But we have everything in place is what I'm trying to say. and we're working on this and we're ready to go. We're ready to meet with these municipalities right now and take their flow and work with them on better sewer rates for them and and design agreements that are tolerable for them and work well for us so that we can partner and and help the uh Wayne County residents get the sewer service they need and the citizens to grow their communities uh to the you know plans and

specs that they have or the vision they have for the future. So, you know, tonight as as uh our consultant, Mr. Reed Barton, goes through the presentation, you'll learn a lot more from him, but my update is just to kind of give you the broad kind of approach of why it is that we we chose the Raleigh merger model. And it's kind of like I I oversimplify things, but if it's not broke, why are you going about fixing it? Because if we tried to create a water and sewer regional authority right now, you know, there's other ways to go around and getting public input and we'll talk about that and I think they're viable and and and valuable, but to have to go reinvent the whole wheel for something like this when we're already doing a good job of it doesn't really make a lot of sense to me. And so that's why we're thinking the merger one is better for everybody. And also I can tell you pretty matterof factly that over time that that to do this this is the most efficient way to do it and cost effective way to do it. There's not any duplication of services we've got to think about in creating water and sewer authority board. You know how are we going to not just divest the resources but what about staffing? Are we going to be able to use all of our staffing here? Some of our staff are cross-connected in water and sewer. This is only talking about a sewer. So what do you do with our water? are still not out of the utility business. So that makes it tremendously complicated there to try to even divest employees. So um I it's it's easy to talk about it. It's very complicated to do and I've like I said I've been on both sides of the fence. Even the merger ones are complicated, but they're far less complicated than creating a brand new board and and looking at ways to um you know, and again, it's my concern would be we'd be shortch changing the the rateayers here in the city of Goldsboro who invested in the system and put it together. And there that's a lot of people that have

invested in that and a lot of businesses. And so we like it the way it is and we want to continue the way it is. That's it. We have a consultant, Mr. Barton, who has been guiding us now for I guess about three years. I'll tell you what, Reed, if you would, as you come forward, we'll [snorts] let your honor. Um, we'll let our scouts sure exit out as this will be a uh a long and somewhat dry conversation. [laughter] Okay. We can make it fun. That's okay.

Well, no. I mean, it [clears throat] can be fun. you know, if you happen to have a board game that helps explain this, that might be useful. But absent that, u it'll probably be what it'll be. [clears throat]

So, they're inevitably right now, members of the community, myself included, not even necessarily sure exactly what questions need to be asked. So, how about we all kind of agree, let's let Mr. Martin go through his presentation and [snorts] take notes as we go and then come back to individual slides with questions if that's okay. If there's anything that we miss here or whatever else then you can ask immediately. But let's see what questions get answered because I have a feeling you're going to walk us through a history here. So

yes. Um so uh good to be with you again. I was uh with you at your board retreat and we talked some about this topic. Um, since that time there's been two workshops uh on this topic with the the greater stakeholder group of which there are six municipalities. Goldsboro being the largest one of those six. Am I loud enough? Good on volume. Okay. Um and and and some of this council. Yes. And Reed, if you don't hear yourself echoing, it's because we may not if you're loud enough, they may not put you through the speakers, but you're still on the audio for the bit. So Okay.

Yeah. Um, uh, Mr. Livingston's summary was actually very good. Um, so it's a primer and then I'm a lot of what I'm going to say is is repeat of some of the things he highlighted. So hearing it twice hopefully it is a dense topic, but hearing it twice will be helpful. Um, so um, I I realize now I didn't put my name on the slide, Reed Barton. Um, I've been working on this project with the city and with the other five stakeholders for um, more than three years, but uh, officially for three years. Um, I doing the right button here.

Is it a PowerPoint or a PDF? Do you know it was a PDF? You may just have to simply say next and then you can slide down. Okay. Try that. Next. [clears throat] Give her give her give her just a second to ping them to let them know that we're going to have to go that route. Sure. There you go. All right. Well, it went it [clears throat] went one way. Wrong way. But it wasn't what it went.

We're good at this. We promise. And well, while we're waiting on that to come up, um, in our I'm going to walk through [snorts] the I know the agenda slide by h by heart here. We're going to walk through a little bit of the history, why we're doing it, where did the money come from, uh, who who's involved in it. Um, and then I'm going to uh highlight we have had two phases uh of the work essentially two different task orders that were assigned. Um, and we've just completed Thank you. appreciate it. Okay, so the purpose of this presentation for council today is to give a report out on the status of the project. We are currently at the completion of the second phase which officially um uh Mr. Livingston just referred to as phase two which is my fault. I refer to it phrase phase two a lot in technically in c in the contract it called it 1B. So I I made this consistent with the contract. Um so we've had two phases phase 1 A and phase 1B. They were both about 18 months long. I'll I'll cover those at a very high level. Um, and we've just wrapped up phase 1B and our final meeting. We had three of uh the council members uh mayor, Mr. Boyette, and Mr. White were uh all present and uh I'll share what we talked about and uh the end conclusion of that. Okay. So, as Mr. Livingston uh said uh very well is that regional uh regionalization of s water and sewer utilities is happening across the state across the country. Um it is very expensive to run a small sewer system. It is it is uh what you what you typically find my experience and I believe the state of North Carolina would agree with this. I've heard them say it themselves is that small utilities live grant to grant and if they go too many years without getting a grant, it they they get into trouble. Um

they they can't maintain their their sewer system and they're doing generally the least they can to maintain it. Whereas larger systems like the city of Goldsboro have regular preventive maintenance programs, maintain their systems. So the state and of North Carolina wants to facilitate discussions between communities to um foster regionalization. So the state has been uh willing and eager to give grants to this to the communities involved to say, "Hey guys, we really want you to work together. We believe that's in your best interest." All the stakeholders have said repeatedly, "We believe it's in our best interest." And so we've been working on the how. how would we work together? Um, okay. So, this if we can get um a deal put together with the greater area, it would support economic development. It would allow for consolidation of debt. We would have economies of scale that lower the cost of sewer. Um, or a better way of saying that is as sewer cost continues to climb, as a group, we would better manage that cost. um long-term viability. The staff that operate and run the systems, you create better career ladders, better opportunities by having lot we have some systems that have one or two staff running the system. That's you know what happens gets sick, right? So it's a big problem. Um anyway, you you can uh understand the overall point. I'll try to move fast because I think the purpose here is your questions. Um okay so the background here is first um the city and the surrounding areas have been working on regionalization officially unofficially for a very long time um I think mayor said at one point more more than a decade it's been a long time right long conversation but big deals take a long time to put together um an example of this Mr. Livingston pointed out is that most of the not all but a a good number of the

municipalities inside the greater Wayne County area already through interlocal agreement send their sewage to the city system for treatment and you know because the city has a large treatment plant permitted to clean up the water and put it back in the Noose River. Um, so the other background information that is helpful to know is that the North Carolina North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality established in 2020, so not that long ago, a new program called the viable utilities program. The purpose of this program is to proactively get in front of utilities failing. They want to identify who's stressed, who's actually their term is distressed, who is distressed and how can we support them. A lot of it's through regionalization, giving grants. How can we help them get on a better road to viability um within the greater Wayne County area? Um a number of utilities have that designation. That designation is helpful because it allows uh it allow everybody who's designated that has access to up to $15 million in grant money to become more viable. So, it's the money's available. there's uh uh policy in place and so those are the tools we're trying to leverage as a group in this regionalization study. Okay. So, who's a who's a member of the group right now? Uh six municipalities. I am uh struggling which one to look at here. Um city Goldsboro is by far the largest municipality uh from a sewer standpoint. Wayne County also a large municipality. Town of Eureka, the smallest in the group, Town of Fremont, Town of Pikeville, and Town of Mount Olive. And then another stakeholder who has been engaged throughout the entirety of the process and really is honestly the first phone call that that I received about it

was from DEEQ and said, "We've we've got um a program we're trying to piece together in the greater Wayne County area and we'd like your expertise in helping to uh be a facilitator in that." I will say Mount Olive, I'm not going to say a ton about them tonight. I'm happy to talk. They're in a slightly different bat than some of the other municipalities because they're under what's called a special order of consent, which is essentially a uh pseudojudicial board in uh called the EMC, Environmental Management Commission, has said your sewers are are leaking. They're hurting the environment. Um and they gave him a long list of things. you need to fix your system and you're in a moratorum. They cannot add any new sewer uh connections to their system until they have resolved that consent order, you know. So, I'm happy to talk about that, but that makes them on this list able to be part of the group, but maybe a couple extra steps in there to to be a part of the group. [clears throat] All right, so the timeline here, this is historical up to really just a couple weeks ago. Um so they pro uh DEEQ provided the funding through grants. Um the first grant was for $100,000 and it funded what we ultimately termed phase 1A of the merger and regionalization feasibility study. MRF is the name of the grant that they that was received. So M you'll see MRF in paperwork or presentations. It's just the name of the regionalization grant that started in 22 ended in January 23. The second phase, we went as a group went back to the state and said, "We've made progress with the first study. We'd like to do another one. Here's the goals of of study number two." The state agreed to that. Each municipality wrote a letter in support that said, "I'm going to be engaged and involved in this." And the state issued a second grant. Those grants, by the way, are all given to the city of Goldsboro to administer. Should should have said

that. Phase 1B, which was the second one, started in 2024. um and just completed in April of this year. Um phase 1 A what it accomplished it assembled technical information on each of the wastewater systems in the study that included financial information. Now I will say there were a lot of holes in the data but we gathered what what we could and did a desktop analysis of conditions of the system. How would they connect into would be systems that you would want to leave unconnected but still part of a of an overall wastewater system. Um in that we had a uh multiple workshops. The final workshop [clears throat] um laid out 10 options 10 it was more than 10 I think it was 12 but 10 plus options of how the group could go about regionalizing. In that we we dialogued a several hour meeting dialogued about all the options and narrowed it down to two and those are the two that Mr. Livingston just um outlined. So we moved into the second phase. Um so we the second phase had essentially four different uh milestones here. We started with a kickoff meeting. In that kickoff meeting we we created GWRWC which was the Greater Wayne Regional Wastewater Committee. And each of the six stakeholders had seats on the board and the board after we formed it nominated a chairperson and so we ran all the meetings after that like it was a committee meeting right so uh uh Mr. Mr. Boyette was on the board and and representatives all the stakeholders were on the board. Um the first thing the board did was commission workshop number one that was a deeper dive into some of the technical issues that remained unanswered from the phase 1A. We wanted uh there's some

additional information on rate impacts, some diff additional information on the finances of some of the stakeholders, the position they were in. Then we moved into workshop two and three and this is this is actually my last slide here. So in workshop two and three uh working with uh the city and the county we created a written framework that you know four or five pages long that outlined exactly what option A would be and exactly what option B would be. Let me back up. They were not exact. They were frameworks. So it was broad brush strokes. Option A was forming a new regional authority to represent wastewater in the region. And we had a four or five page framework that outlined the house. And then we had option B which was a four or five page framework that outlined merging utility systems under the existing infrastructure of the city, city's engineering department, city's utilities department. Um so in both workshops two and three those ideas were discussed and studied debated a little bit argued all the above right it was good good healthy dialogue we were getting to a point where there's proposals on the table and and questions were asked and challenged and and and whatnot. So those are available those written documents are available if anybody hasn't seen them and would like to see them. Um so after two meetings that were fruitful and lots of good dialogue between

let me pause just for a second council as you are looking uh in in uh our board portal option A and option B are there I'm sure you've already seen them but if you haven't as uh as B [clears throat] is talking if you'd like to follow along just as a reminder they are in the agenda packet.

