City Council - Regular Meeting

Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey, hey, hey. And As always, as I do it myself, if you

would please make sure that cell phones are silenced. Absolutely. For the duration of the meeting. Good evening, everyone.

We're going to start prayer today. And we want everybody to keep in mind of our county commissioner, Wayne AOT. And as we're praying for everything else, let's keep our prayers going for that family and their endeavors and all things that they're going to have to deal with in the days to come. Shall we pray? Our father and our God, we thank you for this moment as we come in collective and father that when we come together with the council meeting with the minds and making decisions on the behalf of the constituents, Father, we thank you for giving them the strength, the energy to continue to push forward. Father, we thank you for the city of Goldsboro and everything that comes with it. Lord, we thank you Lord for this opportunity even tonight and those who are going and making changes in their lives. Lord, we ask you Lord to smile upon them and move with them in Jesus name we pray. Amen.

Amen. Please 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.

Madame Deputy Clerk, if you would please conduct a roll call. Yes, sir. Mayor Gayler, present. Mayor Proin Jones, present. Councilman Boyette, present. Councilwoman Taylor, present. Councilwoman Matthews, present. Councilwoman Weekes present. Councilman White present. All right. All present and accounted for. I appreciate the uh the time, the commitment, and the effort that it takes to make these things work. So, everyone, thank you for being here. We'll move to section three, an adoption of our agenda. The agenda has been distributed uh actually in in pieces, but nonetheless, it has been distributed for all to review. Uh Mr. Livingston, are there any staff requested changes to the agenda as presented?

No, sir, Mr. Mayor. All right, council. Are there any council requested additions or changes to the agenda at this time? Hearing none, we'll entertain a motion to adopt the agenda as presented. So move second.

Motion's been made and properly seconded to adopt the agenda as presented. Is there any debate? Hearing none, we'll call the vote. Please vote electronically if possible. Okay. And if it would swap the screen out so that we have the have the vote count. All in favor, please raise your hand. All oppose, same sign. Seeing none, motion passes unanimously. All right, we will begin with some retirement resolutions. We will begin with Major Leonard. This one being a resolution council. The way that we will do this as is our practice. I will present the resolution to council and we will then entertain a motion to adopt or amend the uh the resolution as presented. We'll have an opportunity for debate during that process if anyone has any comments that they would like to make. So with that, we'll begin with resolution 2025-92. resolution expressing appreciation for services rendered by Paige Leonard as an employee of the city of Goldsboro for more than 32 years. Whereas Paige Leonard retires on December 1st, 2025 as a police major with more than 32 years of service with the city of Goldsboro. And whereas Paige began her career on January 4th, 1993 as a police officer with the Goldsboro Police Department. And whereas Paige was promoted to the role of investigator on January 5th, 2000. And whereas Paige was promoted to the role of police sergeant on April 6th, 2011. And whereas Paige was promoted to the role of police captain on November 23rd, 2016. And whereas on January 13, 2021, Paige was promoted to major with the police department where she has served until her retirement. And whereas Paige has demonstrated exceptional dedication and e and efficiency in her service, earning the respect and admiration of her

colleagues and the citizens of the city of Goldsboro. And whereas the mayor and the city council of the city of Goldsboro are desirous on behalf of themselves, city employees, and the citizens of the city of Goldsboro of expressing to Paige Leonard her de their deep appreciation and gratitude for the service rendered by her to the city over the years. Now therefore, be it resolved by the mayor and city council of the city of Gsburg, North Carolina, that we express to Major Paige Leonard our very best wishes for success, happiness, prosperity, and good health in her future endeavors. This resolution shall be in force in full force and effect from and after this the November 17th, 2025. Council, is there a motion to adopt the resolution as read? So move. Second.

Motion has been made and properly seconded to adopt the resolution. Is there any debate? Is there any comment? I'll just make one if it's okay, Mr. official congratulations to to the major from this councilman. Uh she and I go back a long ways back to early 2000s. I was uh chair of the um Crimestoppers and Paige became the police coordinator for Crimestoppers and she and I got to know each other. I'm going to miss her. She's always a phone call away when I need something, but I wish you the very best in your retirement. I want to say that to you personally. Thank you for your service. Thank you, Mayor.

Yes, sir. as uh we do have one minor um electronic mistake. If it's okay, we'll vote by um by show of hands. All in favor, please raise your hand. All oppose, same sign. Seeing none, motion passes unanimously. Mr. Leon, would you like to present and do any sort of pictures? All right.

Oh, you're going to get it. At this point, At this point, you kind of get to uh At this point, you kind of get to say how long you've wanted. It's kind of the It's kind of the nature of 32 years. You want it first or last? I'll go with whatever whatever your go. Well, Paige, congratulations. You all hear me? Don't come over here. You're kind of spotlight. So, I don't know if anybody can hear me through. I'm just going to talk. Doesn't seem like it's working too well. Anyway, this is a great Hold it up because it'll still be on the video.

Okay. So, this is a great night for Paige and her family. We congratulate her on reaching this milestone. Unfortunately for us, we're losing a great major and and part of our family. But uh we know that she'll be around she won't be award or something, right? So um but really congratulations on this momentous night and I wish you the best of luck. Thank you for all you've done for the city of Goldsboro and community meeting I'm sure here as well. Thanks you. We appreciate your service. Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you. Oh, I've got to do my part.

Oh, I I've read this part. Okay. Okay. Well, I did want to take a few minutes and I'm sorry. I guess I'm not used to having my back to you folks at all, but um whichever way you'd like to the floor is your

turn. I did want to remind people or I guess I wanted to bring up a lot has changed since I started and many of you especially my family and friends that are here with me. Um when I started in 1992, I brought this as a reminder because this is my first PAF. I made 18,000. So, I would say the Goldsboro Police Department has come a long way. So, I appreciate what y'all have done obviously for all of us in that capacity. So, thank you. Um, and yes, it's true. When I started, it was uh Hal Punk and Chester Hill that brought me on and my my pay was $18,262 a year and it worked just fine. So, we we have definitely come a long way. So, thank you all. Um, and I have to say when I started, we still were carrying revolvers. We were wearing white gloves when we directed traffic and we still had to go to payoneses to get a lot of our calls for service. There's a few in this room that that can certainly recall that. I see the heads shaking. So, it's come a long way. Um, one thing that's not on my resolution though was my years on the drug squad. And u several in here, including some of my cohorts are um from the drug squad. And I I figured the only funny thing to tell was this is the only job you can work on, get a paycheck, get strip searched down to nothing on your first day on the job at the Villa Hotel on Center Street.

Have I have have a witness um and get offered $2 only to to do a prostitution case and have to testify that in court in front of a bunch of witnesses. That was rather humiliating, but I still got a paycheck. Um, but I still lock people up and put them away for 119 years for sexual assault. So, my my my duties have come a long way since then. But, um, I do want to say thank you. Um, thank you to the city of Goldsboro because I was fortunate and I got to work all aspects of the job and I enjoyed every bit of it and loved every bit of it. I I want to thank the officers because we have some tremendous officers here. I know Captain Warren's here, Trey Ball, and several other people, retired Callaway, and everybody. So, they all know we have some great officers at the agency, and I appreciate them. I do want to thank two more people, actually three before I step away from this mic, but I want to thank my family for many that don't know that. Um, I moved here with no family. So, I had no biological family in this city, and I raised my son. and and without my members of my family meeting me in the middle of the night at 2:00 in the morning when I was pulling call at the new sports shop just to trade my son off. Um I could not have made it without them or the support of several sitting in this room. Um so I I I do I thank I thank you all and I thank my son. He's 25. He made it through my life of chaos. There's a few in this room that do know him and somehow he survived. Uh I have my support system out there that helped me over the years with him get through this job. But I appreciate y'all giving me a few minutes up here. It's been a long almost 33 years. And uh I thank everybody very much. Thank you.

Yes. Thank you again.

All right. Please. Next, we'll move to item 4.2, which is another retirement resolution. Mr. Dr. Anthony Tilman. Resolution expressing appreciation for services rendered by Anthony Tilman as an employee of the city of Goldsboro for more than 17 years. Whereas Anthony Tilman retires on December 1st, 2025 as a police investigator with more than 18 years of service with the city of Goldsboro. And whereas Anthony began his career on August 29th, 2007 as a police officer with the Goldsboro Police Department. And whereas on June 8th, 2016, Anthony was promoted to police investigator with the police department where he has served until his retirement. And whereas Anthony has demonstrated exceptional dedication and efficiency in his service, earning their respect and admiration of his colleagues and the citizens of the city of Goldsboro. And whereas the mayor and the city council of the city of Goldsboro are desirous on behalf of themselves, city employees, and the citizens of the city of Goldsboro of expressing to Anthony Tilman their deep appreciation and gratitude for the service rendered by him to the city over the years. Now therefore, be it resolved by the mayor and city council of the city of Goldsboro, North Carolina, that we express to Anthony Tilman our very best wishes for success, happiness, prosperity, and good health in his future endeavors. This resolution shall be in force in full force in effect from and after November 17th, 2025. Council, this being a resolution, do we have a motion to accept?

So moved. Motion has been made. Is there a second? Motion's been made and properly seconded. Is there any debate? All right. Hearing none, I'm going to do a show of hands vote if that's okay. Uh, all in favor, please show hands. All oppose. Same sign. Seeing none, motion passes. Thank you. Since we have a defunct device, I'll just kind of roll that way this evening if that's okay. Yes, sir. All right, Mr. Louis. Same thing. Yes, sir.

Thank you. Well, I want to thank my police family and my community in which I've served the last over 18 years. Um, we've had some uphill and downhill battles between us all, but yet we all came to the same resolution and supported one another in our decisions for the betterment of the city of Goldberg, our communities, and each other. Um, this job has taught me a lot about humanity and seeing people at their worst. Um, it kind of reminds you when you get down, there's always a way up and you've seen it happen. So, pick yourself up and keep going. Um, it's stressful. It sucks sometimes, but we do it and we do it with a smile and get it done. So, thank you for everyone here tonight and the opportunities that the city, you guys have made it easier on us here in the recently than it has been in years, but I wouldn't trade any of it for that. I would go back to it all again. Thank my family, my kids. Uh they are the reason I'm here. So I appreciate everything from all of you.

Thank you, ANTHONY. While it is such a great thing that we see these retirements and it's a milestone in your career and your life, that kind of makes me a little nervous because like, oh gosh, we have two retirements. We got to worry about filling these shoes of those investigators and majors and things like that. So yeah, there's job openings. So come to Goldsboro. I'm sure we've got a plan in place. But uh these both these individuals are going to be dearly missed within the department. We appreciate everything they've done for the city of Goldsboro. Now they can work for their family and friends at no cost or no no pay. Catch up on things you miss.

Yeah, the the honeydew list. But we really appreciate your service and um best of luck in your retirement and I hope you uh have a really great retirement. I appreciate that. If you would come on this side of you and then if you'd like to get a picture with family and major there and major if you'd like to get any pictures of your family after this.

Apologies for not grabbing that off. While they're coming up here, I did want to say something on ony's behalf. Please, if you would please. So that uh the there is there is production value.

I did just want to add I'm sure from everybody in the audience as well that that he has been He's a go-getter. He is a hard worker and anybody that knows him would say the same thing. He may not he may not act like it, but he was also a member of our ERT team and uh he can chase you down, believe it or not. He can run circles around some folks. Uh he did a fabulous job with that. He took his cases extremely serious, worked them to the bone. Anybody that knows him knows what he put into his cases in this city. And um he will be missed by us as well. We appreciate them.

Thank you. No problem. too. Yeah. Yes. Yes. I'm doing everything I can to mess up.

Major, if you have any, you take a picture with us. I have two and a half. Bring them home. All my people,

Laura, April, y'all with a view, stand up and tell us where to shift and where to where to stand. There you go. There you go.

All right, let's get get you down here. I can't seem former major behind. Oh, mayor. Major, not mayor. All right. Ready? One, two, three.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. There should be something under settings. All right, everybody. We will move to item 4.3 on our agenda. It is Small Business Saturday proclamation. Now, this one being a proclamation does not require a council vote. I'll simply read it into the record. Small Business Saturday proclamation. Whereas the city of Goldsboro celebrates our local small businesses and the contributions they make to our local economy. If you don't mind, Octavius, do you mind?