Okay thank you. So what is the current status? We did not come to a uh in at the end of the meeting, we did not arrive at a unanimous consensus decision among the six stakeholders. So in a in a perfect world, we would have all been on the same uh you know sheet of music and we'd all make make that that was certainly the goal. That was not the the outcome. Um so um where are we now? the the the the MRF grant for phase 1B h uh the work has been completed u the funding has been utilized um and each stakeholder is continually even after we didn't come to a unanimous consensus at the end of the meeting um everyone expressed their desire to get there um and everybody seemed and I say everybody the representatives of those six municip municipalities all continue to state, we see the value of regionalization. We know it's going to help bring rates down, help us thrive. We think it's important. We're we are still at a place where um there is a divide between options A and B.

All right, I'm going to pause there. That's that's the end of my prepared slides and uh certainly would welcome any questions or dialogue. Would you mind just again for [clears throat] the sake of of all this being able to really boil it down distill down the crux as I understand it really the crux of the issue was control right the option yeah governance so [clears throat] option A as presented would have had the city of Goldsboro capped at 49% of the votes on that authority even though we would be putting in over 80 some odd percent of the assets into it and [clears throat] we're bringing in nearly 17,000 of the total 19,000 connections.

That's correct. That sort of feels a bit hard to justify, right? So, and then option B was [cough and clears throat] control remaining with the city council countywide. And you can see how that would be a bit hard to swallow for some other parties. Is that a fair Oh, yes. Distilling it down to its most basic element. Is that kind of where we left it?

It it is. I'll add to it that um clarification on two things. One is um in the mer in the option B, which is organizing the waste regional wastewater system under the city's existing structure. Um the it would the proposal included forming an advisory board, right?

Um and and so a sewer regional sewer advisory board that would have members of the different communities that tie into it, Fremont, Pikeville, the county, if if if folks tied into it, they would have a a regional board. And the framework does outline some different areas that that board would have um primary oversight. Um the the hangup on that was that um bigger issues like uh rate changes or taking on debt. Um there's probably some other examples. Um h uh that would all have still have to if it goes through that board, it would still have to come to this board. And the other side of the of the argument, the folks that were in uh in support of option A, the regional authority, um they they wanted representation on the actual board that had final say. Is is that that's that's what I heard. And Mr. Boyd, you would you add anything to that?

You agree? I do agree that that um that was basic basically what we're saying adding the advisory portion under option B. That's right. Yeah. Um and and I well I will add though [clears throat] and I know we use the nice word of governance [laughter] but really it [snorts] boiled down to who had control over the final say so of of of things. That's really boiling it down to what the actual issue is. Council you [clears throat] concur. Is there a missing component here?

No. Um, I do have a couple of comments that I'll of course make, but we're doing there's a magnificent job so far with what U Reed's presented and what our manager has said. We're really covering the covering things right now. I just want to make [clears throat] sure that we're really drilling down on again distilling into the essence of what were the hang-ups on A, the hang-ups on [clears throat] B, and then I will hand the conversation back over to Mr. Livingston and Mr. Barton. is are those the I think those are the finer points if we're saying the quiet part out loud. I think it all came down to control of the final ability to take on debt and vote on rates.

That that's correct. And under the model that when we're looking at option B and it ultimately remains the final say is with this sitting council um because it's our our system under option B doing it that way. I think where the we went beyond being able to reach a consensus on option A was as said that we if we did that then we and it was of my opinion and I'm representing our board when they said these things that if we were going to create another authority and go under option A that each of the participants their say should be weighted based on their input into the system. Which again, as the mayor pointed out and has been said several times, we're, you know, if you if you took every entity in Wayne County [clears throat] and added up what their flow is or added up what their connections are, it would basically be a fourth the size of of us. So there just there could there couldn't be a consensus on how it could be option A and Goldsboro still not have the majority vote on the board and then [clears throat] the other side of that coin was well then that means the city of Goldsboro is still the ultimate authority and that that is correct. So that that was the the deal breaker I guess with the the difference between option A and B and why we're going down the the the road of or we've arrived ourselves sort of at the option B and one more little piece of that I think that it was discussed about borrowing

power and I know that the LGC representative spoke to this the the city if if the city of Goldsboro went with option and [clears throat] got out of the sewer business. We're still in the utility business. We still have a water system to run. So, we're still in the utility business. Either way, if a new authority was formed [cough] [clears throat] just under option A that all they did was run a combined sewer system, then the only way that new entity has to borrow money with collateral is that system itself. Whereas, as the LGC pointed out, if the city of Goldsboro continues to own and operate it under option B, the city of Goldsboro is in a lot better position to be able to borrow money because the city of Goldsboro has a lot more assets to leverage than just the sewer [clears throat] system. So, I think that that would be where the the the big the big difference and how we just couldn't get. But so far along along that path,

and worth noting at the the final meeting under final workshop under 1B, there was a vote taken. It's a non-binding vote, but there there was a vote taken to get a read on the room. There were three in the room, and I do not remember who. There were three in the room that voted for option A, which is the authority. There was one which was the city of Goldsboro that voted for the what I'm now deeming the city of Goldsboro option and then there were two abstensions and [snorts] yes it was u and Mount Olive

yeah so uh the three that voted for option A the regional authority was Fremont Pikeville and the county mount Olive and Eureka abstained uh for for various reasons you know one Mount Olive is in an uh SOC right now and they're working on u a parallel path. And then Eureka expressed that um they didn't think it was the right thing to do for them to vote because they're working on giving up their system to uh to the city right now. So yeah,

and one more little piece to that that has been spoke to to some degree. Every one of the entities that are involved in this discussion with the exception of the town of Mount Olive and the town of Pikeville already are flowing to Goldsboro and a part of our system except for those two entities.

That's right. because we've got a couple of entities that that was not spoke to or called by name such as Walnut Creek because they're not in trouble so to speak and they're they're they flow to us and the town of Seven Springs flows into the county which comes to us. So what the model or option B is basically would be continuing on the path that we're on and bringing others that wanted to come in to be able to come in and then restructuring the paper.

Right. that that's what the city was proposing that you move from just an interlocal agreement to receive waste to more of a a merger system which is similar to what is done other places like like Raleigh and then they would receive um insystem rates which is the main benefit to them. [snorts] That's that's correct. And it's when when you look at it in that regard, if that entity said we cannot continue to process our sewer or manage our system because of the size of our system and they turn that system over to the city of Goldsboro under option B, then they will be able to have the luxury of what our rates are and we are we are established and we are doing all the right things and our rates are going to be stable. Whereas m Mr. Barton and his associates had pointed out in some of the other meetings along the way that our the other entities involved in this are looking at their rate payers having to pay double and triple for those services if they don't do something to get themselves out of that utility business. And and as Matt and I or the manager and I have discussed many times, the Raleigh model um is working great in in Wake County. And I I see it as an opportunity to be able to help help our neighbors. And I know we were talking about dollars and cents and and how PE people is another issue that I hear a lot of people want less government, not more government. And if option A creates another governing authority, another new

piece of government, and I think the general public is not not o okay with that. People, like I said, people want less government, not more. But we and I pointed this out as the vice chair of that committee as well as the representative of the city of Goldsboro that we stand ready, willing, and able to help and be here for every entity in our community. We we we already have the majority flowing to us now, but our we're we're ready, willing, and able to to help anyone. And Walnut Creek is not a distressed utility, so they don't have to be a part of this conversation. But just for a reference, so to speak, if Walnut Creek was to get out of the the sewer business, it's already flowing to Goldsboro. They have one employee, I think, in their system. So if they just said we want to sign an interlocal agreement and we want [clears throat] to be done with [snorts] the sewer business and we want the city of Goldsboro not only to receive and process but we want the city of Goldsboro to own the system and get us out of it. I believe that Walnut Creek's bill uh sewer bill to their residents at this time would literally fall in half or more. I believe was the was the number by doing nothing but getting out of that business. And I think that's the path that that that's going to be driving whether or not the other entities want to to do that is whether or not those entities and their rate payers can be able to sustain themselves when their rates start going up, which is inevitable that that that's going to happen. And this is,

you know, yes, I I think that there's there's uh a lot of ways that a utility can become stressed. Ultimately, it's because the cost to maintain outweigh uh exceeds their ability to raise revenue. Um but uh in other ways are also expertise. I would say the city um not to throw you on the spot, Bert, but how many how many staff do you have in in under uh under wastewater? Yeah. Or under I have about

60 staff. Um I mean that's a that's a substantial difference than than any any other system. And so, um, you know, using Walnut Creek, I don't I don't know their system, but Walnut Creek probably doesn't have anywhere near 60. And the idea of bringing them in, the staff that operate that system in Walnut Creek, sorry, I think they have one. I believe

they have one. Um, the the staff that operate that small system would then essentially become a member of the regionalized utility as a staff member of that. They're still doing the same job, but now they're supported by a larger group of staff for training and operations and support and equipment provision and expertise all the same. So yes, u and and one last thing. So I think that it's important and I did point this out to the other entities meaning the other communities the municipalities that are affected by this op option B allows those boards to continue continue to govern themselves. their elected body gets to [clears throat] make the decisions of who gets annexed into their city, who gets provided utility service instead of a new board or another entity controlling or dictating someone else's destiny. I a municipality and I'm elected by the people in my m municipality, I like being able to vote on things that reflect my municipality. So, another another one of our communities that is interested in possibly joining, they still their local board, their elected leaders are who decides how their community grows and what direction it grows. They just don't have to worry about utility anymore because they're getting that from someone else.

So, let's get I know a lot of a lot of you commentary has been offered. There's been a lot of history on this. There's been a lot of input over the years. Council has been updated at various times along the way, but you know to we've gone into it then as well, but to this degree in depth. Mr. Livingston, bless you. Mr. Livingston, this evening, it is your request that you actually get a vote on this city from the city council to give you some direction on if we want to go ahead and decide as this body that we want to pursue option B, which would then, as I understand it, then allow you to instruct staff to continue expending resources and time in developing those plans, developing those agreements, and to be able to put that option out there for our neighbors around us if they are interested. That that's correct. And one thing we're not doing is is trying to force anybody to the table here. This is totally uh volunteer to have discussions and and explore, you know, what the what the options are. You're you know, you're going to make a smart move by looking at what the what what that would entail. And we're we're ready to sit down at the table with folks. Um you know, the idea of the water and sewer um authority is not a bad one. It's it's really about timing. When the news water and sewer authority was for formed, it was because there was a little bit of a crisis with groundwater and they needed to build a new surface water plant which was very expensive. And so everybody had this issue where they all needed to come together and be able to buy water so they could and then that created that on paper that economy of scale. If we do this together, the system was already somewhat in place in terms of the the piping and things like that. They could do this. There was a ready-made solution. There is no readymade resolution to the current water and sewer uh that doesn't use our existing blueprint. Um that's number one and but

number two there's not a a crisis or anything right now. It's it's to me it's it's that goes back to the question is there's crisis in some of these jurisdictions that they're having right now. Some of these nonviable utilities which we can help with but I mean there's not like a crisis of natural man-made proportions where we all have to come together and we all have the same common goal. uh we have managed our uh sewer system well and that's why we are where we are. I mean we could always do better but we're we're we've done pretty well.

Mr. Barton, you in your presentation discussed that the state created the distress utilities funds that you know and a a utility that designated we self-d designated um just putting that out there and to be able to be able to pursue these dollars. Thus far, all of the work has been out of our one-time money, right? That's correct. You have a $15 million lifetime grant limit, right? Um, somebody said in one of the meetings, who's lifetime? I I don't know.

Yeah. [laughter] But period, you know, for for the purpose of of the way that grant was written, my understanding was that for the lifetime of your system, this is your one chance to use this money to explore Yes. ways.

Yeah. So I also just want to point out to council right now the city of Goldsboro's pot of money that we applied for and received [clears throat] from the state is what has funded all of this development work and engineering work and and works towards partnership. You can also see why if the city of Goldsboro is not interested in pursuing option A, the rest of the group is, it would make sense for us to continue using the money that is one-time use for us to use it separately to continue pursuing option B. And then if one of them chooses to pursue their one-time use dollars, then they're feel free they're certainly free to do that if the state's interested in doing that. But I also think that you can see why Mr. Livingston would now be asking council for some direction giving that all of the money expended to date is money that we're not going to get a second chance at. And so the rest of the grant money, Mr. Livingston, I think wants to have council's direction on what to do with it. Am I correct on that before?

Yeah, it's and it just provides clarity to our partners that, you know, we are of one mind. we want to move forward this direction and that's that's what we're looking that's what I'm looking for and and they also said it at the at the meeting that that we were supposed to take it back to our respective boards and um get a um verbal yes or no which way to proceed. I would also add that in this instance has everything to lose and nothing to gain. Everybody else has everything to gain and nothing to lose. Right. [clears throat] You [snorts] are spot on. Yes, sir.

Y and and and that statement seems to have ruffled a few feathers along the way as it's been said, but it's absolutely reality. So some sometimes reality is just necessary. And I'm fixing to break one of my rules, which is complain about something and not offer a solution. that it I know that you have been through many of these because that's what you do. And I don't know I'm not familiar with anyone's merger attempt outside of this one. It's the only one I've been involved in. I've been involved with it for several years since the beginning. And now that we've got through that process and we're where we're at and we're looking sort of back behind us a little bit, I do not know if other attempts at regionalization that you've made in the past were like this one in as much that we are 85% of 80% of the player in in this. And so from just a just a reasonable person making a reason reaching a reasonable conclusion best based on the facts presented there. There's no clearer option for the city of Goldsboro than the the option B. And I feel like it was that way from the very first sentence that was spoke regarding this subject. So, it seems to me that this item has placed the city and the county from minute one in an adversarial position towards one another because we from the first sentence that was spoke on this subject, we're of two different

opinions because as council member White pointed out and has been said, the city of Goldsboro has nothing, you know, nothing to gain and everything to lose. So that I know I have, as has others, that worked awfully hard since we were elected few years ago to solidify and strengthen and repair the city of Goldsboro's relationship with the county of Wayne. And there have been people with the county of Wayne that have worked hard doing the same thing. And we have moved that needle. And we're it well before this we moved that needle a long way to where and I've been around for a few decades now and I've seen relationships be good and bad and somewhere in between and I think this discussion has hurt a relationship between the city and the county and it it because it it come become an adversarial thing and the way that this was structured to play out that we had no choice. I mean that's just sort of how

but so looking a tough conversation. Yeah. Looking forward is there when I say well I'm going to complain about something and not offer a solution. Is there a way in the future if when this come up again if you had six players and all six of them are on a sixth and they're all going to sit down together with the same marbles. That's one thing. But if you have a similar situation in the future to where you have one of the entities that's 10 times bigger than anybody else, should should this whole process played out differently? Is there a way to do this

in the next time or in the future to prevent putting two people in an adversarial position? So again, I'm making complaining about something and not offering a solution. I don't know.

Yeah. I I don't I don't know if I have a solution to that. The the I've been involved in these discussions since 2021. I think they were involved they began way before that. Um you know the the state was involved in I would say that the plan to give grants to the city of Goldsboro to administer and a a facilitation group. you know, that that was an idea that was generated by the state. Um, I think we've had a lot of great dialogue and we all really understand everyone's hot items and all of their opinions way more than we did three years ago. So, so there's a lot of good that came out of that. I I hope that any type of uh negative impact to the relationship between the city and county is mitigated in the coming weeks and months and that you know there's a lot of partnership between the city and county regularly and um you know there's still maybe opportunity for one of these options to move forward with with the the total group but it it certainly wasn't at the end of the last workshop. We we didn't we did not get there in that meeting. Um, yeah.

So, so council, if I understand it correct, Mr. Livingston, there's not a resolution in our board packet. All you need is a simple motion um instructing you to continue to pursue option B or A or neither. Correct. Correct.

Yes, sir. So, council, when we are ready, not just just cutting to the chase, not trying to stop the dialogue by any means, but um once questions are answered, the goal of this discussion would be able to have a motion made that uh direct staff and the manager to continue to pursue the the paperwork and the framework as illustrated under option B. I'm speaking my opinion now under option B and then a second and any further debate and then a vote. Again, not asking for one right now. Just giving y'all the what I believe should be the outcome from this overall discussion.

And I I will point out um there is a pro I sent the number to Mr. Livingston. Top my memory. There's a little over 90,000 remaining in the uh existing grant award. Um, I don't know any reason the state would not allow the uh the city to utilize that even without the other five participants. But I I would say that that is probably an early step is um if you plan to use that money towards advancing some form of regionalization that's different than what we had proposed previously um it's just getting the state's approval which is not necessarily a difficult thing. It's just a step. Well, at a bare minimum, we've got a lot of legal drafting to do. So, I I think there's a lot of pen to paper time that's going to be buildable hours for somebody.

Sure. Could be wrong on that, but someone's going to have to do it. So,

so Mr. Leon, anything further from you? Points that have missed. All right. Council done a lot of talking. Other comments, questions, confusions. Is there a motion? Um, I'll make a a motion and a comment. Um, and the comment is that the this is about economic development and prosperity for our for our area, for our county. And it would be easy for if someone that doesn't understand the whole scope of this that may be watching from home to think that this is about somebody that's has a septic tank and they need and they're going to be asked to connect to um a municipal system of some sort. And that's not that's not the point here. The point here is being able to have an economic development advantage for our county for it to be able to grow and for us to have jobs and industry that comes into our community that at the end of the day that that's what it's all about. And I know that the county has used this number before that when why jobs and industry and economic development and growth is so important. If someone that pays $600 in the county of Wayne, not if they live in the city, I don't because I don't know these figures, but just say someone in the county of Wayne that paid six $600 worth of property tax, the county provided them $1,000 worth of service for that $600 worth of tax that they paid in. That that's not a a winning proposition. win. The winning proposition is when you bring industry and you bring business in and th that is how you grow your community and that's how you provide and keep your tax base down and provide for your community. And at the end of the

day, that's what this is all about. It's all about economic development. And when you look at the south end of our county, we've got an industrial park sitting down there with tumble weed blowing across it that's been down there forever because Mount Olive situation. are not able to provide utility. So, think about if we're able to help them solve their issue, then all of a sudden we've got economic development opened up in the entire north end of the county, I'm sorry, south end of the county. You take look at Pikeville. They're up and down 795 and what their opportunities there are. So, at the end of the day, it's about economic development. And my motion would be that I would make a motion that we um accept and adopt option B as our preferred method to move forward with uh this discussion.

A second.

All right. Motion been made and properly seconded. Mr. Livingston, I saw you lean forward. Well, I I agree with uh Councilman Buoyette, and that's a big reason why we're moving ahead with the expansion, because we do need to be able to have that ability to recruit industry and higher paying jobs in our region. And, you know, that doesn't mean they have to go to the far corners of the county, though. They can they can build new ones right here closer to the the city of Goldsboro and and reduce the costs of of things like that. That's that's [clears throat] always an option, but I I'm that I'll just leave it at that. There's there's a lot of different reasons. I'll even put another one out there. Agriculture and farms are things that are very important to me. You can tell by my body type. And um if we can have a system that enables land that does not perk to be developable through sewer [clears throat] through sewer lines, then it'll it enables the county to do things that protects farm that does or land that does perk for farmland. So there's a ton of reasons that uh that this overall concept is an important thing. Um, tonight of course we're focusing on which option and we're focused on giving direction to staff for the remaining funds. Um, motions been made, properly seconded. Is there any further debate? Hearing none, we will call the vote. Please vote electronically if possible. If not, raise your hand and we will vote by show of hands.

Y'all take your time. We are in good shape. All right. All votes have been tallied. Uh we have adopted option B and have directed Mr. Livingston to and staff to continue pursuing that option. All right. Thank you, Reed. Yeah. And uh congratulations on next step. Congratulations.

And that's not referring to a contract. It's referring to his career just for what it's worth. All right. Uh, speaking of sewer system, I'll tell y'all what, let's take a brief recess for nature breaks. We will reconvene at uh 7:25 uh and continue our agenda. The best news I've heard. [laughter] What a segue.