Thank you, sir. Appreciate it. Small Business Saturday proclamation. Whereas the city of Goldsboro celebrates our local small businesses and the contributions they make to our local economy and community. And whereas according to the United States Small Business Administration, there are 36.2 2 million small businesses in the United States. They represent 99.9% of all firms with paid with paid employees. 62.3 million of Americans are employed by a small business. And whereas small businesses employ 47.1% of the employees in the private sector in the United States. 88% of US consumers feel a personal commitment to support small business in the wake of the pandemic. And 92% of small business owners have pivoted the way they do business to stay open during and after the pandemic. And whereas 97% of small business Saturday shoppers recognize the impact they can make by shopping small, 85% of of them also encourage friends and family to do so, too. And whereas 59% of US consumers are aware of Small Business Saturday shopped or ate at a small independently owned retailer or restaurant on Small Business Saturday in 2023. 86% shopped in store and more consumers, 53% reported shopping online at small businesses than online at large retailers on that day. And whereas Goldsboro, North Carolina supports our local businesses that create jobs, boost our local economy, and preserve our communities. And whereas advoc advocacy groups as well as public and private organizations across the country have endorsed the Saturday after Thanksgiving as small business Saturday. Now therefore be it proclaimed that the Gsbor City Council does hereby proclaim November 29th, 2025 as Small Business Saturday in the city of Goldsboro and urge the residents of our community in and communities across the country to support small businesses and merchants on Small Business Saturday and throughout the year. and witness whereof, I have here to set my hand and

affix the seal of the city of Goldsboro, North Carolina, this the 17th day of November, 2025. And I believe we have a couple of folks to come forward and receive this proclamation as well as possibly make a comment or two. Some familiar faces.

All right. Who wants to start? Sweet. Sweet. There you go.

Well, hey, I'm Todd Walker, the Chamber of Commerce president, and uh certainly my honor to be up here with Estabbon Guzman, who's our small business center director. Matter of fact, it's kind of neat, there's actually three small business directors that are actually here. I believe the mayor and Octavius and Estabbon. And so, as a new guy really over the last 29 years prior, US Air Force, um I will tell you when I think of small business now being with the chamber, I don't look any further than Goldsboro. uh as the stats would show there, I can't think of a better place to purchase or buy from just because the people are wonderful. So, if you get a chance to do it, please do on the 29th. We will post this all over our social media as well. Uh because the other day I was going through Harper's Flowers and I saw the proclamation from last year and it means the world to our businesses. I mean, I I think I can speak for all of us. That's really one of the backbones of our area is the businesses, the community that we have. And so with 33,000 to 35,000 here in Goldsboro, I will tell you, not only do I think we have the best businesses and April, you're a big part of that going forward. I love being a part of that. As well as of course you all are wonderful, wonderful, wonderful to learn from you. But this is going to be a day of days. So I look forward to getting out on that Saturday and seeing everybody and wishing them well. Uh and I just got to say this, this is the best place that I've been, my wife has been for when it comes to taking care of each other. And so let's do that for our small businesses. Let's really show them that love.

Well, after that, I think I only have three words. Shop local. Nice. All right, I'll put this right over. Thanks, sir. All right,

two of you hold that right there in the middle. How about I just square off All right. All right, everybody. We will now move to our next agenda item. Uh, we generally host our public hearings at the first meeting of the month. As such, there are none on the agenda. We do have a public comment period as is our practice. Speakers are reminded to be civil and courteous in their language and presentations at all times. Speakers are asked to refrain from personal attacks and/or threats directed towards any specific council member, the mayor, city staff, or members of the public. And as always, vulgar and profane language or gestures uh cannot be tolerated. So with that, we will begin our public comment period. Madame Deputy Corner.

Yes, sir. Miss Phyllis Merritt James.

Good evening, Mayor, Mayor Pro Tim, Council. Hello. I stand before you as a concerned citizen and provider advocating on behalf of the at large community that relies on Medicaid to cover for their transportation to and from medical appointments as well as life sustaining treatments like diialysis and chemo treatments. With North Carolina wearing the badge of honor as being the only state that has not passed a budget for the next fiscal year, Medicaid recipients are in limbo. The passage of the bill in DC has also assured that many in our community will be without and face the daunting realization of higher co-pay visits and out of pocket cost to get from point A to point B. Thank you for your consideration of my request last meeting for a reprieve for the water bill and utility bills. Now I'm asking if we can explore what Chapel Hill has done for the last 50 years. That is making public transportation free for all. It was a godsend when I was there as a student and also for my patients who need to maneuver for appointments as well as for work. If not free for all, can we at least consider making a reprieve through the holidays so they can shop local instead of having a choice between spending dollars for food or hiring somebody and people are not cheap now. 30 bucks to go 15 minutes up the road and they they don't have money like that or having to pay for bus fair. If we can consider that, that would be a blessing for our community. Thank you.

She was our only speaker. Our only speaker. All right. With that, we will move uh to our consent agenda. Item seven on our agenda. Uh Mr. Livingston, if you'll please uh deliver any brief and hear any remaining questions on items 7.1 through 7.4. Thank you, mayor. Those four items on the consent agenda includes a boards and commission calendar uh declaring items for surplus, uh the temporary suspension of cut offs, late fees as authorization extended payment plans during the federal government shutdown that we discussed last meeting and the department monthly reports. Council, any comments, questions on individual items? Hearing none, we will entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented. So moved.

Second. All right. Motions been made and properly seconded. Again, we'll vote by show of actually, excuse me, Miss uh Deputy Clerk, would you please conduct a roll call vote? Yes, sir. Mayor Gayler, yes. Mayor Proin Jones, yes. Councilman Boyette, yes. Councilwoman Taylor, yes. Councilwoman Matthews, yes. Councilwoman Weekes, yes. Councilman White, yes. All right. All having voted in favor, consent agenda is approved as presented. All right. And perfect. So you're you're entering them up there, right? Yes, sir. All right, easy enough. All right, we will move to old business. So we'll begin with item 8.1. Mr. Livingston, if you would please.

Uh thank you, mayor. Um item 81 is the draft review of our parks and recreation master plan by McGillan Associates. Uh this has been several months in the making. I I know they've met with individuals and also the community on a number of different occasions and also our staff. um and you've had the draft in front of you or for a while. Um but we also have Felicia here to kind of introduce the consultants and uh let us go further tonight on this plan.

Good evening everyone. Good evening. As the manager said, um we have our draft version of our comprehensive parks recreation master plan. I have Nate Haluca here from McGill Associates to present it to you all. And if you see me smiling big, I'm just so happy because it's been over 10 years since we last updated our master plan. And so we had um a good time like working with McGill Associates. And so I'm going to let Nate take over and give you all a brief presentation. Thank you.

Thank you, Felicia. Mayor Gayler, Mayor Prom Jones, council members. Good evening. I got to tell you, it's been a pleasure to not only work with Felicia and her team, but have the chance to talk with many of you and just hear um from the hearts of the the residents of the city to just hear what their their desires are. And I really hope that that comes through in our presentation tonight. Um so, first up, um some of these things we've had a chance to talk with. I'm going to get hit at a brief overview. I'm not going to go through the full 200 pages, 200 plus pages of the plan, but I want to hit a high overview for you as you as you start to go more into the plan. Um, I typically present this to most communities that parks and recreation can be viewed on on a spectrum. On one side, parks and recreation is viewed as an expense uh to where the community see and and fire and and it's a critical part of the community. Um, but you get those programs, you get those services, but you don't get a whole lot more. uh other communities see parks and recreation more as an investment to where you get those programs, you get the facilities, but it also gives you more of an impact um also uh in terms of um economic impact. And what I want you to to see next is that there's a a field of research that supports that parks and recreation actually acts more like that investment side of the house where it can positively impact property value sometimes between 8 and 20% depending on the property. It can also have economic development. Certainly, we've heard about that tonight to where uh new businesses that are looking to locate to a location um looking really want to see a high quality of living in parks and recreation can and play a large part in that. And certainly, and we'll go into this in a little bit more detail, but visitor spending anytime that somebody's visiting your parks, whether it be for a tournament or to visit one of your key parks, uh that can also have a positive impact on your economy. Um, all right. So, one other piece is, uh, previously prior to working with Miguel Associates, I had the chance to work

with the state and manage some of the state's trust funds related to parks and recreation. Um, a key part to this is that the plan that's put before you is meant not only to help give a vision or cast a plan for the community, but it's also help uh for you to to leverage your local investment to go after those grant funds. So, bear that in mind as you're reading through it. Um, this is really this is important and I I wanted to start with this because your parks are really you're serving and you're going to hear me say this a number of times. Your parks are serving more than just the residents of Goldsboro. You're serving more than just the residents of Wayne County. You're serving an entire region within North Carolina. And what I want you to see within here is not only are you serving the the large portion of of Eastern North Carolina's population, but it's also having a positive impact. What we have up here is some data from VisitNC that shows what it looked like before and after the Brian Multiports Complex was built and how much it's actually contributed to local economy. So the only the key part that I want you to take from this is that visitors whenever they're joining or um coming to to see what Goldsboro has to offer, they're not just enjoying a park. They may be drawn there for that, but they're also going to shop at your local businesses. They're potentially going to eat at your restaurants. They may be staying overnight for a tournament. And it's not just the Brian multisports complex that's drawing in people. These are just some of your other key parks up here. We have Herman, we have the golf course, we have Mina, we have North End, and there's so many others. And this is some of the cell phone data that's showing. And this is anonymous cell phone data. So we don't know who these individuals are, but what we can see is that in each one of these cases, there is a wide footprint that extends well outside of just Goldsboro that shows where individuals are coming from. Yes, sir. For the sake of enhancing the visual, can you highlight a couple of the dots on the map or are you going to get to them later on with more detail?

Uh, within the plan there's a little bit more detail. You're able to see it a little bit better.

I just wanted folks to be able to see like where Greenville is on that map, for example, where Brley is on the map just to be able to see the the footprint. Yeah, it is. Um that that's a very good point and and sorry that we're not able to see it a little bit closer there, but what you're seeing in each one of these and the members of the audience is if you see this red area up here, that is extending in most of these cases well outside the city limits of Goldsboro, which means that you have a high density of visitors coming from Wayne County and beyond. And then anytime that you see those other spots, you're reaching as far east as uh Greenville and beyond, you're reaching as far west as in in some cases Greensboro. And I got to tell you that it's it's families that are coming more than one time. So the key part that I want you to see as we go more through this is how much impact you're having not just on the city through your park system but entirely within the state also. So let's look at uh one of the key parts that we looked at within your plan was to benchmark you not only against other comparably sized communities in North Carolina but also across the country. We use some National Recreation and Park Association data to do that. I'm not going to go into every piece of it, but what I do want to draw up here is um in terms of first uh looking at your um the amount of acreage that you have for a park, you have a large park system. You're above the national median for a park system. Your operating funds whenever we benchmark you against other North Carolina comparably sized communities, you're in line with some of those other North Carolina communities. But when we look at you when you're compared to national benchmarks, you're slightly below that median. So there is a little bit of uh difference there and um again you're in line with some of the other North Carolina communities uh slightly below that national median. Uh whenever we look at your we also benchmark your facilities in terms of how many you have. Um you may be able to see whether you're um in the audience here what we did with this is looked at the number of facilities that you had and compared that to the national benchmarks. If you see green up on the

screen it means you're within those national benchmarks. If you see red, you're slightly below or or you're below the national benchmark. But if you see blue up there, and you do see it in a couple cases, it means that you have more facilities of that particular type than what you would see uh nationwide. In general, whenever we look at your entire benchmarking, we're seeing a system that is more bent towards or is slightly bent towards helping the sports tourism or creating you as a sports tourism destination, which we said before is helping you with your local economy. Now, one of the other things that we went into, and this is a little bit more subjective, is we we have the chance to work with communities all across the the southeast. You have a system um that is one you have a really well-tained ma well-maintained system. your crew is going at it really well to keep up with the system. But you do see and we see this in other cases whenever you have a facility that is used so much like we keep saying that and also as you have facilities that age and get dated it it's hard to keep up with the the shine the polish of the system. And that's what we're starting to see is your system is being lost so much. the system is being pushed and you're trying to maintain it as much you as much as you can but because you have so much usership uh the the staff are pushing as hard as they can but at times they're struggling to keep up with that demand. Um so we also looked at at your programs I got to say generally we we have really good things within here. We do. Um the only drop that you see up on the screen up here is around 2020 era whenever that happened um across the state and across the country. Programming kind of shut down during the pandemic. But what we do see is a positive increase in the number of participation in the revenue. These are good things. We also see this um and you'll see this as you go through the plan. There's other indicators that show that your programming is increasing. But I I started with this and as we move forward um like I said one of the most

important things that we look at is what the public wants.