So, we will pull this back to order and um Mr. Jonathan, if you would get us back up here for 9.1 and u there any additional questions when when the council woman is able to to get back then we'll get there. [clears throat] Good evening. If you would just say Perfect. Didn't want to rush anybody or hold anybody up, so that's perfect. All right. All right. Good evening, Mayor and Council. [snorts] Hope everybody's doing well. Um,

so I've got the pavement preservation program. Bringing that tonight. Um, one thing I wanted to mention was, you know, back in 2024, we adopted this this program. We got Withers to do a perform a study for us. Um $70,000 to do the study. Not only did they rate the streets and we all know that they're bad. Um but they were giving us different different treatments that we can use on our streets to to to help preserve the ones that we've been working on. So that's what we have tonight. We got the first iteration of that. Um we received six bids on this project. We did have to um kick three of them out for insufficient information. There was stuff that we, you know, the process we have, we had to kick three of them out. Um Barnhill Contracting came in at 1,75,46153. Um I do want to mention during the pre pre-bid meeting, we discussed microsurfacing. Uh microsurfacing was on this project. you know, they informed us that all the all the contractors that were in there informed us that, you know, typically [clears throat] they used to see that coming out as a as a a separate bid and they at least want $250,000 worth of work. We just didn't have that on the project. We were trying to spend most of the money on, you know, reconstructing and um um resurfacing. So, we we ended up taking that out, but the bids did come in. We came in under budget. Um there's an additional $136,53847. That money is going to roll over into the next budget cycle onto the next payment program for 2627. So it is recommended by staff that city council uh approved the attached resolution to go with Barnhill Contracting for 1,75,46153.

Do you happen to have in your slide packet the the map that showed all the different all the different colored lines from all all over the city? I do not. Okay. Council, we'll make sure it's [clears throat] been it's been discussed before and I know it's been part of uh previous agenda packets, but if you would please let's make sure that uh with public information officer and with council that that map of where everything is going to be done is is distributed. I do I do want to mention with the new website under engineer's page there's a link down there to our payment preservation program you can click on that it'll take you to it it's got the dashboard and everything with the map that you're talking about

I tell you what send out the link that way generates some traffic and get people in the habit like me actually using [cough and clears throat] the thing is it's a lot of work gone into that. Okay. Thank you. Yep. Latoya would appreciate that plug. So there [laughter] you go. There you go. So council uh any questions for Mr. Harry hearing none. Is there a motion to adopt the resolution of awarding this contract as presented? So move. Second.

All right. Motions have been made and properly seconded to adopt the resolution as presented. Is there any further debate? Hearing none, we will call the vote electronically if possible. If anyone is not able to, simply raise your hand. I'll recognize you and you can state your vote for the record. All votes having been cast and tallied. Motion passes unanimously. Seven. So, thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you for all your work on Thank you, Jonathan. All right, everybody. Next, we will move to another uh important item that this council has focus has been focusing on, item 9.2. Mr. Livingston.

Thank you, Mayor. Um item nine 9.2 is approval for a contract amendment with Bobbit Solutions for our public safety building improvements. I'm actually eager to get started on this project because it's been going on for a while trying to figure out um what the longer term solution is. This is a more of a shortterm fix that they will get into, but uh it's much needed because of the quality of of uh the working conditions at the current building. Um but the current contractor Bobbit has developed a proposal which is included in your package uh for 998450. Uh this includes um HBAC which is in the men and women's shock locker rooms um and and several other items. Um but they are here to give their presentation and kind of go over it for us. But uh just glad that [snorts] we're moving ahead with this project.

Give a quick clicker check just to make sure that technology is working instead of hindering. All right. And once it is now now I need my training. Make sure I go the right direction. You're good. You're good.

Good evening. And I'm Andy Spec. This is my coworker Nest Johnson. We're with Bob at Construction. Um should you approve this item in front of you today, he'll be your project manager on this uh uh project. So um I was before you in September um where we gave the uh results of our phase one programming for a new uh public safety center. And when we did that, we went through some [clears throat] of the deficiencies in the existing building. I won't go through this in detail, but that we've got some settlements, some a compromised thermal envelope, which uh what that means is you're getting excessive moisture in the building. Not only like rain water or ground water, but also humidity is penetrating the building. Um that same evening, Ben Lewis, a mechanical engineer from uh Cairo's project group, was here and gave his presentation on the mechanical systems and made some recommendations around that as well. And as you'll see, we're going to incorporate some of his recommendations into this. So after that meeting, uh, Kelly Arnold and Jamie Stanley came to us and said, "Well, what can we do to help improve the conditions of the existing building? Give us some recommendations." Um, knowing that the you'll be in that facility for a few more years. This was our project team. It was a robust team of of staff and and Bobbit personnel to include our architect, Davis King. Um, we kind of started with some some grand just a whole plethora of ideas, things that we could do to uh help improve the conditions in the building. We eventually kind of focused down on to how do we improve the living conditions and how do we kind of improve the the building environment? How do we reduce the humidity in the building uh with a price tag that does not exceed a million dollars. So, we we w it down and here's what we've come up with. Number one, one of our big concerns was the the sewer lines in the building. Um, with the settlement of the building, uh, we were concerned they may the lines may have, you know, deteriorated or maybe just due to age and corrosion. Um, and I think there were some previous assessments of

the building that indicated that that might be an issue. So, we came the sewer lines of the building. Good news is there are no collapse sewer lines. So, that t takes a big risk off the table because that could be very expensive to fix depending upon the complexity. Um we also had a blockage that was uh rendering one bathroom unusable which we cleared while doing that cameraing. So and it also revealed um the Saturday sewer line as it gets out to the street doesn't have enough slope to properly drain which is why it kind of backs up. Fixing that's kind of beyond the scope of what we of this project but um we do think that flushing it out quarterly is a is one means of addressing that issue. So, what can we do to make the environment a little more comfortable? Reduce the humidity in the building. There are a number of abandoned roof exhaust fans that are no longer in use, but they're there that allows excessive penetration of humidity from the outside to uh get into the building. So, we'll remove those fans, cap the roof, replace the insulation and the vapor barrier, which is really important in keeping the humidity outside the building. add 15 uh dehumidifiers into the building and reseal all exterior wall openings. Basically, recock and clean the duct work in the building. And these are all recommendations made by the Chyros group. So, the basic intent here is is to make the building a little more [clears throat] comfortable. This probably won't solve all the problems. How do we make it a little more livable? Well, the the what we came up with is was renovating the men's and women's locker rooms, renovating the men's and women's bathrooms on the police side of the building. I would characterize these these uh proposed repairs as cosmetic, but it will improve the lighting, fix broken uh shower, toilet fixtures, and address water damage on in those areas on the walls and the ceilings. This visual I realize it's very difficult to see, but what I'm trying to illustrate here with the colored areas

of the building, uh the the areas that we're going to touch, you can see the main entrance right there. Uh the arrows pointing to it in the bottom lefthand corner and the uh the men's and women's men's bathroom and locker room are kind of in a bluish shade and and the women's are in kind of the salmonella pink color. This is the budget breakdown. You said salmonella. I did say salmonella. Salmon. [laughter] Salmon. Salmon. I'm a guy. We're not I'm a decorator [laughter] quickly. We're not going to speak salmonella anywhere. So, back that one up. I'm a decorator. Salmon. Salmon. [laughter] I was going to say salmon.

Yeah, but I really need I mean beige. I'm a guy, right? That's good. [laughter] [clears throat]

Um, so here's the budget breakdown. You do have a more detailed breakdown in your packet to include our assumptions and clarifications. Um so we did bring it in under the the goal of um a million dollars. Nash has done this work working with subcontractors walking the building developing solutions and uh alton ideas to help get this within uh budget. So I did want to let you know that from the phase 2 programming we had almost $30,000 in unused allowances. So we're allocating that to this project as well. [clears throat] And then final steps with your approval. Uh we do have to complete drawings and get get this work permitted. So that's probably three months issue subcontractors. So therefore, we would start construction late August. Uh the duration is expected to be 15 weeks. Um because the building's occupied, we're phasing the work. So we'll we'll hit the men's excuse me, the women's bathroom and locker room first. that's expected to be done in early December and then followed by the men's bathrooms and locker rooms uh ready will be ready into February. Um and you do have a more detailed schedule if you wanted to look at it in your packet. And that concludes what I had to say. Any questions? Um anything we can answer for you?

I'm going to poke on uh on one thing that you said when you're talking about the different the different bathrooms. Uh you described those as cosmetic. Um, I think that we can probably debate if it's cosmetic versus truly functional or not. But if it if it is more of a convenience as opposed to a necessity, are there other items that in y'all's assessment are higher priority that should be addressed in in in lie of something that is, you know, as as you described it, cosmetic.

So may maybe cosmetic was a poor choice of words. Um, when we started this, I was trying to keep the work to be a replace in kind type of project where we did not have to go get permits. Um, so that to me that's cosmetic, but no, there's this this will improve the condition of those bathrooms. There are if you go back and go back to one of there's missing uh handles on sinks and and shower handles and and broken fixtures in there that No, this will improve that space. It is more than just making it look better. Okay. [clears throat] It'll make it it'll make it a space where hopefully they they don't mind going and taking a shower and get cleaned up. Okay.

Council, other comments, questions? I I do have one question. You mentioned the slope and that's out of your scope of work for um fixing the slope and that you would blow it out, but wouldn't we still have that same issue if you don't address the slope problem?

Correct. It is. Now, uh I say it's not in our scope of work at fixing that pro. You've probably got three options. So, I'll let Nash probably be the expert here to kind of address these. But two options we really aren't probably aren't going to do. One, ideally, the building finish floor is a little higher so you have more slope going to that main sewer line out of the street. I don't think you want to go and move the main sewer line at the street just to accommodate the sewer coming out of this building. Yes. There's a clean out that's on property that goes to the city main and it's about 200 linear foot that's flat. uh we ran a camera through it, did all kinds of observations on it, and you just don't have any slope there. So, a couple of options is digging it up and correcting the grades on it and getting the sag out of it. Uh that's a more expensive option. Um kind of the option that we've discussed with uh Jamie is using a uh hydrovac truck and just quarterly blowing water through and that would be something that'd be handled.

You said quarterly. Quarterly, yes, sir. Be good recommendation to do. make sure you uh push water down the line. So, those are kind of where we're at and figure for the duration cuz it's kind of a temporary fix until the new facility gets built within the next 3 to 5 years. Yep. And that's uh something I do believe that the town has in their arsenal to be able to handle. Okay. Thank you,

Mr. Livingston. In the resolution, there is a uh a note about the total amount of money that we were able to receive as a grant for being able to do some of this work. Um can you talk to us briefly? And Ashley, since you're here, whoever wants to wants to take it, this is a little over a million dollar project. We were allocated a little over 1.6. Can you talk us through the overall expenses of how that 1.6 has been?

Sure. Um so you know that that was part of the 2 million allocation which 375 went to stabilization of Union Station. Uh the remaining balance is going towards the studies, the fees and u approximately a million dollars towards I would call um you know repairs to the uh overall building so that we can get in a better living condition or I guess not really well they actually live there living/working conditions for our employees. Perfect. Okay. Council, any remaining comments or questions on this one?

Uh, if not, I would entertain a motion either to accept or reject the resolution to uh amend and move forward with this contract as presented. I make a motion that we accept um the resolution as presented. Okay. Is there a second? All right. Motion's been made and properly seconded uh to adopt the resolution as presented. Is there any further debate? Hearing none, we'll call the vote. Please vote electronically if possible and if not simply raise your hand. I'll call on you and you can state your vote for the record. Yes, sir. I I can't vote so I'm just ra Would you do you mind stating your vote for the record? I I vote to approve.

All right. Perfect. Thank you, sir. System has been a little bit glitchy tonight. I've had to refresh and tap that E vote three times myself. All right, motion uh motion passes on a unanimous vote. um we are able to move forward. Thank you gentlemen for being here this evening. It always helps to have the experts in the room. So thank you. All right. Now a big one. Uh Mr. Livingston, we're at item 9.3. I will turn it over to you and uh anyone else that you call for.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um at last, this is the FY2627 proposed budget um which you uh have copies of now. a draft copy of it, the manager's recommended budget. Um, what we talked about the last work session on this past Friday, uh, was some of or was it a Friday, a week ago? I guess this is probably a week ago now. Um, some of the things that you asked for if we could look into which we have was going ahead and setting up funds for the UDO. Um the way that's being proposed is since it uh is going to be a multi- uh year or multi-budget year process, we can start it out by funding 75,000 of it and then the remaining of the balance which will be approximately it's another 75 to 100,000 is what we estimate. So this project would start in the January 1st of 2027. You u also asked for an interest in funding compensation for part-time temporary employees. We feel like we can do that within the budget. We're going to come back with a policy amendment on that. We've got uh some pretty good way ways ahead with that. We've looked at some other policies and some other areas which we which we think might be helpful, but we bring that back at a at a later date. Um the lighting, we had to briefly discuss that. I think we're our way ahead with that is going to be to, you know, continue to consider what the uh travel and tourism board is recommending and then take it back to you as as we get the uh final numbers there and see if there's an option that we want to look at in in terms of cost saving to pull some money out of one of the strategic reserves if you're if you're feeling good about the project and want to see what the savings are and want to do that. But those were some of the things we talked about um that I I recall off the top of my head that were the rest of the council seemed wanted us to address. Um and then again, you've also had the budget book. So what we really wanted to do tonight was to

introduce to the public uh overall budget summary and Katherine's going to give that um similar to what you've already seen. So, I apologize in advance if you're seeing it again, but get another opportunity to refresh where we're at and how we got here. Just a couple comments before I bring Katherine up on the things. The goals of this budget was to meet what the objectives, what the city council said, and what the citizens needed and fund as much as we could the high priority items of our capital improvement plan. So, I don't want you to think that this budget started in um January because it really kind of started way back even before that when we were actually in the fall of last year when we were developing our capital improvement uh plan. A lot of the expenditures that we've set aside in this $103 million budget, the growth expenditures from the 9 million or the 10 million from the 93 million to the 103 is mostly because of the planned expenditures, those high priority items, things like the um street repaving program. $2 million was going towards that so we can continue to make real world improvements on the ground that people can see, that people can benefit from. We don't plan on doing that just this year. Whatever we find that's left over from the street repraving program, we'll put some more money into it. As the we end our fiscal years, the city council can decide through your fund balance policy to put money back into those different strategic reserves, whether they be buildings like we talked about just a minute ago or streets as we talked about. Um, we've done a fantastic job in recapitalizing the city so far the past two years. This budget continues to do that with uh putting money uh from our uh strategic reserves capital improvements for rolling stock. It put sets aside money for that. In fact, tomorrow we're on the LGC's consent agenda item. What does that mean? That means that they're no longer looking at us like we're the redheaded stepchild of North Carolina. We're

actually performing well in all areas of of our finances. And that's uh a lot of credit to the finance department and Katherine and her team, but it's also credit to you and the city that has basically held the line where we needed to held the hold the line and and not done, you know, um just smart governance is what it's been. And so I say those things to say that this this budget basically holds the line uh on last year's spending and keeps it. There's no new positions that have been authorized. Um I asked the uh the department heads to bring us an operational budget that pretty much kept the line on operational costs where they could and if it was over and above that they needed to justify that to ourselves. The budget committee helped tremendously in getting a lot of the uh policy things and guidance to us on on those types of issues. And um and lastly, I think we we took into consideration the um not lastly in terms of the least important, but the citizen survey, which was it was good to see that a lot of that lined up with things like the ORC study, but more importantly, it lined up with things that the city council see, not just the, you know, things that we could be doing a little bit more of, like better um getting information out to our citizens from public communication standpoint, better use of social media. So we we are already doing that. But more importantly, we're saying, okay, they really want to think see things like I keep on saying it, but this road this road the roads improvement is what people want to see around here. Um, you know, um, and and so I I think they see that we're doing a pretty good job in lots of areas, but they also see the areas that are that are aging like our streets. This this budget starts to address that. And um again, it's a it's um it's a budget that's largely uh holds the line. We've had to recommend some targeted

increases. You'll we'll talk about those. Um namely in sanitation services, uh recreation. We just did our master plan. As you know, we provide recreation services not just for Wayne County and Goldsboro, but even surrounding areas u um that participate in our programs because our programs are are affordable. And um so because we don't get as much help from other entities, we we looked at um lessening the burden on the citizens of Goldsboro by increasing the rates for those that are outside the city limits. Um we doubled those in the budget. That was a strategic thing that you guys had asked and it was also mentioned in our master plan several times. It's something that is a growing trend throughout the state that you seeing others help participate in a regional uh approach to recreation as it's um based on the users that are not just in Goldsboro. So those are some of the biggest changes. There's a 5% proposed rate increase for utilities. Uh that's kind of in line with inflation, maybe a little bit above, but you know, our our inflation for water and sewer is going up higher than the rate of inflation, mostly because things like chemicals and things like that have got gone up quicker than that. Um and um I I'm just going to hand it over to Katherine now to kind of kick it off and kind of go over the presentation for the general public. I'll ask any qu or if there's any questions, I'll take any questions.

We'll get to questions in just a moment. But I want to point out the outcome for [cough and clears throat] the discussion this evening. Obviously, we are not voting on a budget this evening. The purpose of this evening is one to uh have the budget presented publicly and to be able to uh have discourse amongst us and staff about the budget publicly, but also then we will need to set the public hearing date. Is that by motion or is that just simply stated for the record? Stated for the record. It will just be stated for the record. May 18th is is what we're striving for. All right. All right. Next meeting.

So stated stated for the record, unless council uh unless the course of the conversation dictates that it needs to be otherwise, we would then at the end of this discussion be setting the public hearing for the budget at our next meeting. Obviously, there would be ample uh discussion between now and then, including the potential for an additional meeting or special call or work session if necessary. uh obviously folks individually you know can make time to go and meet with the manager and finance director as have as happened last year too. So lots of options to ensure that all comments are heard and ingested as much as possible. I will stop talking. Mr. Livingston, anything else from you before Miss Gwyn? No sir.

Miss Gwyn. [clears throat]

Good evening Mayor, Mayor Proam, and council. It's good to see you this evening. Um tonight um what I have prepared is just a brief slide summary to talk about the um overview of the budget. Okay. Um the public has not had the opportunity to even see any of the numbers. So this is just kind of like a just a real quick overview and that's what we're going to um just do a highle overview. The manager's recommended budget, the detailed document was delivered to council on Friday. Today is the official day as per the advertisement in Saturday's newspaper in the Goldsboro News Argus and in the Wayne Week as well. And it was stated in that uh advertisement about the public hearing date and the time and the location as well. So where we go from here is, you know, workshop, we'll get feedback, we'll have the public hearing, more feedback and adoption. Those dates are to be determined. So, we're building a bridge from the retreat to where we are today. As Matt said, this is a very long process. It's a very intentional process and steps that the council takes very deliberately uh to ensure that they are being fiscally responsible with citizens taxpayer dollars. So in the February retreat part of my presentation, I identified that we had flat revenue growth. We had rising personnel benefit costs and there were capital constraints. We had a lot of capital requests but we didn't have enough money to fund all of them. Um the budget committee did meet multiple times during this process and the budget reflects the 27 budget that's presented reflects the council and the budget committee's uh direction in that. Okay. So from a big picture standpoint

the budget is balanced. So that's um in accordance with state law. It requires that the manager delivered a balanced budget to the council which that's being done in the document that you have. There is no general fund property tax increase recommended. There are some targeted fee adjustments included and we'll talk a little bit about the personnel and benefits um the cola, the merit and the bonus. Um, another big thing I think it's very important is the council adopted updates to the financial policies that created those assigned reserves and then 27 reflects the actual use of those assigned reserves. I touch on it just a little bit in the the presentation and then [clears throat] continued investment um based on that CIP that the council was presented on January 5th of this year by Davenport. So I think the goal or the the end point of this is that you that bullet the last bullet that we are maintaining services while we're managing the cost pressures without increasing the tax rate. So with the manager's budget it's about a 10% increase over last year. Um 94% of the budget is made up of the general fund and the utility fund 68 million 29 million. Um the previous budget last year was about 94 million. So at 103 that's that's about a 10% increase. And this just kind of gives you a big picture overview pie chart just to show you where those funds are spread.

Okay.

Can I interrupt because I think one point is that is that if we did not have those assigned capital reserves or whatever, we wouldn't really have that much growth in the budget. So that's you know people look at it and say oh it's 10%. You're not controlling spending. This was spending targeted wise to replace things that we've been saving money for or have money for within our capital improvement plan that are necessary purchases or priorities that that this was laid out by a lot of them by the city council. So, I just didn't wanted to think, oh, it's a 10% growth in the budget when it it's a different if it's a different approach. If we took out those strategic reserve spend expenditures, you'd see that it's basically a neutral budget. Sorry, Katherine, but I just wanted to point that out.