Um we had a chance to do uh four public meetings over 300 people had a chance to participate in it. There's a desire to you know use your system in a lot of the ways that you already have. There is a desire for more adventure recreation um some ropes courses, dog parks, esports u facilities. So tweaking the system that you already have. Um the next piece is we as we actually had a chance to do a focus groups. Uh we had five different ones. Um and this was a chance for us to listen with interested groups that have a a stake in in what's going on within your system. One of the biggest things that we want to point out here is that they recognize your focus groups recognize that the the city is serving more than just uh the residents. Um there was a desire for more walkability which we know that the city has some efforts underway with. there was a recognition that sports tourism was a part of it. But I got to tell you, and to summarize some of these other pieces, the city does partnerships well because you're serving so many people. It it is um Felicia and her team do a good job of connecting not only what the city has to offer with um but also with these other partners. Um whenever we did your survey, we not just uh looked uh communitywide, we also broke down the city to understand the different um geographic areas or interest within the city. So you'll see that as you're going through, you'll see not only the the top related um interest across the entire city, but you're going to be able to drill down into each individual district and find what their needs are. Um so whenever we take a look back a couple key points from the surveys um was there was a recognition that the investment was a little bit low in the parks and recreation and a desire for more investment in the parks and recreation system into the system. Now here's what I want you to take from this. This was not a slight from your community. Rather this I want you to see this is a reflection of a community that loves what you're offering and they want more of it. This is not a slight on what

you're doing. Rather, this is a reflection that look, we have a big system that is offering a lot of things. We would love to see more of it. That's important to take from. So, what we have within the key recommendations, we're not recommending um um we have one new system park that we're looking at. We believe the northeast area of the city could use a park um simply due to not having a park up in that area. We think it's important for you to reinvest in the parks that you have. Again, polish that gym. You have so many people that are coming. Reduce the maintenance footprint whenever you can. That means um you know, maybe taking certain areas of your park system offline, but that doesn't mean taking um you know, dramatic parts of it. Um the other piece is yes, there is a recognition that there's a desire for indoor aquatics. We need we need to discuss that. However, we do think it's strategically best if you address the needs within your current system before you look at developing a brand new indoor aquatic center, if that makes sense. Um, so these are I'm going to go through and we're drawing to a close here. We want you to to really look at capitalizing on your draw. And what that means is we've already said you're already pulling a whole bunch of people in, uh, not only just residents, but recognize that the investments that you're putting into refurbishing and updating your park system can have those direct impacts on your economy. Uh, again, and I've said this a little bit, this is about branding and marketing. So, whenever these people are visiting your parks, you're showcasing Goldsboro, doing this in the best possible way. You'll have one of the most outstanding downtowns I've seen all around the Southeast. You also have key parks that are really attractive also. And if you polish those, each time that people are visiting those, you're showcasing what that quality of life in Goldsboro looks like. And it's good. Uh capitalize on uh what's on your doorstep. You you not only have a good system, but you also have CAP that is just outside the city limits. You also have adventure recreation um through busco beach that

could be u capitalized in in the future through partnerships. Um, the other thing is, uh, reinvesting on your parks. You know, we don't think that you're going to be able to go through and update every single one of your parks immediately. We want you to to consider um, and we're going to walk you through these, but focusing on doing one thing well and then another thing well and using those smaller pieces to springboard in to your next development. Your staffing um, you know, your staffing is impacting your quality of life. So really focusing on that, offering more special events um will help also draw people in. And then um the last piece is the budgeting and funding. Um there has to be a recognition and and certainly we've heard it amongst y'all that the city is serving more than just the residents. If I haven't said that once, I've said it 20 times tonight. There is a recognition that y'all are serving as the de facto department for Wayne County. Let that settle in. There is no Wayne County Parks and Recreation System. There is no Wayne County Parks and Recreation Department. The shoulders of your citizen base, your residents are not just shouldering the needs of the city, they're shouldering it for all of Wayne County and even beyond that. And that's important because you're also benefiting them. You're benefiting beyond just the city limits in terms of economic development. So being able to have those discussions whether it be with the county or you've had great partnerships with Seymour Johnson in the past and being able to possibly build on that we think is critical for moving forward. Um, and this is the last piece is um, we're I I know I've hit the high points here, but as you're going through the plan, not only do we break down each individual park, we break down the individual components operationally on how you should do that, and we um, we put it in the sequential order on how we think

best you should move forward. Um, with that again that I know that that was uh um an overview and there's a lot more details that you're going to unpack there, but um mayor, council members, I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have. Sure. I'm sure there's going to be some council. What comments questions do we have?

Mr. Mayor, I have I have one one comment. Um, and I and I've said this already, but I I think it's time for us to engage the county formally with a letter of proposal to to help us maintain our parks and recreations. Um, as I talked to um um the city manager today, raising the rates on non-residents will not put a dent into what we really need to do in the upkeep of of our park system. So, I do think that it's time for us to formally engage the uh commissioners of the county with a letter stating that this is something that we have to partner together in order to get our parks uh you know to to to a a higher standard that they're already at a good standard and and I applaud all our men and women of the city who are maintaining our parks cuz they're doing an outstanding job. But the fact is, like the the gentleman said, they're just overly loved and we need we need more revenue and resources to help maintain our park system. I agree. I think that uh including copies of this report, you know, once we're able to vote on and adopt the adopt the actual plan as well as something in writing talking about what a uh what a a better partnership or a funding model could look like and address that with both the county commissioners as well as our travel and tourism board. Um, I think that now that we have some data to back up the request, you know, because we've had one-on-one conversations along the way over the years, I think that this was an important step in being able to actually have data and evidence to compel that conversation in whatever form it may take. I certainly agree with the councilman on that. Any other comments, questions? All right, Mr. Mr. Lemson, is staff requesting a vote in an adoption of this plan this evening or are there

additional steps? Uh, there's no additional steps. It's a draft right now. So, if you feel comfortable with what you're seeing within the draft, um, you're free to adopt it tonight. I I think if that's anything there, Felicia, that we all need to know. So, I did an agenda item and a resolution. So, if you all um feel comfortable adopting it tonight, I'm happy about it. If not, then we could do it at the first meeting in December.

I will say it's a very thorough plan. I've written these plans myself. I like the action items. And I've asked Felicia and her team to re draft the memo to me to talk about how she's going to take those initiatives and those action items and turn them into reality for us. And on on the funding element of it, I would suggest we reach out to the personally reach out to the county commissioners. one on- one and maybe set a meeting between you and the chair person.

Absolutely. So, council, it has been our practice and certainly our our muscle memory that things are presented and reviewed for council and then if there's any comments, questions, allow council the opportunity to digest. We can always put it on the consent agenda for the next meeting. Uh the resolution is in the agenda packet. Um I will just simply uh intend to put it on the consent agenda. the resolution as currently presented. That way, if there are any remaining comments, questions that council would like to uh work through between now and our next meeting, you have the opportunity to do so. And ultimately, if there are any changes that that y'all see or that you need to to change, you'll have the opportunity to. Is that a

am I getting general head nods on that? All right. It'll be on the consent agenda for our next meeting. Allow ample time for digestion, for lack of a better term. And thank you. Thank you. Wonderful job. It's been a pleasure working with y'all. I You really do have an outstanding community and I'm I'm glad that we've had a chance to be a part of it. Thank you.

All right, council. Another we'll move to item 8.2. Another major initiative that this council has undertaken is our land use plan. And you can kind of see how a business development plan, a land use plan, a P&R plan, all kind of happening at the same time makes a lot of sense to be able to really get a feel for how we want to move forward as we go into our next budget setting uh session as it were. So with that, guess what 8.2 is? So Minister Livingston, if you'd please walk us through item 8.2.

Yeah, thank you, Mayor. As everyone knows here, we're experiencing growth in Goldsboro, and that's a great thing. Um, and it's a varied kind of growth. We're seeing commercial and residential growth. So, it was very timely for us to take a look at our our land use plan because not only is it over 10 years old, which is you really don't want them to lapse that long, but it's a timely, especially with all the transportation investments and the land use investments that we're seeing being made in the region and within the city itself. Um, so the Goldsboro Elevate Comprehensive Plan Ele 35 I think it is. Uh, Mark, do you or April do you want to introduce the plan or Mark?

Thank you, Matt. Good evening, Mr. Mayor, City Council. Uh, just a quick uh recap of how we got here. Um uh city council uh in the 2425 budget allocated funding to replace the aging envision 35 urban uh urbanized area comprehensive plan that was originally adopted in 2013. Uh September of 2024 uh planning staff released a request for proposals uh for an allnew uh comprehensive land use plan. uh a multi-is soon after that a multi-isip uh disciplinary uh committee was formed to review four proposals uh upon that review the committee ultimately and unanimously voted to recommend Kimley Horn um uh city council on February 17, 2025 uh passed a resolution allowing uh the contract to be awarded to Kimley Horn. Uh soon after that a plan kickoff meeting was conducted. Um we are now uh uh approximately halfway through this process and uh uh with that uh I'd like to turn this over to Jonathan Whitehurst who is the lead consultant uh for what is now known as the Elevate Goldsboro Comprehensive Land Use Plan. If you don't have any questions for me, I'll I'll turn it over to Jonathan. Thank you.

Thank you all. Good to be here. Good evening. Um, and and I'm also glad to see some members of our advisory committee here as well. As Mark mentioned, we're about halfway through this process. So, what you're getting from me today is an update. Uh, but you'll certainly be seeing more of me um as we get closer to um the end of the process. A lot of this is has already been stated, but this is a communitydriven vision for Goldsboro. And what we're trying to do is understand how growth and development is likely to occur over the next 20 to 30 years. Um create a preferred approach to that growth and development. Um and that will be in the form of your future land use map and then wrap uh a series of policies and actions around that future land use map so that there's um a clear path forward. Um, we do emphasize that last point that we want this to be a living document. It's not something that we want to put on the shelf and just revisit it from time to time. We growth and and development is certainly a dynamic thing for a community to experience and you um it you would want to take advantage of of this document and and be flexible as it goes forward. Um, we do like that um the the the branding for Elevate Goldsboro. um you'll see that kind of permeate throughout this entire process because at the end of the day everything that we're doing as part of this process is to elevate um the the community. Um that we talk about the planning process in three phases. So imagine was um kind of where we were asking big picture questions about the future of the community. We're kind of square in the middle of the plan phase which is the creation of the actual um kind of path forward. Um but that last piece, the act is certainly as important as any of it. Um and so that will kind of be delivered in the form of an implementation strategy. Uh you can see some topics there on the bottom of that screen. Transportation, housing, infrastructure. When we talk about this being a comprehensive plan, that's what we're getting at that it is

comprehensive and that it's touching on every part of um the community. Now, um the the study area that you see here is slightly different than your 2035 plan in that it's a little bit um more focused. Uh but our study area is the entirety of the city. Um it's extr territorial jurisdiction and then in some cases we actually extend a little bit beyond that into the county um to catch the major transportation corridors and key nodes that we think will grow and change um in the future. I mentioned our our planning process, community engagement and the way that we're managing this process is kind of permeating throughout that process. Um the the four uh tasks that you see there, community characteristics, vision and planning principles, future landing strategy, plan elements, and then ultimately the reporting and adoption. That's kind of the path that we're taking um to get to adoption. The way that this looks right now, as you can see, we're kind of about halfway through um not just the overall planning process, but um that second phase, that plan phase. Um we uh have several more community meetings to um participate in and we certainly will welcome your all's participation in those meetings as we move forward as well as um the community as a whole. Uh we do have an advisory committee um that uh that Mark mentioned. uh we have met with them three times uh and we have one more meeting with them uh to go. Now um the the first kind of deliverable if you will was a community characteristics report which is just a foundational document of of kind of determining all the bits and pieces of um kind of how the community uh is today and likely would be um in the future. And that's broken down into the the sections that you can see there. Um what's nice about the way that this process is occurring is that this uh community characteristics report already been reviewed by staff um is really the first