I'm glad you did, Matt. I mean, the So, in that number, there's natural growth of about 2.4 million. Um, reserves about 4.2 million as as [clears throat] um Matt alluded to. Utility rate increase is about 1.4 million and then other is about.7 million. It's kind of what rounds out that increase there. Okay. So, just a quick overview of the general fund because as you saw that that is the largest [clears throat] fund for the city of Goldsboro. The first three columns represent growth. The last two columns represent policy adjustment. So, of course, we've stated no property tax rate increase. It's going to be at 69. We had approximately a 3% real property growth, value growth, and that gave us about 875,000. Sales tax, we projected about a 6.5% growth, and that gave us about 1.4 million. And then the last [clears throat] two columns talk about fee adjustments. What's proposed in the budget is an increase in the residential garbage fee by $4 per month per residential customer. and that brings in about $525,000. And even with that that that function, uh, solid waste is still not self-sufficient. Um, it does not necessarily have to be. I mean, it hasn't been and we we've basically subsidized it with property tax dollars essentially. And, you know, that's a discussion for a different day. I did provide some additional analysis in the packet that y'all did get um you know for you to look at. And then we also are talking about doubling the non-resident rates for the parks and recreation which generates about $140,000 as per estimated um working with Felicia

and uh her staff. That's the estimate for that. So, you know, we have modest growth uh in the budget. Um, and then also we did some policy adjustments so that we could address some of those structural pressures that we're having to deal with. [clears throat] And then talking about fee adjustments, I've already mentioned the solid waste increase, the parks and wreck and um, and Matt, as I understand with the parks and wreck, that was part of that master plan with the parks and wreck study is kind of where that suggestion had come from. Um, we're also [clears throat] talking about transitioning our credit card fees from a city absorbed model to a customer pay model. Um, and that's going to save the city about 195,000. I did provide a um I guess you call it a policy document in your packet that talked about you know basically the percentage of the fees that are being paid by credit card that's being borne by everybody else that pays by cash check or draft. So it it essentially creates a subsidy. So we do have other methods cash check draft that people can pay with and there is no cost to that. So um you know we feel like that's the better model to to move towards and it does help generate some savings in the budget. And then also in a minor way talking about removing the business registration fee as recommended by the business development strategic plan that results in the loss of about $40,000 of revenue um each year. um it is a um significant amount of work goes into that and what we found is really um there wasn't a lot of use of that data. Um so and and it's good that the the business strategic plan also identified that. So we are trying to work towards

some cost recovery and then also support economic development in that sense because that's not another layer of burden on businesses that are doing business here in the city. [clears throat]

Within the other funds, utility fund, Matt alluded to this as well, we have a 5% rate increase and this is based on the Santec modeling. We are anticipating adding tiered rates August of 26, which is the billing period for July. So, that's what we're trying to do. Um, we anticipate [clears throat] that will be able to be done in August. And then there is a very small compost fee increase that's included downtown MSD. We're um looking at the rate being reinstated from 0.156 to 235 which was the pre reappraisal uh rate that was there. Uh storm water occupancy and other miscellaneous funds. There's no additional changes that will be um recommended. Okay.

[clears throat]

So go back just one slide if you don't mind. So the the downtown MSD I know that there's [clears throat] there are a lot of stakeholders that are there. If there's questions from council I do want to make sure that if not this evening at another time that uh that Miss Williams is able to discuss because I know that there was a lot of conversation that went into that piece of it. Um, again, that is a very specific the the MSD layer of property tax is very specific within the city and what that money can go for and would go for, but council that is something that um I think we are hearing for the first time in this in this setting and so that may be something that we want to have ask some questions about, you know, later this evening. Just pointing that one out there.

Okay. Yeah. Thank you, Mayor. [clears throat]

And then you know compensation makes up about 50% plus of the budget. So I think that's an important element to to talk about. Uh the 3% cola that is proposed for the first pay period in July be about 1.2 million across all funds. The 2% merit which is uh would be effective the first pay per full pay period in January. It really has a 1% impact. That's about 411,000. The $400 net bonus for full-time and 200 for part-time is about 382,000. And then also included is phase one of three compensation studies. This would be for police. And then also including a study of the certification pay and a merit pay. Um that's wrapped up in about a $50,000 estimate at this point in time. So all that totals up to a little over $2 million that you would see it it's it's basically an in increase in the budget. Um you know we already had the bonus budgeted but not the cola and not the merit. So you know when we talk about you know we've talked about cost pressure and we've talked about salary and benefit pressure. That's part of what that uh number is made up of. And just as a general um you know overview like what what are cost pressures things non-discretionary things we don't really have uh we can't play a part in changing I mean you know inflation I mean we can't affect inflation we can't drive it down we have the state driven retirement contribution increases that was like 267,000 the health insurance we estimated about 5% increase that's 209,000 that additional state sir charge charge on health insurance, which is 2% 2.4% of all payroll, not just payroll of folks

that participate in the health insurance plan. That's the biggest one, 817,000. And then of course certification pay that's in the budget. Those increases for this year is about 360,000. And those that totals up to about $1.6 million. So I mean these are very big numbers um and very impactful on our budget. So, we're going to switch gears and talk a little bit about CIP because as Matt discussed that that's the other big thing that um the city has been trying to strive to recapitalize, repair to build back up. Um again, the council was presented this um CIP in January. Um we talked about level A, level B, level C. Each one of those things had criteria about like health and safety. um things that were just advancing. There were program advances, things of that nature. So this is just a highle slide to talk about what got funded. So level A was 4.6 million. Level B was 2.7. I think the important part of this slide is talking about the deferred. So what we couldn't afford to purchase this year that was in that level A, level B category was or B and C, I'm sorry, was 4.2 2 million because we funded all of level A. Okay. Uh we couldn't fund all level B. I think level C only had one item for $25,000 in it, but we couldn't fund $4.2 million. So that now pushes forward into fiscal 28. So instead of it being around uh I think it was around 10 million 9 10 million, you know, it's closer to 15 million now. So 28 is going to have a lot of pressure trying to decide, you know, what can we fund, what do we need to fund. So I just wanted to point that out for your benefit. And then [clears throat] on uh just the

key capital, I think the probably the biggest thing um that this council has said and they said it last year is street haven. So there's 3.2 2 million in the street paven. That's made up of $2 million in assigned reserves and that comes from that street paving reserve that the council approved setting up. 1.2 million will be PAL bill which is actually in a special revenue fund. Um we are recapitalizing the police vehicles. It's a total of 16 patrol or admin cars and one uh ERT vehicle. Solid Waste has um two Solid Waste vehicles and I believe a knuckle boom. Uh computer servers. Um we had a um an issue with our servers. So we want to continue to replace those so we have a reliable IT infrastructure. We've talked about the Brian multisports uh complex lighting uh for the fields. Uh a street sweeper for the stormwater fund. And then the city hall um those are the HVAC controls um was the other these are the the big ones that we're talking about. We're going to switch gears just a little bit and talk about assigned reserves. So these were the basically we we had unassigned fund balance. We took about $10 million out of the unassigned and put it in buckets. That's what the council um they passed the ordinance to update the policy and then we did a resolution and then actually divvied the buckets up. So we started with $10 million. We've got planned uses of about 4.2. So that means our ending reserves are going to be about 5.7 million. So the slide, the graphic just really reiterates all of that information.

[clears throat] One thing that I'd like to add there too, and I said this already, but I think it's really important because as we u finish out our years, we reallocate monies back into those um buckets. So, it's a revolving fund of sorts. So, hopefully we'll be able to keep on and that that's how we are planning on funding our CIP where we can.

Okay. Um, and so the use of the reserves, um, we've talked a little bit about when I talked with the CIP. Um, there are a few things that I didn't speak about. The facilities assessment that will be done out of the public works department. Um, the Goldsboro Event Center. There's some major plumbing issues that need to be resolved uh, of $60,000. Some painting at exterior of city hall. And where it says police cars approximately six, this is the part that had to come out of the cash. So this is the payo portion. The other portion is being debt funded. So that's I just don't want you to get confused when I said, you know, one was like 1.1 million and then I'm coming back and saying six cars, but this is the payo portion. Um the debt service for the equipment in 26. uh we use reserves to help pay for that because uh as I mentioned last year when we talked about the the shopping cart and I said you know you needed like three pennies plus in order to do the debt service but but we settled on a 69 cent rate so there wasn't money to pay the debt service so that's got to come out of the reserves and then of course street paving 2 million basically that's payo so that's the payo portion of the street Okay.

And so just um key takeaways, you know, our our goal was to maintain financial stability, no property tax increase. We targeted the use of the strategic reserves, targeted fee adjustments. You know, we have continued cost pressures that we have to deal with. But we feel like that the budget reflects um the council and the direction that we received in order to deliver the city council the required balanced budget. So um public hearing May 18th um adoption is to be determined based on the discussions with the council. Um and then again I provided these list of detailed reports to the city council just for your information but also you have your your detailed budget book as well. So

that's all I have. Listen, how would you like how would you like to proceed this evening? Well, I I think the first thing to do is just ask the question if we're, you know, if there's any outstanding issues that you don't think we've addressed or need more clarification um and and proceed forward. Okay. Council, are there uh initial questions? [cough] [clears throat]

Um a couple. So the necessary increase for the um solid waste for trash that that was that all due to the increase cost from the county for the tipping fees or is

uh that's primarily the reason the last three years there's been cost increases going up there and we've um not made those adjustments but the public works director and finance looking at it was like well we can keep on trying to absorb those costs and have the property tax pay for it or we can increase the fee. So we chose to propose increasing the fee. Um

okay and the second or the last question when we decided or it was decided to present in the budget what our scaled difference is going to be for parks and wreck for city residents versus out of city residences residents. What h how did we arrive at the figure that is for out of city folks? I mean I know it's double but I I mean I'm sure there was some science to why why it is. If there I mean if there is I'd like to know how all I want to know is how we got to that. there there wasn't really a lot of science behind it other than you know um the the folks that are inside the semi limits are paying both city and county taxes on a property that would be valued the same amount. Okay. So since they're paying both city and county taxes it seemed to make sense that they should pay twice as much on a recreation program. You that was the logic there. Um, okay. Well, that I asked a question, you gave me an answer.

That was that was [laughter] that was my logic and I'm sure it's probably flawed, but that I've seen that elsewhere used. So, but they're not paying any uh for any fees regarding recreation services. So, whereas our citizens are paying both a city and a county tax. So on this particular service, when you boil it down, it would make sense that they would pay twice as much as the residents because they're they're not a resident and they're not paying the the city and county tax.

Well, I think we needed or I feel like I would need a a talking point when if because I know this council's already agreed that there needs to be an increase in funds on that side. I think we're all had to reach consensus on that. But to be able to have a talking point when somebody says, "Well, you know, I can't afford to now to send my kid to item X because the price just doubled." I just wanted to know how we got there. And I understand we need to be looking after our folks. And that's but still the other folks if they ask a question, I want to have something to to answer with. So that's that was the reason for my question. So

that's all I've got, Mr. Mayor. I'm not far enough along yet to have much more than that. I'm still neck deep in my Yeah. Understood. Understood. Well, we're ahead of schedule. So that's right. And this is not the only chance you can have to ask questions. Mr. Livingston already, you already has also stated that he wants to have the opportunity to meet with everybody as you're able to to get your thoughts together. Council, what else? right now. I know there I know there have to be other other questions. Yes, sir. I've already Yes, ma'am.

Yeah, I've already spoken with Matt about some concerns that I had and I'm kind of filtering through. I like to I like looking at the summary first and then going back looking at what the the um city manager has done. And so, I've gone through and I've talked to him a little bit about some things already. Yes sir.

One is I still would like to see um as far as the utility rate is concerned I would like to see how many of our constituents use more than the 5,000 gallons um so so I can know what route you know so I can make decision. Also, I would like to see [clears throat] on the Brian multi um sports complex, uh what would the bill our utility bill grow to? Cuz we'll be the one stuck with paying the light bill out there if we do light those fields up. So, what does it grow to? Um you know, saying what would our utilities approximate? So, so because it's not just funding the lights, but we'll have a a ongoing

we started increase in utilities. So, I would like to see that as well [clears throat] started. Okay. Yes, sir.

Um to Councilman White's point, and I was just going to say this for so he would know. I I had asked staff to provide um some numbers that what the tiered system would do to a customer utility bill at the 5,000 3,000 and then one at what my use is as a minimum use because I want I want to see that and see what the savings will be for for folks on the different tiers. so that I can make a decision on how I'm going to feel about the the trash rate. So, I mean, just to for example, if we say, okay, well, a 2500gallon customer on a tiered system is going to save $4 and the trash increase is $4. Okay, that's one thing. if they're going to save $2 and the trash is four. I don't I want to try to avoid someone's bill going up when our goal is to get the bill to go down. So, as soon as I get that information, I'll share it with you and forward.

We we'll get that for everybody cuz we're we just started working on that. We want to make sure that we're comparing apples to apples on multiple different levels with the with the tiered rates because it's it's a new concept for us and we need to educate everybody up here on it so that we understand how it works, how how it how we can educate our cuz one of the things with our programming now, it's very very good that we're doing this. Uh folks will be able to have an app on their smartphone or they'll be able to sign up because the new module that we put in. We had this in other places. you can manage your account on your phone basically get alerts to high water usage or you know and those kind of things and you can set up uh all kinds of things with this program and a lot of people have been asking about that and we're we're going to start doing that. Uh Katherine is that going to be effective July or when does that when is that effective? So that's a piece of this software, the census software that was not installed when the original system went in due to cost

should have been installed. It I agree with you. Um you know that the city borrowed money in order to put that in. So I've gotten a cost estimate from census. Um I'm not sure how long it'll take to implement. we really hadn't gotten that far because we really, you know, kind of wanted a better feel if council if that's what they wanted to do. So, um, anyway, we have it. We can start moving forward with it. I do think at the end of the day, it helps us because, you know, where we have our adjustment policy, you know, a lot of that can kind of go away because then the power is in the customer's hands to be able to monitor their usage. So, um I I can get a better figure about uh an implementation date on

the reason I mentioned that is because with that system people can and they're sign they're on tiered rates and they can set alerts so that they know they're getting close and they you know if they you know if they so choose to keep their usage below a certain amount they can set that up so they can set up alerts and they can see how they're how they're coming along and things like that along the way. So, a piece of that, it's very helpful.

A piece of that as well, and council, I saw I saw your your hand go up as well. A piece of that as well is that allowing folks the knowledge to know if they are an abnormally high user or not. I'll give you a perfect example, not to go into personal life, but in my house, it's myself, a dog, a kid, and my wife. All right? And we average about 3,600 gallons a billing period. All right. I had no idea that I'm on the low end. I just have no perspective. Right. But I'll have constituents who live by themselves who will show me their bill of 4,800 gallons. They want to know why their water bill is so high. And I need to know I would like for them to be able to have the perspective of knowing, do I need to a call a plumber

or am I running my lawn irrigation system, you know, way too much? But you get that. allowing people the knowledge to know if they're on the high end of users in the system or the low end of users in the system. I think providing that information I think can allow people to then make their own decisions and as you've implied allow some conservation mindsets because this is also got a sort of philosophical approach to it as well. You'd be surprised at how much a toilet flowing can or just a leaky faucet just leaving if you're on vacation or whatever. you get that thing going, it can really run up your bill and it helps people with that knowledge having being empowered with that.

Thank you. Council White, I saw your handle. Just the last thing, I know last time we met and we had a working session on the actual budget. We asked for a list of things that we could have spent, we can spend that uh Yeah, the Corona virus. The Corona virus.

Kellyanne's got she's got that. We we did look into that and we do know that we're just kind of right there at the edge of we have to have a shovel ready project and we're concerned that there's not that very many like you can't use playgrounds for it like we are going to get the south end project done. We're going to start bidding that for the playground at the end of this month but we can't use it for things like playgrounds and I don't know Kellyanne if you've got any uh comprehensive list at this time. I know you're working on that. I don't mean to call you out on it but but we are working on that. I can provide it for you to give to the council tomorrow. Um, but here come on come on up so that I want to make sure that you know folks can hear. I'm used to being loud. That's all right.

Um, yes, I I can provide that list to the manager to provide to all of you. Um, but as he said, the the real issue is the time crunch of it all. Um, because we have to spend this money by September 10th. And so the the issue is, you know, for example, if we were to come up with a really great project um procurement, right? You know, maybe there's some construction we can do to another park, but could we get through our procurement process fast enough in order to spend it by September 10th? Not just start it, but actually spend the money and draw it down um from HUD. And that's going to be the difficulty. I have a question.

Yes, ma'am. Please. Um, when it comes to that HUD funding, is it specific for LMI communities? It is. Because my concern is, is the area we're currently targeting in an LMI community? The Brian Multisports Complex, that census track is is considered LMI. It has 51%. Um, the real question, you know, it's a it's a a great question, is whether or not we're able to prove that the um what's the word I'm looking for? the service area or th those who will be serviced by the park will be

LMI and you know again because we do use uh the park for our recreational programs as well. We do have some demographic data that says those who play soccer or flag football or run at the park. I mean whatever it might they might do. I mean even that that um the sidewalk that weaves through all of the parks. I mean technically that's a greenway system available for our entire community to use. So if you look at even the um adjacent census tracks around the Brian multisports complex they are all LMI um and are able to count towards that service area and those who would be beneficiaries of this investment in the park. that that is uh that is part of my homework is being able to justify that enough that um of course the CDBG is is um warranted as a spend there. But I I do feel confident just by the research I've been able to do so far.

Yes, sir. Um, I realize we've had a lot of staff turnover since CO, but did did we, it's just a question. Did we drop the ball somehow or another and miss an opportunity to use that funding and now we're in a jam? I just it's just a question.

It is. And and that point has been raised and I I think it deserves an answer. Um, I think that if the answer is not available at this moment, again, the point is to be able to utilize it, but you're absolutely correct. I know that point has been brought up by multiple council members of yes, we got to resolve this. We also got to figure out why are we just not resolving this. Uh, and if there is a response, I think it would be good to be able to offer it. I think the response is we've been trying to dig ourselves out of the backlog and we're digging just as fast as I can of being behind on on things in terms of our projects and and and this one is one that's a little bit more challenging. Not to make excuses, but the Corona virus funds there. It's not like regular CDBG. You had to tie it back to the the virus and there's only so many eligible expenses. So we've we've I think you know trying to identify a project has been a real challenge with this one is traditional CDBG funds is not so much we've had trouble or challenge just executing those funds. We're doing that now but we we couldn't find a good project at least that's what my memory serves. We we just were drawing blanks with that one until to Kellyanne's credit she says you can use that for that and I was like okay good. So, but sir,

so one more thing. Um, I'm extremely happy regarding pavement and the the where we've arrived at being able to spend some money and and the manager is in just general conversation, he shared with me his vision or plan to be able to ramp that up more and more. And it's really, I mean, as we all know, that's the first thing that people notice when they pull out of their driveway is what kind of shape is my street in? And when us getting that contract approved tonight, I mean, the the rock, it's rock and roll time. There's fixing to be, you know, people are going to be able in the next few years to look in all four directions and see a paving machine running. And that's that's that's good news. Um, and back to the your reference, mayor, on your water usage, I I did the same thing. And by to show the difference, I'm I'm a single person household and I'm my average is,75 gallons. So, I'm on my my bill is just about as cheap of one as you can get. So, I want to see what that tiered system would even would do to that that minimum bill. And I'm glad that we're now at the point we're going to be able to implement the software and the app on our phone because I'm a prime example of several months ago a high bill and I didn't notice it until the second high bill come and my water heater my water heater's under my house and it was leaking but it was leaking into the ground and I had no idea it was leaking until a high bill come. So, if I can have that app and set that up and put the threshold on there, then I would know that something's [snorts] going on. So, that's positive for our our citizens as well when that's implemented. So,

council, anything else? I'm going to ask one and this one, Miss Williams, if you don't mind taking for me or you Mr. Libby, whoever, talk a little bit about the MSD. I know that that is a uh the idea of even moving a layer of property tax right now in our current political climate I I think is is risky, but I it's calculated risk and I think that the two of you have talked through what value you want to be able to clearly deliver for that. What is that? And I've gotten bits and pieces of it, but let's get it out there publicly.

Well, I'll take that one, Mayor. I think the big thing is is we want to be able to provide the level of service that we've started doing this year under the grants that we've been so graciously received from Representative Bell um for things like facade improvements. We'd also like to uh do some other types of grants and if we you know his his monies are going to be used up and if we don't have a revenue stream to continue those things such as maintenance of downtown which I think is critical now we're using Fultures landscaping. So we we instead of having to use the general fund um you know even though it's a it's applicable and we could use it there's nothing wrong with that but the people that are benefiting most from those programs particularly things like directly like the facade [snorts] grants we want to be able to continue those um we need a stream of revenue to be able to pull from and what better to use the downtown development district to for for that stream as opposed to the regular property tax. that way we can continuously fund this and and fund other programs as as they as we develop them. So that's that's the primary reason just being able to have a stream of money that we can use for those types of grants and instead in programs. I just want to always make sure that we're able to, you know, clearly articulate the value that any layer of taxation is doing, which I think is probably what the the larger statewide conversation is going towards is being able to point to what the dollar is doing and how it is uh is delivering value back to those who are paying for it. Again, just as a reminder, those that are in the MSD fund, they pay county taxes. They should be entitled to the benefit of those county taxes. They pay city property taxes. They should be entitled to the benefit of those city property taxes. And then they pay an MSD uh tax. They should be entitled to the benefits of those MS of that MSD tax.

And I just want to be able to clearly articulate to those uh to those property owners because frankly they are investing three times

in in the government that supports them. And so I just want to be able to make sure that we're able to say why. to give you an example of how we've used those funds. Um the John Street Corral is just one example and we can use things like that to fix things like the parking lot like restriping or microvicing and some things like that that are we're seeing those as needs. So, the needs aren't going away and we know the needs are getting greater and greater amongst the general fund with the streets outside of the uh MSD, but it it's just a source of revenue that we can continuously use to put back into the MSD to continue to do physical improvements and grants. Perfect. Thank you.

And yes, sir. And for what it's worth, as a downtown property owner that's affected by that MSD, I haven't heard I I'm okay with it. And I I think that's by the large majority everyone is because that as a it's a tax on ourselves basically to provide an extra layer of service to that area without having to take it away from the general fund. So, I mean, it's I haven't heard anybody speak negatively of the MSD and what's done with it, including myself.