third of the document. So we're kind of writing the document um as we go and that u this report is on the project website if you wanted to have some light reading at some point in the future. Um we talked about this being a communitydriven plan and certainly that um kind of plays out in how we're tracking um the numbers. Um and so to this point we're approaching 400 touch points. So that's anybody that's kind of engaged um in this planning process. Now I think the easy question is what how good is that number? And I would say that if that number was 3,000 we'd want it to be more, right? And so I think as we go through this process, we're going to continue to look uh for ways to get more people um involved. The the right column uh picture in the middle there uh that was taken just a couple of weeks ago right here in this room uh when we engaged with the mayor's youth council. And so I think that's an example where we're not we we didn't get as much participation as we wanted uh with the community workshop. So we kind of pivot in real time to find different ways to um engage all the cohorts of the community regardless of how many people engage in this process. Uh we're trying to squeeze as much engagement data out of them. And so that's where you can see that while we've had the third the the 400 or so touch points, uh we've gotten 4700 individual data points and and hundreds of written comments. Um and then I call your attention to the hours invested in this process. So, it's my goal when I come back here uh in 3 months that these numbers will be um higher than what you see there and we'll work with staff to to make sure that is the case. Um if we talk about kind of what we heard, that's a lot of data, a lot of um kind of comments to distill in a few phrases. Um but you even kind of hear this when you when you talk about um kind of the parks uh facility um overall, but there's just untapped potential um in Goldsboro. Um and then I think as we prepare for the future and what changes might occur, uh we want to

do so um without losing touch of what um is, you know, the essence of goals for the the past. Um so again, hundreds of comments, thousands of data points trying to distill it into a few phrases. Um there are a series of of notable topics. I won't go through all of these, but is probably I think from your perspective a lot of um the usual suspects. Um so what we're kind of hearing topically, um reinvesting in our older and unmaintained areas. We hear a lot about housing, the economy, transportation. So um you know, the the topics that you see that we're trying to address, the community wants us to address those very topics. Um we created a vision statement. Now, this isn't a vision statement for the city necessarily. This is a vision statement for the plan. And so, that's why you see it start with elevate goals. And what we're trying to do here is just kind of in in plain language state what we're trying to achieve uh with this particular plan, with this document. Um, so it's a plan for a thriving community, lasting investments in people, institution, places, a cooperative spirit to grow responsibly, fuel economic growth, and prepare for change as we build a resilient future that elevates us all. Now, if we just stopped right there, you wouldn't have really gotten your money's worth. And so, uh, we start to drill down, uh, with that vision statement and say, what are the guiding principles that we can use to prop up that vision statement? You can see those five statements there. We worked with our advisory committee um to refine those. And so as we move forward, as we're developing the future land use strategy, as we're developing the policies and actions uh that support that future land use strategy, we're going to continue to come back to these guiding principles to make sure that everything that we're doing from this point forward is advancing um the process. I'll close with this kind of where we are um in in the overall

planning process. we're we're at the point where we're trying to create the future land use map. So that's telling you kind of where growth should grow and in what form. Um the way that we do that, the path to that future land use map, we take the community characteristics, our understanding of where things are today and where they'll likely be in the future, all of that engagement data that fed into the vision and guiding principles that you saw. And then we create a conceptual growth strategy. So the conceptual growth strategy is like the 40,000 ft level of kind of this this path forward. Um once we um now that we've kind of refined that conceptual growth strategy, we're actually going to kind of go parcel by parcel and talk about what um future land uses um should be. The the draft of the uh conceptual growth strategy, it's hard to see, potentially hard to follow. Um, a few things that I will point out is that, um, there is an interest in, um, downtown and and kind of expanding the great, um, momentum that you all have created with Center Street. Um, we see kind of opportunities along uh, Interstate 42 and especially kind of those corridors, not just as opportunities for commerce, but opportunities for gateway improvements. Um, so all those visitors that are traveling that corridor as they come into Goldsboro, um, kind of know that they've arrived at a place of interest. And then the rest is is really trying to understand what we can and can't do, um, as it relates to, um, the Air Force base and what we want to do in terms of preserving areas um, for uh, or against future development and also investing in um, our neighborhoods. Um, you also see some mixeduse opportunity zones in there. And so what we'll do, we'll kind of take this map and then we'll start to overlay extra layers of detail so that when you get the future land use map, you have a clear understanding of kind

of the intensity, the density, the type of growth that should occur kind of in all the nooks and crannies of um, this study area, which again includes the city, your ETJ, and areas outside the ETJ. So kind of what's next. Um we will be working on the future land use strategy um for the remainder of this month and into December. Um at the beginning of 2026, that's when we're actually going to create the policies and the action. So uh if you you appreciated the the action plan and the parks plan, you'll get something very similar um with the comprehensive plan. March, April, May, we're kind of finishing up the documentation and then we'll be back here in the June and July time frame for adoption. Uh, of course, kind of coordinated with your planning board. With that, answer any questions that you all have.

Council comments, questions. I don't have a question, but I do have a comment. Okay. I want to really thank you for this um committee and uh who decided to um brainstorm with this committee. I have three constituents. one is sitting back there that is uh on this committee and uh some of them have gone back and have shared it with our district members and that really they learned a lot and they're sharing a lot. So I just wanted to let you know that I appreciate that. Yeah, I know a lot goes into like the creation of the advisory committee. Um and I think you all did a great job with that. Yeah.

I had a question. Do you mind going back? I think there's two slides. The map that shows the different that one right there. So the the ones that are the the pink that say commerce development zone, we're not to read that to imply that that's the only area that there's going to be, you know, intense, you know, commercial or opportunities and desire for commercial development, right? So was am I to read it as those that are yellow that are neighborhood reinvestment zone that may maybe more where you have your neighborhood business as opposed to pure industry or how how would you want us to interpret this?

Yeah, that that is a good question. So um the way that we typically design the future land use map is you'll have a series of say 12 to 15 land use classifications and for each of those land use classifications we'll tell you what type of growth is most appropriate or what type of development. So, in in in some of those like the commerce zone, you'll see that that uh it might lean more toward um kind of non-residential uses in those areas that make the most sense. But this is just kind of our highle guide. As we're building that map, we're going to refer to this and go, okay, well, what we've heard from the community, what the data has told us is that this is an area right for development or redevelopment. Let's make sure that those future land use classifications allow that type of development to occur.

So, it's not necessarily mutually exclusive. It's just kind of at a high level taking a look at this would be more commercial intensive. There may be some versions of residential that are intermixed but it's more commercial intensive. That's right. Yeah. And you know even like the the Seymour Johnson Air Force Base the safety zone and the uh the noise sensitive development zone like development can occur in there but we have to keep in mind kind of what what is the best use for those areas. as you are doing this, how does the flood zone overlay impact how you're laying out these zones or or do you really you ignore that for the sake of getting a highle overview?

Yeah, we haven't gotten to that point yet. In some communities, we'll actually create a uh a a land use classification for for the areas where development is prohibited, right? And so you kind of take that off of the map. We have some of that now, which is sad. It's unfortunate. Yeah. But I I do think like when we talk about the policy framework um that's where we can approach it not from a land use perspective but from a policy perspective and talk about um you know even areas outside of the the development prohibited zones like what what is the um kind of the the most logical approach to development in those areas. Uh yeah going forward

still be able to find a highest and best use even though it may be a different highest and best use from plot to plot basically. Correct. All right, council. Any other comments, questions? Seeing none, thank you again. Yeah, for your time. It's been good. Appreciate it.

All right, council. We have completed our old business and we will now move to new business. Some of these are items that uh will seem, you know, fairly mundane, but again, it's the first time that council has seen them. So, we're going to make sure that they are in front of in front of council for actual discussion. If we see that these are or any of these need to be moved on to next uh next meeting's consent, that's always an option, but wanted to make sure that we had the opportunity to approve them and move forward this evening if all questions can be answered. So, with that, uh Mr. Livingston. Uh, item 9.1. I brought up the plausibility that uh, Mr. Lawrence may want to discuss in closed session given that it is a land acquisition. Mr. Lawrence, do you see any reason to discuss um, that land transaction in closed? It's already been discussed open once. It was just 12 years ago.

Well, I don't believe it's an acquisition matter because it is a disposition matter. Fair enough. I agree with that. I think it needs to probably stay in open session. Good. I agree. Just making sure that that was that was touched on. All right. Item 9.1. Mr. Livingston, Mr. Lawrence, this one's yours.

Um, so essentially that the county has asked us to dispose of property that we once agreed to, like I said, 12 years ago, and it's tracks um I'm not going to read the number, but it's just be behind the library on um in Herman Park there. and uh they've gone back and forth and when they discovered that oh it never got transferred they kind of said we did some research Laura found the minutes where you know we had agreed but it never got executed and so uh our attorney and Mr. Attorney Neil were going back and forth about how we needed to convey this. So that being said, I'll hand it over to Ron to handle the rest of the discussion on that where we are right now.

The previous action of council is binding even as of today. Right.

Yes. So it was agreed back in 2010 2011. The issue was just the deed was never done. And the reason the deed wasn't done from my understanding I wasn't around then was because there was some part of the track at the top. I've called the top the north end that needed to be surveyed out and because the city was going to keep that part but we're talking about the property that the library is on. So the county has been operating the library maintaining the library and the property for the library all these years with the understanding from 2010 the city was going to convey it to them and it just never took place. Uh and so county attorney Andrew Neil contacted me said hey we've found this had had never taken place. The adjacent lot had been conveyed back in 2011. So part of the agreement and part of what the city said they would do had been done. This part had not been done. The other concern was to have an easement across that property to m to still be able to get to the city owned property like you know the offices to serve Herman Park. Um although we have access around from Herman Street itself wanted access from the other side as well. So, we've crafted in an easement that the city would keep access across that property. If the county decides to reconfigure or change the parking lot, then they have to get our permission to do so. That's built into the deed as well, as you probably saw if you reviewed it uh the part that was presented. So, that's uh that was drafted there. The county seen the deed. They um are Mr. Neil approves of the deed itself. Now, it's written. No issues with that. No issues with the resolution. So, because it was agreed upon in 2010, that's why it's back before you today to essentially authorize the um execution of the deed and the uh fact we got the easement there uh to go ahead and finalize what the council had agreed to do back then. Perfect.

So, I think another reasonable interpretation of this is that this is clerical because again, council has already voted to do it, but out of an abundance of transparency and making sure that council was fully aware of what's going on, we all agreed that this needs to come back before council to um to authorize a resolution to execute this deed and actually complete and consummate the transaction that should have been done literally 12 years ago. So with that, council comments, questions. Um, again, it's a bit cumbersome for us to go back and approve vote on a thing that's already been voted on, but Mr. Livingston, I presume you actually are. We actually need a vote of council. Yes.

All right. To approve the resolution as presented, which is to do the thing that council did. Kind of kind of funky. When when I reviewed our packet over the weekend, I didn't see those minutes included into our packet to review I was just Did anybody review the minutes or I mean I'm definitely I'm definitely not um Okay. Yeah, cler the clerk review the minutes to confirm. Okay. I did too.

And I did too, but it's been didn't see the necessity to include it, but you certainly can access those. Well, council, if there's obviously Miss Gats, if you would please after meeting just send out those me those minutes, that snippet to uh to council. Um yeah, if that wasn't, please do uh do that. But council, is there a motion to go ahead and approve this resolution or would you like it to be on uh on our next meeting in case there's any remaining questions? My motion has been made second.

The motion's made and properly seconded to approve the resolution as presented. Are there any remaining comments or questions? Seeing none, we will vote by show of hands. All in favor, please raise your hand. All oppose, same n same sign, seeing none. Motion passes unanimously. All right. And this time, we're going to get that thing done so it doesn't fall off the radar like it did uh a dozen years ago. All right. Uh Mr. Livingston 9.2.

Uh thank you, Mr. Mayor. Uh this item is about 6 months ago. One of our fire trucks u caught fire in the uh in the bay. So hopefully they contained it before it got anywhere else. But it did do extensive damage to one of our pumper trucks, a a 10-year-old pumper truck. Uh the insurance proceeds have come through about $585,000 for the total apparatus. And um so the choice was to um put those uh into trying to uh buy a used one or go ahead and use those funds towards a new one. Uh given the fact that um we didn't want to buy a used one and potentially purchase someone else's problems, we're recommending using that towards the purchase of a new pumper truck for approximately $938,000. and it'll be funded through primarily through those insurance proceeds, but also additional costs from the general fund reserves. Um, so that's that's our game plan and I've got Katherine here to explain it and the chief to explain it in more detail if that's necessary. Would it be possible for Chief Stimpy to come come up and just kind of discuss what went falsy with the previous truck, how everything kind of happened there, and then a little bit of an overview of what the truck it's a a truck or is it special order

pre-build those prints? So, it was it was a probably a demo. Well, one of those quick builds is what? How about I stop talking and let Steen explain it to us? I lost half the question. So, if you can how did thing how what happened to our old truck and what's the new truck going to be?

So, what happened to the old truck? The best we can tell is there was an electrical short on a selenoid on the back side of the motor. Uh the air intake ran over top of that and underneath, if you've seen our fire trucks, the cab sits over top of it. So, it's not something you see readily. um it caught fire and by the time it was noticed by the crew, it was um too far gone. Uh fortunately, our crew was able to stop and keep any damage from the station, the other truck that was in there, as well as the equipment. Uh the unfortunate part, like city manager said, was the truck was gone and it was bad enough that while they were trying to put the fire out, the truck was trying to start itself because it was in the electrical. So therefore, diesel fuel was helping the process. The as far as the new truck, it will mirror uh the last truck that was approved. So, it's an S180. Uh, of course, that's not correct. 180. It's about 300 days build time is what would be on it.

So, either way, you're looking at over a year actually or a year to take delivery. Yes, sir. All right. So council, the the sum and substance of the request is to be able to use the insurance proceeds and then come at a general fund for the remaining balance to go ahead and get a replacement truck ordered. Are there any comments, questions? Yes, sir. Just a quick question. So the the money that we're getting for the total loss of it is basically 2020 money that we got to add to to make it 2025 money. So, is that just because just like a regular automobile policy, they knock you down for depreciation or whatever? Is that why we got such a minimal amount?

Well, no, it was the agreed upon value with the insurance company because it was a 20-year-old truck. So, that was the in the policy, it was written that was the agreed upon value of that 20-year-old truck was 585,000. That's all there. Okay. So, that that is worth noting. This was not one of the newer trucks. This was one of the older ones that was slated for review soon. Anyway, I I doubt we could have sold it for that much, right? I mean, I really do. Okay. Okay. Any other comments, questions on this one? Again, the insurance proceeds and then the balance coming from general fund. Uh the resolution presented uh covers both aspects. Is there a motion to approve the resolution as presented? So moved.

All right. Motion's made. Is there a second? Second. Motion's been made and properly seconded to approve the resolution as presented and item 9.2 will vote by show of hands. All in favor, please show. All oppose, same sign. Seeing none, motion passes unanimously. Uh 9.2, the resolution is appro is approved. All right. Um item 9.3, Mr. Livingston, believe it's just the it's followup from the um capital there. Item 9.3 is the actual budget piece of doing the thing that was just in 9.2. So again, if any any questions for Miss Gwyn, we can do it, but again, it's just the actual uh ledger entry.

Is there a motion to approve the resolution presented in item item 9.3? So moved. All right. Second motion's made and properly seconded to approve the resolution as presented for item 9.3. Is there any debate? Hearing none, we'll call the vote by show of hands. All in favor, please show your hand. All oppose. Same sign. Seeing none, motion passes. All right. And again, those are things that uh probably could have been consent agenda, but it's things that council had not seen before. So, I wanted to make sure that council is uh fully fully aware of how things are are evolving. All right. 9.4. A little more complicated. Mr. Livingston.

Uh yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. This is a um study that we did for always stop for the intersection of let me get it here. Do the guidelines first. Yeah, you're right. I apologize for that. Okay. Going to go ahead and talk about the guidelines and then we'll talk about the intersection of concern. 9.5 would fall underneath the guidelines as proposed in 9.4.

Correct. Yeah. Um good evening, mayor and council. Uh so we do we have been getting some requests for some hallway stop signs and we did do a study on Autobond and Malberry and after we you know we paid for that study we decided that we wanted to try to create our own guidelines and kind of you know piggyback off of what they did and um create our own guidelines you know just something quick and easy we can do internally and and and try to verify this stuff. So we went with uh and all this came out of the MUTCD which is the the manual of traffic control devices. So for a fourleg intersection we we we did two criteria. We did crash data and we did site distance. Um, so for for a four-legg intersection, there are five if there are five or more reported crashes in a 12-month period or six or more reported crashes in a 36-month period, then it would, you know, it will qualify for a four-way uh for a three-legg intersection. If there was four or more reported crashes in a 12-month period or five or more reported in a 36-month period, then, you know, we could put one in. And then for sight distance, I created um you know there's a green book out there which is the engineering traffic engineering manual and um most everybody uses 50 ft sight distance and I create I got a little detail in there and that's how we measure we'll measure the um sight distance and it's measured from the center of the radius of the curb and you'll go around 50 ft and then you'll go around 50 ft the other way. Um, so that's what we're going to start using. You know, you may have obstructions from bushes or there may be houses or maybe trees or something like that. So that'll just kind of give us a good guideline internally that we can go out and do quick and easy. You know, we can reach

out to PD, get the crash data for an intersection. In the meantime, we can go out there and do sight distance survey. And, you know, it probably take 20 minutes to do a survey on the intersection. So, this will take, you know, it'll save us a lot of money internally. and and you know this is something that we can do in a pretty quick amount of time. So um that's kind of what we had. We wanted to set the guidelines first and then go into the next topic on autobond and malberry. So on the guidelines and then I'll open up the floor for for questions remember never once been a traffic engineer been an engineer never been a traffic engineer right

what is the MUTCD and what's the green book that you were just talking about. Yeah. give us some why not us just say these are ones we want to do and do them what who are what are the things you're leaning on to build this policy

yeah so the so both of those manuals the MUTCD is is is the manual of unified of uniform traffic control devices and the green book is the is the traffic engineering design manual that that all traffic engineers go by the MUTCD is is all traffic engineers and anybody in the traffic. I mean, it it's got all your signs, all your, you know, not just four-way stop signs, but all signs. Um, and and and that's what that's what everybody, every municipality, every every engineer, traffic engineer in the state uses those two books. Is that a state manual or a federal manual or just kind of like asky for other standards?

Yeah, I think it's just they're not I don't think it's put out by the state or anybody, but I but it's just kind of the the the manual. It's the best practice. It's the textbook. Okay. for lack of a better term, is the textbook. Yeah. And so with these, I know that there has been a lot of a lot of requests for specific intersections. Why not just do the intersections that we bring forward and say we want to vote on, we want to do. What's the disadvantage of that as opposed to having some guidelines? you you you were trying to explain to me that there are issues where that if you just simply do one because you want to and you don't have actual data to back it up that it opens up the city to its own bag of worms. So, if you don't mind

Well, I I think it's a choice between um order and structure and guidelines versus sort of arbitrary and not really based on the data at hand. So the decision using the data can always be tempered by other real world factors but it's best to go with the data and and and as part of that background for making a decision. Yeah. I mean this this is you know this is something that we can do internally. I if we want to if there's a busy intersection that we want to study further we can always reach out to our own calls and they could come do um you know traffic counts and and all that good stuff. So, we can it can go deeper.

Ultimately, if we use this guideline, doesn't mean that it's going to say that we're not going to bring it to the city council because you would have to still approve an ordinance for us to put up most of these or an expenditure that would have to occur depending on what we did. Um, but it just gives us more data to uh decipher. Say it again. Yeah. and liability. What? I don't let it work. So,

Kelly, come back. Come back here. Come here. If you have a professional standard that stood the test of time in court cases, which MUCTD has, and also Greenbook, it's better than your standards because if somebody if if you put up a four-way stop without those standards in place that have been tested or proven court cases and something happened, you'll have those liability potential. So to be able to say that we're using a national standard and a a structured plan helps the city mitigate its own risk as well. Correct. So I'm a little under weather, so my mind's a little cloudy. You're good. It seems like medicine's flying off right now. Telling you, man.

It is that time of year. Yeah. All right, council. Uh for item 9.4 comments. Yes, sir. Just a quick question. So once this standard and we got adopt this, get this in place, where does that put the two requests in my district that I made that that put it to where we'll use this standard for that or is the wheels already turning on those? Well, um we we'll look at we'll use this standard to kind of evaluate everything going forward. Okay. And then somebody can come back and say this is where we're at with it. Okay. Because if the folks in my district that are watching tonight are probably going to ask me now that we're talking about it where that

where that's at because there is too that I'm and everybody in my area in that particular area is highly interested in. So thank you. All right council. Any other comments, questions on 9.4. All right. So we have again our standard path forward. Uh we can either as a council uh vote to approve these guidelines as presented this evening. There's a resolution attached. Or given that this is the first time the council has actually heard this presentation. If it's the will of council, we can put it on the consent agenda for the next one. And obviously the the next one could be on the consent agenda as well. But what is the will of council? We have a motion to approve or hearing none. I'll just assume consent agenda. Yes, ma'am.

I would like to make a motion. All right. Motion has been to approve. Second. All right. Motion has been made and properly seconded to approve the guidelines uh based on the presentation this evening and adopt the resolution as presented. We'll vote by show of hands. All in favor, please raise your hand. All oppose. Same same sign. Seeing none, motion passes. All right. So with that item 9.5, Mr. Livingston.

Okay. This is a to evaluate a four-way stop at North Audabon and East Malberry Street. Uh we have evaluated the intersection per what we um just talked about per the uh site distance and the traffic data and I'll let Jonathan talk to you about what those and and some other issues too is what those that data point is.

Yeah. So um we did have a we had a formal study put together on this one. Um and that's what we based our our guidelines off of. Um but so they went through they did a full study. They did the um the traffic data or the crash data. They did the um site distance and they did um um traffic counts and all that good stuff. Um they did determine that based on site distance that it did require a four-way stop sign. Um this this intersection was kind of interesting when we kind of went back and looked at it in 2010. Um the for the the actual stop sign was on Autobon and it got switched over to uh Mberry Street which you know was kind of interesting. Um but when they moved it to Malberry Street, there was a light pole in the way. So they put the stop sign far back in front of that light in front of that light pole. So I guess what people are doing is coming up and stopping at the stop sign, but they're not creeping forward and looking both ways. So they're just kind of blowing on through. Um, but anyway, I'm surprised there hasn't been more crashes there than what has, but anyway, according to the site distance, it did meet the sight distance requirement to put in a four-way stop sign. So, this is the, you know, this is this is the ordinance to, you know, we're asking you to adopt the ordinance to put in a four-way stop sign at this intersection.

So, if I've uh understood the conversation correctly so far, this intersection was actually kind of your test bed for developing. So that's why this one is ready to be discussed right now. And and and you know, we spent $8,900 on this study. Um which was pretty expensive. So that's why we decided to kind of create our own little guidelines, you know, something quick and dirty easy that we could do instead of spending this kind of money on each intersection. I like it. All right. Council comments, questions? I have a question. Yes, ma'am. Just for curiosity, um, in the past year or two, how many accidents have happened at that intersection?

Um, so we went back, we went back five years or six years, and I think it was one a year. One in one one um, accident a year at that intersection.

Council of comments. All right. Do we have a Sorry. I I didn't hear anything else. Did I conclude your question? Uh, hearing nothing further. Is there a motion to adopt the ordinance as presented? Some moved. All right. Second. Motion's been made and properly seconded to adopt the ordinance as presented for a four-way traffic control at North Abon and East Malberry. We'll vote by show of hands. All in favor, please raise your hand. Oh, excuse me. Discussion. Uh motion was made and properly seconded. Is there any discussion? J just real quick, I'm for it. I'm cool with it. I'm just saying

it doesn't seem to meet the guidelines that we just made as far as the crash goes. It not on the crash criteria. So you get you get either or. It's either based off of your crash data or it's based off of your sight distance. So this one this one qualify because of sight distance. Okay. That's important to say. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It is either or. Yeah. Okay. So it could be either or. Correct. And I'm just turning this in my head as I'm thinking about other intersections that may not meet that distance, but they meet the crash data and vice versa. That's right. Okay. Yeah. I mean, if we got an intersection that's got a lot of lot of crashes, you know, we can we can look at putting a four-way stop sign there. Okay.