And the final point I'd make is that this isn't really it's trying to go back to the level that we were at before. So, it's sort of an and and I know that a tax is a tax, so I'm not trying to make light of it, but you know, the natural growth in the property tax revenue is what u we were able to use for the general fund. Well, they didn't get to use that with the MSD because we put it back to revenue neutral. So, that was actually making it harder for them and and the MSD to continue some of the programs that we've been doing. And and the biggest concern I have is the maintenance and keeping that contract going with because if we can't keep that going, we're going to have to uh stretch our parks and recreation crew even thinner than they are right now.

It's a very minimal amount of money honestly for compared to the other. That's the goal is to be able to to show why it you know comparatively speaking. All right council actually Mr. Mr. Livson, we'll go back to you for a second. Process going forward between now and our date of public hearing. Uh what do you request and advise of council?

So right now, um two things. If you uh have certain questions about the budget, if you can direct them to me or Katherine, we'll be happy to sit down with you and go over them. And secondly, um you know, if we can go ahead and prepare to have our public hearing, set a motion for the public hearing on the 18th, then we can go ahead and stay on schedule with that. Um but that's that's it, mayor. Just a set a public hearing for the 18th. And any other questions we have uh or you have or the council has for me or the finance officer just to if we want to set a work session, if we need more time like as you said, we can do that. We do have a little bit of time baked in, but I want to be respectful of your time to make sure that uh all the council's time. So, my preference would be to meet with you oneonone, but if you want to have if you feel like a work session is needed, we can do it that way, too.

So, council, um where we are this evening, budget is has been presented. It'll be made available for uh for public dissemination. Miss Gwyn, is it this evening or it'll go live? I'm gonna make sure that it gets Perfect. Perfect. So, that will go live later this evening. Um, we do or do not need a motion for setting the public hearing. Uh, can I just go ahead and just decree that the public hearing will be the the second meeting in May, which is what?

18th. All right. So, we'll have our public hearing on the 18th. council between now and then um any conversations, questions, concerns, ideas uh with the budget, please do make sure that you communicate back to Mr. Livingston or myself or both. Uh at the 18th meeting, it will be the will of council. If we choose to u to vote on a budget as may be modified between now and then or as it currently sits, uh we can either vote on it then or we can hear the input from the public, be able to make modifications right then and then do it or we can hear the input from the public, continue having input and then vote on it at one of the meetings in June. But um we are in a good spot timewise to be able to do this thing. Uh, so the second meeting in May, first meeting in June. Either way, we're in a really good spot. I think I'm seeing nodding heads, so I'm hoping I'm not making that up.

All right. Yes, sir. Um, one thing I want um the board to consider is um I know Matt appreciates the one-on-one, but it's also important too for us to hear each other's thoughts. So, I really do want us to consider um another work session where we can come and talk and hear from each other about how we feel about the budget as well. Would it be the uh would it be the desire of council and we can have this have this conversation now or allow people to look at their their calendars and think about it to do another session after the public hearing or between now and the public hearing just as a knee-jerk reaction if we [clears throat] were to say after my preference would be after after the public hearing. I think we'd be better doing that. So we've got

Right. That makes complete sense. Okay. Then how about this? everyone check their calendars and we will have a conversation uh between now and next meeting and then we'll be able to announce the date of a of a special call or a work session uh after the public hearing assuming that that's still the desire of council but I think that's that would certainly be a positive thing. So, if there's nothing else to come forward on item 9.3, and I don't see anybody else grabbing their microphone, then I'm going to move us off of that and move us to section number 10 on our agenda. Everybody, thank y'all for your work on this budget getting us to where we are now. Again, we do have plenty of time on this, so if there's ideas and recommendations and all those things, please make sure they come out. Uh, Mr. Lewis, in your report,

uh, just a couple items very briefly here. We're still experiencing drought conditions. So, we're under the voluntary water conservation. River levels are at 52 uh ft or is it 52 in? I'm not sure. Okay. Yeah, that would make sense. We wouldn't be under voluntary feet's a different different conversation. That's a flooding conversation.

Yeah. Um so, that's one thing. Just keep that in mind. And it looks like um that may be going forward for next few weeks unless the climate patterns really change. And this week we also have the city vision conference. I I did act as your delegate. Thank you for electing me uh to be the delegate to to your to the League of Municipalities. Voter representative. That's all I got. Mayor. Okay. Well then with that we will move to uh section 11 which is mayor and council member comments. It is the first meeting of the month and as such we will continue with our tradition and begin with the representative from district 1. Miss Jones, the floor is yours.

Yes, thank you. I'm [clears throat] real excited about the eight new buses that we have with GWTA. They will be rolling out in June. They are uh low floor and easy access. Um the other uh buses will retire and uh because it is a federal grant they would go to government deals. So they would be they will have to be sold. Um, also I'll talk about the trashing a little bit later, but also I would like to commend uh District One community and the way that they handled the incident on Carolina Street. That community showed love and concern. Uh, they moved out of the way so the first responders could do what they needed to do. I'd also want to commend the police and the fire department for all that they have done and uh I have posted uh my suggestions on uh Facebook and and what we need to do and go forth. I've already spoken with the uh engineer of Norford Southern um to ensure that that bridge is is safe to go under for cars. Um, I sent an email to Matt and Matt and I and the mayor are working on some solutions to make sure that um it is safe and that area is safe. That's um very very important. Uh the entire um district one community, the Carolina was just awesome that day. Um I just I just can't commend them even more. Also, um I like to talk about since we're talking about the the bus and the bridge, uh I have sent a a couple of requests

regarding the trucks that are still going on north end. The big trucks are still going uh through the neighborhood. Uh they're too big for that area. There is a park right there. There will be children there, but even so, we want to keep our roads, they are supposed to go on the highway and not on uh Neil and Alabama to get to 117. And uh we we've talked about that a little bit, but it's still occurring. So, uh, could you kind of take a look and put, um, another sign there to say where the trucks are supposed to go, but they're not supposed to be on Hooks River Road or going through that neighborhood. So, I don't know what we can do about that, but uh, I just ask that you please, um, take a look at that, please, for me. Uh I had the honor of um going to the black alliance and that was why I was not present at the finance meeting and uh thank the city for allowing me to go. It was a wonderful um event with elected officials. Um the um theme was unleashing our power and united in purpose and um I brought back a lot of good things for that. Um, I also would like to thank the finance committee for where we are. I really do appreciate you. We are not the stepchild [clears throat] anymore. And uh, thank you for all your hard work um, that we've done. I enjoy being on the committee with you and me prom. And thank you so much for all your input. You always have valuable information to share and we listen to you. Um

there was something else I wanted to say happy mother's day for those mothers and also for the women that nurture children because there are some women that don't have children but they do pour into the children in our community and so thank you for that and that's all I have sir no comment there. Yep. No, that's what I was laughing at. [laughter] I was going to have I have comments. There you go.

Okay. So, Saturday is National Stamp Out [clears throat] Hunger Week and so our local post offices will be collecting food if you will leave your non-p perishables in the mailbox on Saturday or you can also um take those down to the Berkeley or um the the um post office here in Goldsboro. But if you'll leave your perishables Saturday, your post office carriers will pick those up. Or I know that um Councilwoman Brandy Matthews uh heads up the blessing boxes. So that's another great outlet that you can place your food in on Saturday.

Um congratulations to we had over 60 20 city departments that won um safety awards. So I was there with the city manager. So, I want to congratulate all of those awards that were given by the Department of Labor. And then, um, Wednesday, if you have a chance to join us, we'll be at the hub, um, for the 29th annual how Kplunk, um, awareness for disabilities. So, if you could come on out and I know many of you will be at City Vision, but if if you're watching and you have a um opportunity to join us, we'll be at the hub at 10:00 a.m. Thursday is National Day of Prayer. May we never forget the value of praying for encouraging each other and loving each other well. And then the last thing is I have missed my son's birthday party tonight. So, as a mom, I just want to ask for your forgiveness and to tell you I love you. Happy birthday and may the fourth be with you.

He's a big Star Wars fan. So I had him on Star Wars day. So happy birthday to my son Tyler Weeks. I love it. Ma'am's yours. No comment, sir. Um only thing I have is um I know um there was invitation sent out by our keeper of records for um induction ceremony for the actual um induction ceremony for our mentor group on this Saturday. So, if you didn't get it, this is a verbal invitation. It's at 5 from 5:00 to 7:00 at the event center. Business attire. Uh, come celebrate the youth, the young men of Kapolite.

Is it business attire? I was going to ask you that cuz on the thing it said for it. Business attire. I [snorts] would have wore a gown. I Thank [laughter] you. Me, too. I wouldn't come with a black evening gown. There you go. Thank you for that.

And it would have looked fantastic. All right. Um my comments will will not be um terribly long, but um last four days from Friday until today has been incredibly busy and it's been timely given the proclamations that we had earlier uh earlier this this morning. And I'm not going to use family names because I want to protect their their privacy. But um understand that uh understand that attending funerals and then doing proclamations for mental health, it hits differently when it's a child.

I think we can leave it at that and I don't think I need to go any further because I don't want to draw unnecessary attention. I'll just simply say um look after those around you. Make sure you're having conversations and um don't really know what else to say other than recognize that those around you might need a little bit more support and family members might need a little bit more support than you even realize. So, we'll leave it at that. Um, also watched a uh a very good friend, you know, say goodbye to uh to his mother this weekend. And again, we'll not use family names, but to he and his entire family. Um, heartfelt condolences one more time and wish the best for for y'all as you continue your journey of healing. And then, uh, two moments of celebration is the highs and lows of the weekend for sure. a uh change of command for um Lieutenant Colonel Robbie Rutland taking over the 77th in the 916th Air Refueling Wing, a uh person who has adopted Goldsboro as their home for over a decade now, now leaving a squadron of uh of re of refuelers, and then a uh then the colonel taking over the 916th as a whole, his assumption of command on Sunday morning. Just an incredible weekend of highs and lows. And all I all I'm trying to say with that is make sure that as you're around folks and you have folks that are close to you, if they're celebrating, talk to them. If they're mourning and if they're kind of trying to figure out what their next step is, even silently, talk to them. Crack that window open [clears throat] and and try to engage. Try to engage.

With that, um I'll close with this. To all the mothers by by birth, by choice, however you choose to do it. Thank you for what you do and uh we certainly would not be where we are without you. That concludes my comments. Mr. Lawrence, you uh teased me with the reality of not having a closed session earlier. Is that still the case? I can come up with something. But uh I will entertain a motion to adjourn. Our motion [laughter] heard a motion. Is there a second? Second. Our motion made and properly seconded to adjourn. That is not a debatable motion. We'll vote by show of hands. All in favor? All oppose. Same sign.