This would be the framework for actually being able to do that because there are a number of them around the city that need addressing.

Yeah. And there's also the issue of traffic calming, which you know, we looked at when we did the uh bike and ped plan. Um, and it's a it's sort of a theory that, you know, we haven't really gotten into the depth of that yet of, you know, physical u things that you can do to the road like speed humps and things like that, four-way stops and design of the road with curvatures and things like that are all valid traffic calming methods. So it's while it is and we need to rely on data, there's also as we develop new subdivisions, we have to think about, you know, these are residential subdivisions. They're not speedways. Some of this our system was de designed in a grid and it was designed to say, let's flow traffic through it. So you've got areas where you've got long stretches without a four-way stop sign. So you it contributes to speeding. So and that there are other factors that we always have to think of. These seem really simple but they're not always really simple.

All right. So motions have been made properly sec or properly seconded. There has been opportunity for the for debate. Is there any further debate? Hearing none. We'll call the question. All in favor please raise please vote by show of hands. All oppose. Same sign. Seeing none. Motion passes unanimously. Thank you. All right. Ordinance under 9.5 is presented. All right. As is our practice. It's been 90 minutes. Uh, so it is 7:00. We're going to take a quick recess. How about we re we re Well, then we have a close session. So, we still have a few more minutes. Okay. What? Yeah, there's close session anyway. So, it's not like we're leaving. I had saw the finish line. It's It's not the finish line is an illusion. Okay.

Okay. I have a question. Yes, ma'am. Um, is it possible to go ahead and do this one because we have staff here that's that could go ahead and go home? If council doesn't need it, I don't have to do it. No, I didn't say I didn't need it. I'm just saying because we have a staff person that's here waiting to present on this. Can we go ahead and get them out of here and then Sure. If council's good with it, then we'll roll on. All right. I still want the break, though. I hear that. All right. Well, then we'll finish item 9.6 six and then be and then um before we do our reports and comments we'll take a quick break and then we'll be able to flow directly into close session that way everyone can uh plan ahead. All right, Mr. Livingston Leaf and Lim.

Okay. Thank you, mayor. As the board recalls, um we discussed this at our last meeting and and informed you that we'd bring back some tweaks to the ordinance that we felt would be beneficial for helping us get back on track. um we're not on track right now and I I've gone through the city and I I see the areas that uh of concern, but I I also wanted to validate what was going on and and and I've seen it in several neighborhoods where contractors are are, you know, leaving large amounts of debris that are well in excess of what our ordinance uh states that you can put out there. And so that that is definitely a big part of what's going on here. and we haven't been historically for years. You know, we've just been picking up anything and everything in terms of leaf and limb debris and I think it's catching up with us now. So, I'll hand it over to Jamie and uh he can address uh the tweaks that he's recommending in the ordinance.

Good evening, Mayor Council. Thanks for having me. Oh, it's also his birthday, so we can sing happy birthday to him. Okay, you stole my thumb. I was getting ready to do it. Thank you. Thank you. birthday. My daughters are glad I'm still having them. Yeah, we wanted to make a small tweak. Yeah, we just make a small tweak.

And a truckload can be a lot of things. I mean, what kind of truck are we talking about? So, looking at the size of our trucks, clearly our biggest truck is not a truckload that I'm going to pick up at every house. I mean, that truck should pick up 30 houses. So, we looked at four cubic yards, which is roughly two pickup truckloads, which is kind of a reasonable amount for somebody a single residential lot would create. Now, I know once in a while you're going to have that annual big cleanup, and it might be five yards or six yards, and you know, we're still going to get that, but this is still a trend for us to start transitioning to get away from picking up commercial debris. So, the first thing we're going to start phasing in, I mean, we're not going to go cold turkey because everybody would would freak out. But we are going to by the 1 of December stop picking up commercial properties. We're going to stop picking up apartments and town houses and commercial businesses because we're not supposed to. But we are going to be picking up everything at the residential locations. even stuff created by contractors as long as the piles are manageable. We're in a pretty good place right now as far as equipment goes. We've hired some temporary staff for the fall, so we think this might make a difference. I mean, today I was going home for lunch. I literally watched a a commercial landscaper back his truck up to the curb and dump out a giant pile at an apartment complex. I'm going to stop picking that up. And that's just until you change the ordinance. So, I think making the pile smaller will help. It'll kind of motivate some contractors and maybe take some more stuff away and we can figure out exactly

how to get back on the twoe schedule because that's what I want and everybody at public works wants and every resident that's been doing it for 30 years. That's what we want to do is be on time. and uh there just not enough. We'd have to double our force to do a twoe schedule with the volume we have now.

What is the right procedure for us to assist constituents that have apartment complexes and commercial build commercial properties in their district which I think is all of us. Yes. Yes. You know, when there inevitably you have a an apartment building that does exactly what you just said, does that then become a code enforcement question or I'm hoping we don't get to code enforcement. I mean, that's when a when a pile's at a commercial establishment for weeks and weeks, the the proper thing would be code enforcement to write them a letter, you know, do something about this because it's it's blight. So, I'm hoping that it won't come to that just by putting some stuff in the newsletter that comes out next time about the ordinances just to bring awareness to the fact that if your contractor does it, I don't have to pick it up. We're going to. So, the first question you ask, you I guess ask your commercial landscaper, did he do it himself? Well, no, he didn't. And it doesn't matter. It's all commercial generated waste. So, it's it's it's just something we've been doing for years and it's just hard to stop cuz everybody's used to it and uh we just got to get back to focusing on taking care of residential properties.

I I do have a comment which if we comment at this time. Sure.

So, and and I understand your problem and I'm not saying that what you're saying is wrong. However, I will say that we're saying that we're not going to pick up any in town houses at the areas, right? So, I'm just going to use a area that I just rolled past where there are actually homeowners who own those who pay the same thing that we do as single family residents. Are we saying we're not going to pick up their stuff? Because I don't know who does their land. I just want to be crystal clear cuz some town home they're the owners. They're not renting from anybody but they actually own that.

And I'm glad you brought that up because that's a that is that gray area, but it's really not gray unless the homeowners are doing the yard work. If this homeowners association's got a landscaper doing it, which I know they do, and they put it on the curb at Spence Avenue, I've been picking it up for 15 years. But I shouldn't because it's commercial contractor doing the work on commercial property because the townhouse owner owns his his spot. He does not own the parking area and the common areas. So it's still commercial property.

I think my only um question is like what are what are the consequences like are we sending bills? Are we pick like how do we recoup that without it just sitting out there on the streets for however long?

Well, you get a code enforcement. You get a ticket eventually just like a abandoned house or cars in the front yard. It's an unsightly thing and you it might take months. Uh now we also can start talking about us picking up commercial waste with a fee. Like we pick up appliances and couches for nothing. included every Wednesday. Just call and make an appointment. Uh we may evolve to call and I'll come pick up your commercial waste for whatever fee we decide to charge. That that's where we're trying to move towards

because we do that but we don't charge people. And it all goes back to where we really need to be is in eventually creating an enterprise fund for our solid waste. So we know what we're charging versus what it's costing us. We don't really know that right now. and and making changes now is a good thing. Talking about, you know, coming up with the spring, the new budget is if we're going to try to go to an enterprise fund, let's get these costs together. Here's what we can actually do extra

because we do have a lot of capabilities. We've been demonstrating. Uh we pick up a lot of pounds, a lot of tons every month. We want to keep doing that. Uh but I think with a information getting out, we can be more efficient. we can take care of the who we're supposed to take care of first and then we can start maybe expanding to some additional leaf and limb collection on a fee basis uh like we take a dumpster somewhere for a commercial building.

Is it possible to get language in this if we were to you know again continue this particular item to the next meeting? Is it possible to get language in our ordinance that would enable you to go ahead and notify the commercial properties in question that to continue servicing them it would be a fee, but then in theory then you wouldn't have a a breakage in service. So you already have like three instances in the code of of if it's commercial generated, we don't pick it up. I'd rather see if the small tweak of cutting the four yards can get us on some type of schedule and then I can see what kind of extra availability we have to to offer that service.

Well, but I still remember that there was there was feedback uh last meeting about commercially generated and private land owner or private residents. And we do have to remember that we have a a significant retirey community. We have a significant, you know, significantly aged population in our city. And so I think it's very reasonable that someone who owns a even even a single family residence that hires someone to go and and do their grass clippings at what house

and that as it's currently worded, you know, we have we moved from the one full truckload to the four cubic yards per residence. But is the language still in here that if it is commercially generated at the private residence that it would be against the ordinance? Yes, it's still in there. Now, the grass clippings is specifically called out that we'll pick it up. Okay.

Because grass clippings would be in theory a relatively small pile that I can vacuum up quickly. And I understand about a lot of retirees here. A lot of folks aren't able to do that. They have to hire someone. And that's okay. And we're still picking that up because I can't ask my guys to determine, well, did who did that? Did did Joe do that or did Joe hire that? I don't have time for that. But if my piles can be smaller, we can get it all. Yes, sir. In the same vein of what you just said, as far as the language still being in here, we all agree that that's not a forcable rule. you can't enforce it cuz you don't know who did it unless you're standing there.

So, so I I do think that we should look at the language and make it specific to what we're trying to target. So, if we're trying to target just say Willow Run, right? Because we're going to consider that as commercial property because it's a a town home development. Then I think then that we should put specific language in there so it won't be misconstrued or you can't go to the left or to the right. This is what we're talking about. This is what we're targeting. I have a question. Yeah. Yeah. Please

piggy back on that. In a place like Willow Run that has a HOA, do they have their own I'm wondering do they have their own standard of what those clippings and stuff look like? because they do have a HOA in Willow R. I don't I mean I don't know,

you know, from my perspective, I don't I don't really care what their standards are if they're hiring a contractor to do it and it's commercial property because it has, you know, it's just like I would pick up Maplewood. I bet they have an HOA and I would pick up every residence in Maplewood, but I really shouldn't pick up the clubhouse, right? If the commercial guy is doing it, the commercial guys should haul it off. And most commercial guys do. In a place like Maplewood, I would assume their contractor mowing the clubhouse area would would haul their debris off as an example. But not the guy down the street that's got a house. I mean, that's that's how it was supposed to work.

My personal opinion is that we need to get the ordinance to say what we mean before we vote on it. Now, obviously, if council makes a motion to vote, then I will honor that motion and we'll and if there's a second and the votes are there, it's there. My personal opinion is that the ordinance needs to say what we want it to say. I don't want to put you in a position, again, it's just my opinion. I don't want to put you in a position where we're saying one thing and doing another because that's where how we got where we are. That's where we are right now still, right? And it's and it's going to be difficult because I don't want to get to the point trying to stay on a two-eek schedule that when people call me the first question out of my mouth is did you drag that to the street? Right.

So, what is your um recommendation that is changed in the verbiage? Cuz when I read through the verbiage this weekend, it it wasn't really stating about commercial versus residential cuz like he said, he's not going to go from house to house, but it's um is only residential. Yeah. and it was stating the four cubic yards. So he said, you said you're not going to go house to house to ask where it actually came from. That's right. As long as they stay within that four cubic yards per resident.

We're hoping that tweak is going to allow us to. But the final paragraph of the ordinance second sentence reads, "Any yard waste with the exception of grass clippings generated by landscaping tree or yard maintenance contractors or other agents hired to do work at a residence will not or business will not be collected by the city." That's right. But that's not our intent. Our intent is that at a residence it as long as it's under the four cubic yards, it would still be picked up. That's right. and it's going to get picked up cuz because in B it states that it will pick it up if it's not a certain size. So if you go back up a paragraph it's already telling you I think if we stick with the sizes 3 in diameter 4 ft long.

Yeah, that is not giant trees inside the road. That's small enough we can efficiently pick it up quickly with the grapple or the back cuz and and that's that's what we need. What we're what we reason we can't do it now is we're picking up piles the size of this chamber. We're picking up too much. I I I get what the mayor saying, but if you read it in A and B, it says we'll give you four cubic yards of grass clippings and then we'll give you another four cubic yards of tree and limbs. I mean limbs and you just have to put the two piles separate. So it's I think it says four total, doesn't it? Yeah.

Four yards per resident per collection. I agree with I agree with the changes to 50.04. I believe that we need to have an additional change to 50.06.

I agree. I I think we need to have an ordinance in place before we um do anything so that we won't be backtracking. I think it need to be clarified and let us have that ordinance in place and then it you know identify everything. Yes. So, in light of us going to kind of slow roll this in in December, is it possible for us to approve this with the amendment of and then go ahead and include our statement because he said he was going to do a soft roll out in December and this is our last meeting so we won't really meet again.

Can we add that addition approve it? cuz I I will make a motion to approve it with whatever it is that you guys want to include that language to be. But listen, well, I mean, I hear what you're saying. You're you're saying pick up more faster. No, what I'm saying is I want to propose an ordinance that actually says what we intend. Exactly. Right. What I'm saying is I want us to mean what we say and say what we mean. And right now 50.06 as is presented to us this evening is not what we intend to do. 50.06 is is the second paragraph is is incorrect.

Mayor, I think, you know, in light of what you're saying, I think if we follow our current ordinance and bring back a modified one as you proposed, we can still kind of start catching up and bring back a modified one. Um, well, I think we'll need to tweak it several times, right? But I would ask that we go ahead and approve this change just for the quantity to try to get the pile smaller and let's see if we can even get close to a twoe turnaround because like I said last time the it's takes it's taking us over a month to get through the city

and and he he did state that last last time he was here uh m Mr. there. But I I I do think that the one thing that I have heard from constituents out there on the ground is they if we say that we're not going to pick it up twice a month, they're fine with us only picking it up with once a month, but let's just do it when we say we going to do it. So if we have to cut back, I think the residents are fine with that right now. It's just that the inconsistency

and I understand that too. And and to go to a monthly schedule, I would say we could, you know, we could probably make less changes on how much we pick up if we do it certain, you know, all the Monday trash we do the first week of the month. All the Tuesday trash we do the second week of the month. I mean there there's ways to schedule that, but we're still going to be at our limit just because of the volume that's out there. Sometimes it's five and six weeks before we get somewhere. I mean, we got to uh and we can absorb these leaves right now because we got the people and equipment, but in the long run, we don't want to promise more than we can deliver because the volume of landscape debris is never going to go down really because we have more and more landscapers entering the business. And when we pick it up, we're subsidizing them. So that helps them keep the price down to have more customers. So we're we're kind of shooting oursel in the foot.

But I I think the problem though is and I'm sorry if it's somebody else wanting to speak. You go ahead. I'll go. Go ahead. And then I I think the problem is that most homeowners plan their yard work around when it's going to be picked up. So when it's not picked up, it doubles in size whenever you don't pick it up. So it keeps growing cuz you still want your yard maintained. So that's why I go back to it's consistency. So if we're going to do it once a month, let's just, you know, pick it up on a consistent basis because the piles won't continue to grow because it sits there because you can't get back to it because of the volume. Right.

So J, let let me make this clear. Let me for myself. So, you're recommending that we approve this? Yes. And then add and keep evolving it. I think it's going to take several steps to to get it tight like we want to amend it

because we really for us to take out the language that says contractor debris will not be picked up. You know, before I can write that sentence, I've got to have some kind of confidence that I can do the job. So, is it your plan that someone who has a I'm just going to read the sentence again. Has yard waste generated by a landscaping service at their house. Once we vote on this, it is your intention that at a at a private residence, if a um if a landscaper is trimming bushes, that's not going to be picked up by the city any longer.

Oh. No, then make the ordinance actually say that. Well, I mean, so does that not state that? And in 5.6, first of all, it states it in 5.4. And then if you go down to 5.4, the last few sentences, any yard waste, with the exception of grass clippings generated by landscaping, tree or yard maintenance contract or other agents hired to do the work at a resident or business, will not be collected. So, it's telling you it is going to pick it up. And then it also reaffirms that back in 5.4 four that those yard clippings are going to pick be picked up

and then it also yeah grass clippings and then it also tells you in 5.4 it's going to pick up the limbs for a certain size and then it reiterates it back down in five.6 it reinforces it saying that they just won't pick up those branches limbs whatever if it is a contractor so it's stating it in 5.4 four and $5.

Really, what we're trying to evolve to, and I understand what you're asking me to evolve to, is where we have in our ordinances, I will pick up debris at somebody's house if a contractor did it. That's what you're asking me to. Now, to do that, we've got to we got to kind of take some baby steps along the way. Let's make the pile smaller first and see how that affects our schedule. I mean, to do what you're asking, we may have to go to once a month pickup with the smaller piles because we're never going to have fewer contractors doing yard work than we do today. It will only increase as it has the last 20 years. So, we got to set ourselves up for success and and not make too giant a change just yet. We got we're going to have to ease into it. It might be, you know, several Monday nights here to get to the final answer. So, we will you're recommending that we approve this with progressive amendments down the road.

Yes, I agree. I mean, because maybe what we'd like to see this small tweak do, which is what we were asked to do, a small tweak, is that when a contractor generates a large pile that's way bigger than four yards or a couple of pickup loads, that they take it away. That that that's what we're going for. We need contractors. And if you hire a contractor to mow your grass, I'm going to come vacuum it up. If you hire a contractor to come and trim 15 crate myrtles, you need to tell the contractor to take it away. And all I'm saying is I want the ordinance to say that. Okay, we'll work on it.

And 50.06 currently contradicts that because 50.06 06 says any yard waste generated by landscaping contractors or other agents hired to deliver your residents would not be collected by the city and that's not an accurate statement because if it fits the if it fits the other criteria as laid out in 50.04 your intent is for it to be

I think we can work on that language mayor and bring it back but but we do need the tweak for the size so that we can start attacking the problem. I completely agree with the size, but I also made a commitment that I'm not going to ask you guys or Jamie, I'm not going to try to pass an ordinance that says one thing with the expectation of you doing another because then you're caught in the crosshairs because you said you were going to go and pick stuff up, but the ordinance blatantly tells you not to. Well, and we've only been doing this for for 15 years. And so, it's hard to

when you're providing a free service, it's hard to take it away. And so, we've got to got to take it away gently and measured so we can u you know, just we want to do our job. We don't like the cause when you come in and get my yard waste. So, we're out there picking up, you know, a thousand tons a week. We want to be on top of it. And so we're trying to get to the point where we can do that with with the resources and equipment that we have. Council, any other comments, questions? So, cuz I I'm Go ahead.

I get it, but I'm still kind of a little bit confused because we haven't really outlined exactly what we want it to do. I heard Matt say we'll work on it, but it's the council right now that's saying they're not happy with it as it is. So, can we offer some insight? Because I'm just thinking, let's keep it simple and just remove that part in question and let's keep and let's just keep the ball rolling. If that's what we're saying, if that's the contradiction, let's remove the contradiction. But the overall goal is to get there, but we're just not there. So, let's just take that out. Yeah. and and

cuz if we re if we remove those last two sentences then it's already described to us what's going to be picked up in five which is the previous paragraph. That's my point is that that sentence as I understand the conversation that sentence is not the desire of council or what you have stated you intend. That's right. We're not we're not that's what we're doing now. I mean we're picking up every day the majority of what we pick up is generated by contractors. So, we just strike the sentence. That's all I've been trying to get to is that that sentence isn't then it'll be done and we won't have to revisit it till I then Yes, ma'am. Okay. You were you first. It don't matter.

It don't matter. I was just going to say if we could make the motion to approve with the exception of that statement, which you have to be clear on the statement because I'm not sure. I Yeah. And I was uh I was moving that we strike according to Robert Roosevel we strike the part that we don't want. So we're being a movement. It will be an amendment to strike those that verbiage out. It's just the second the the second to last sentence. Yeah. So we'll make up to to strike whatever you said out the second sentence out again. It's just a conflicts of loss moment. That'll help that'll clarify it.

So yeah, it's I move that we strike that verbage out. All right. Take a second. All right. So was your motion that they would approve the ordinances as ordinance as approved as I cannot talk tonight that we approve the ordinances as presented with the modification of striking the sentence that reads any yard waste with the exception of grass clippings generated by landscaping tree or yard maintenance contractors or other agents hired to do work at a residence or business will not be collected by the city. Now, I think that I still think we need to table this because I you do intend and I think council agrees with you that we don't intend to pick up at businesses. That's what I was going to say. Right. That's correct.

We don't intend to pick up at businesses, but I believe it's the will of council and it's what you've said is that we are going to still pick up so long as it's compliant at residences. Right. So, what I would ask is that y'all take this back and then we can have it on the consent agenda next time, but we've hashed out. We agree we don't want to do commercial services at businesses, but we have also agreed that commercial services that are otherwise compliant at residences are eligible for pickup. Yes. For right now. For right now. Okay. Is that what you're saying, Jamie? That's exactly what I'm saying. And and I'm hoping that the size will make a difference. I'm just I'm just asking.

I'm just wary of taking out the contractor generated debris because I just think I'm going to see the volume get even bigger. and it's gonna be two months to get across the city. I'm hoping that's not the case, but I'm just So then we're giving we're giving the contractors that are hauling it off now the green light to dump it in the yard tomorrow. So instead of four cubic yards, you want to make it a smaller number. Well, no, because then it's it's it's too small. I mean, I I can generate four yards in on a Saturday easy. I mean, and you get a pile of you rake up a pile of leaves and cut a couple of bushes, you you got a pickup load. So it it's it's it's really not about the size. It's about

all those loads that would be compliant that are being hauled off by contractors are now going to be left left on the side of the road. So we're going to have more volume just more piles that are compliant is what I'm afraid of. But but we can try it and see how how it goes. I mean all I can promise you is we're going to pick up all we can pick up every day. when go ahead. Yes. Sorry, M. Taylor and then Miss Matthews.

My question is I know he mentioned um putting it out like in our water bill, but how are we going to get this out quickly because we're going to have an issue with starting this um new thing and no one's going to know. So, I mean, are we going to put out like a blast on our website or Yeah, Latoya said you would help me with disseminating information. We can put it on the website immediately. Uh, it's a small change and really we could put follow the ordinance for now. Yeah, that's right. That that that would solve the problem. Uh, put the ordinances out there and and really we're you know,

a lot of this is self-inflicted because we haven't been following the ordinance. Instead, we've been just trying to pick up everything and anything. And in doing so, we've fallen behind and our volume's increased as he's demonstrated. So, we have to follow our ordinance to see how that works. And um plus this tweak of lowering the volume is going to help us too. Then lower the volume and then say larger loads by schedule only or something. Well,

I I opened up a can of worms worms here because you you were standing there saying that you had no way of truly identifying if a pile in front of a residence was commercially generated or homeowner residence, right? I don't I don't want to put a law on the books that is uninforceable. Well, I mean, but I can identify way of doing it, but I can identify if it's four cubic yards or not, right? I can measure that and I think if I get the pile smaller, right, reasonable that a resident would create,

we can be back to the twoe schedule. Now, when we when we take out this contractor generated debris where that means no contractor in the town's going to haul it off. We might do this and be back to a one-mon schedule. I mean, something we could schedule, but it's still going to be the same volume. then say then then this conversation should have began with you saying that the goal is to get away from servicing residentials that are also serviced by a land.

Well, we don't want to get away from that. We want to get to that and I that's what I'm being asked to do and it's it's uh but I just think we can get there if we will limit the size of the piles and and and and stay away from other commercial pickups we do which are huge loads we pick up every day. All right, we got a motion council. There is a motion on the floor that we approve it with the modificate that we approve it as presented with the modification of removing the sentence that I read to the record a moment ago.

Um, was there a second? Brandy second it. You said no. No. Was there? All right. Well, motions have been made and properly seconded. We're in the middle of of debate on that ultimately. Yeah. Go ahead. The the the motion that you're referring to is the motion that was made to strike the language out of the '06. Right. Right. Which we just said that's not what needs to happen right now because he says that's going to open up the freeforall for commercial. So I mean do we need just to table this and get it right and then bring it back? I mean, it's

I've read back all through the history of these ordinances, and you can see that 50.06 was added years after 50.04 was created to try to limit the volume. And we want to pick up all we can, but we got to when we start changing the ordinances, we got to really understand the unintended consequences before we do that. But we we don't know what they are until we try it. And I think reducing the size is the first thing. and also clarifying the language. So, I think this is a step in the right direction. I I I don't know about all those other things and I don't want to make an ordinance based on speculative uh thoughts of what may or may not happen.

The motion a motion on the table is to present it as presented with striking that sentence. Um we're in the debate on that. Jamie, state clearly for the record. Is the goal of this as it is currently presented to get away from servicing residentials that have someone else coming and trimming their their shrubs or is it to continue being able to do that for the residential units and just simply trying to temper the overall cubic yardage? That is correct. Temper the overall cubic yardage. Yes. If you're trying to temper the overall cubic yardage,

but you're and still intending to pick up residences that are serviced by a mowing service or a trimming service, then I want the ordinance to accurately accurately reflect what you intend to do. If you don't intend to do that, then let's just state it and let's pass the thing as presented. But we've now heard it two different ways and we've now also been on this for for 36 minutes, which is good conversation. But we've we are at a at a crossroads. Do we want to as a council, do we want to service residences that have a landscaper or not? That's ultimately the question, right?

Yeah. I think I I'm I'm picking up what you're putting down, everybody. My my recommendation is we rely on the director to have this document to us. He sees it. He's in the field. Let's try it his way. This is something that we got to keep our eyes on and just approve it as as written right now knowing that this is not the final document. I think that's one thing we've been hearing too is this this is going to be a everchanging document. But if we approve it as it is and give it a try, he's going to tell us in a month or so if it's working or not. And we we need to make some adjustments.

Oh, so with that, everyone in the city who Yeah, I've already said something. No, no, no. everyone in the city who has someone coming over and trimming their their boxwoods, even if it's, you know, the right size and whatever else, they're now going to get technically they're not supposed to get picked up. Technically technically won't pick it up.

See, but but but my problem with what you're saying though is that there could be there could be a point to to where you can't pick it up. a resident can't factually come and say, "Yo, you haven't picked up my your waist." Because the ordinance still says that they're not supposed to pick it up. You see what I'm saying? So, either we going to, you know, either we going to do a as Councilman Woman um Matthews has said, we're going to roll with it this way, or are we going going to actually change it the language? Are we asking for the language? I'm cool with the language out,

right? I'm I'm cool with shrinking the size, right? I am. But I I don't want us to. One, you're take you're assuming the risk without it being written and and then the the constituents don't have a leg to stand on if they start complaining because it's still in the ordinance if it doesn't happen because it's not black and white. Cuz at the end of the day, all we going to go by is black and white. My concern was to do what we say we were going to do in the ordinance. That's why I made the motion to strike that so that we would do what we say we're going to do.

Now, I it's I'm good with however the council wants it. I just want us, my main point was I wanted us to do what we said we were going to do and it would be there so that you would have legs to fall back on and that you would not be doing something opposing to the ordinance.

Jamie, question for you. So again, I've read the ordinance. Where is it saying that it won't pick up if it's a a commercial in 5.4 four as long as it meets that size. Where is it stating that it won't we won't pick it up? If it's not the right size. Yes, sir. In 5.4. Because I'm just trying to make sure I'm understanding correctly what verbiage that they are wanting changed. If we take out those last two sentences, I'm trying to understand it myself because 5.4 it doesn't say 5.4 number B. Okay.

Limb shall be maximum 3 in diameter, four feet in length. Okay. And that's all it says. That's the size. It's not telling me you're not going to pick it up if it's a commercial individual. That's why you have the 5.06, the limitations on collection, right? Um, but it also says, you know, trees some branches larger than that must be disposable by private means. So, if we can

So, size works and it's not stipulating that it's not going to be picked up if it's a commercial. So, I'm just trying to figure out why the verbiage for this right now is not working for him to proceed and then bring it back if it needs to be revised. Because if right tomorrow, if I hire a commercial individual to cut my trees, as long as it meets the stipulations that are written in there and that four cubic all together, it's still going to be picked up. So, I'm not understanding. But technically, if somebody else does it, if a contractor does it, I mean, technically, you're right. It's that 5.6 is the catchall. But if we remove those sentences right there.

That's right. That's removing the sentences, we fixed it. Yeah. If we remove the sentence, he has it is fine to go, but the problem is I have to go make it go. Yeah. I have to go pick it up. And I'm just I don't know if I'm going to have more volume to pick up or not.

Well, Jamie, we don't know that. But that's what we got to go. We got to start somewhere. All right. So, we have a motion on the table. We have a second. There has been substantial debate uh debate. I think we either need to, of course, a motion to table is a privilege motion that can be made at any time. We either need to table this thing or we need to uh to call the question. Um is there a motion to table or if not hearing? None. I will call the question and we will vote on the motion that was made and seconded, which is to approve as presented with the modification of removing the sentence that I read into the record earlier.

I think if if if Jamie is saying that he he doesn't know that's going to work and that is not what he wants, then we're going to have to table it. We have no other um recourse but to table it. Um so I take that as a motion to table. Yep. Second. All right. Motion to table and a second. Is there any debate? So, I have a question about that. If we're if we're tableabling it and not taking out the language, then it seems like we can go ahead and approve it cuz what we're saying now is we're not going to change the language. So, then what's the point of the table and not just the approval

because we're going to make it say what we want it to say. Once we table it, then we're going to make it say what we want it to say. So then that means your motion that you just made should approve now then because that's what we said we the only thing we have in question is the two sentences at the bottom which was included in your motion. So that's why I'm confused if we might as well go ahead and approve the current motion if we're going to table it just to do what your motion says we're going to do. No, I think that there will probably be different language that comes back because I think that we can make that that sentence say that we what we can still do for residences section it out by by volume or something that obviously you're still not going to be able to serve businesses. I think we ought to give you an opportunity to recraft f 506 uh defining your limitations to actually say what you intend to do and then be able to to bring that to us at our next meeting and then be able to um to continue deliberations and hopefully approve and put it to bed.

Okay. All right. So motion Yes, ma'am. I really want to listen to what Jamie is saying, but I just think it's just too confusing and that for us to to approve something and then go back and change it. And I just think that we need to get this ordinance right. That's right. And we need to vote on it and make a decision because there's lots of people's lives and how they do things at stake here. Um, and I know I mean we've been behind. We do want to catch up, but we also have to think about the other factors. So, I'm forabling it and I would like to not vote on it until we get it right and get it right quickly.

Same. The only thing I'm certain of is that I'm not certain. I feel like I feel like I'm hurting more than I'm helping. I know. I know. Mr. Lawrence, I recommend whoever made the motion withdraw it. Well, a privilege a privileged motion under Robert's rules supersedes a uh a made motion. You're just tableabling this. You're tableabling the motion though to be heard the next time. But that motion was to approve it with that sentence withdrawn. He's going to rewrite the whole thing and change it which is talking about tweaking the language. Okay. Um Madam Pro Tim, are you willing to withdraw your your underlying motion? No problem.

All right. So that that has been withdrawn. The only motion remaining on the table it is to table um this particular item to our next council meeting and then hopefully we can put this one to bed and be done with it. All right, motion's been made properly seconded. Um madam madam deputy clerk, do you have who made the motion and who seconded the motion to table? The motion was made by counciloman week seconded by Mayor Proin Jones.

Perfect. All right, motion's made and properly seconded to table. Is there any further conversation or debate on that? Hearing none, we'll call the vote. All in favor, please raise your hand. All oppose, same sign. Seeing none, motion to table passes. All right. All right. I appreciate that, everybody. All right. Now, it is 7:45. Let's take 10 minutes uh for a quick nature break. We'll come back. We'll hear our city manager report, council member comments, and then we'll move into close session. Uh we stand adjourned until 7:55.

All right. Are we back live? I saw him. Perfect. Yeah, I think he just hopped in there to go do it. We're good. All right. Welcome back. So, with that, we have completed all of our business items for this evening. We still have our city manager report, count mayor, council member comments, and then a closed session. Uh, council, thank you for the robust discussion so far. Um, uh, the only way you get a hard piece of steel is to hammer it first. So, thank you for doing that. All right, Mr. Livingston.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Under the city manager's report, I wanted to uh let everyone know that we're starting to ramp up again for budget season. So, uh, the law and finance/budget committee will be meeting hopefully in the next week or two to kind of go over what the goals, objectives are going to be, just big picture things for this year's coming up budget. Um, we'll also have the audit presentation coming up in December. So, a lot of things there. We'll also be presenting a CIP. So, all these things we're doing in advance of a lot of the major budgeting process so we can make better decisions or more informed decisions going forward. Um, additionally, as we've been working on this goal, we've, uh, made an offer and she's accepted. We have a new assistant city manager. Her name's Kelly Anne Williams. She'll be starting December 10th. Uh, she has worked for several people that, um, have worked here before, like Miss Tasha Logan Ford, who comes highly recommends her highly. Um, also Carl Ree, who's someone that I've worked with as the economic development director, and she's also worked for Roger Lent, who's the city manager in Wilson. all of them highly recommended her and said this is a hire you should make. So, and also she was one of the uh top three candidates on the scoring within the development associates um candidate pool. Um in her role as assistant city manager, she'll she'll have development services, downtown development, parks and recreation, travel and tourism paramount. uh she'll also be our point of contact for economic development issues within the D from the manager's office with the WCDA and will be responsible with uh for implementing the business development plan and finally she'll be our grant management coordinator. Um, so that's uh pretty much uh my report the uh for this evening. Mayor, I'll entertain any questions if there are any.

The event center.

Oh yes. I'm thank thankful for reminding me of that. We have a event that we are um helping to facilitate. Uh we're not really directly involved in it, but this is a free turkey drive. I would say that Congressman Davis is working with Butterball and also the military affairs committee to uh initiate this free uh community u drive for free turkeys and sweet potatoes. But the first two hours, it starts at tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 a.m. at the Goldsboro Event Center. They'll be giving away turkeys in a sort of a drive by um situation. you get your turkey and your sweet potatoes and then after 12 it'll be open to the community until supplies last.

And the first two hours active duty with with with an ID. Active duty with an ID and uh then after 12 it'll be open open to any members of the community. Perfect. And location, do you mind because it's just on the other side of the event center, right? Yeah, it'll be drive up, you know, into the event center. They'll be I'm sure they'll be they'll be our traffic folks will be out there traffic police monitoring the situation and helping get people in and out of the line. Perfect. All right. That conclude your report and comments. Any questions or questions for Mr. Livingston?

All right. Hearing none, we will move into mayor and council member comments. It is the second meeting of the month and so as is practice, we will uh hear comments from uh Councilman White if he so desires. Uh just real quick, thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um I didn't get a chance to uh recognize my brothers and sisters in arms before Veterans Day. So, I would like to uh um wish everybody belated happy um Veterans Day to uh everyone who served and everyone who supported those who actually served. Um, I would like to uh bring to attention to the council. I would like to uh have somebody do a study on the accidents at corner of Kia Best and New Hope. There's been five since January. And um that's without the gas station being open. So, and um and my last thing is with with the uh the clippings and things, I just I just hope that we get ahead of it so we can inform the uh the community that changes are going to come cuz we are behind and we do realize that we are behind. This is peak season for leaves and pruning of of bushes and everything. So, we are working to try to come up with something to get caught back up on schedule. But I do ask that we send out some type of information letting them know that we are behind like we do when something else happens so they'll be aware of it in the community.

That's all I ask. C uh Councilwoman Lee.

Um I wanted to publicly thank um Mr. Lopez and Mr. Pilot with the code enforcement office. they have just really really been um very helpful in getting um some situations in district 5 cleared up and making a great impact. As a matter of fact, that was a phenomenal story. Um if you get um the new old north, the article they did on Mr. Taj Pollock this week was just very informative. And also, mayor, I was with um Commissioner um Wayne AOK and his family earlier, right before I came to the meeting, and I did tell um Miss Linda and the children that we would um just ask our city to be in prayer for that family in the coming days as they walk everything out. Um he has definitely been a true servant. Served the Nana Fire Department um for over 52 years and then I think he served our commissioner since 2012 I think. So it goes back way back just a true true public servant and so um I love him and um that family. So I just wanted to mention to keep that family in your prayers in the coming days.

No comment.

Yes. Um, first I want to talk about yes the safety in my district and and thank some people. I want to thank the um go police department for making sure we've had some heavy duty trucks that go through the north end and that really damages the the uh pavement the roads that go through there in our neighborhood in our community. and uh they have really been vigilant in making sure we have a sign up there that they're supposed to stay on the main highway, but we've had about four or five trucks going through there. And I want to really thank uh the Gosboro um department for, you know, helping us with that. Also, uh the fire department uh in district one, we've we've had some fires and I really want to commend the fire department. um those guys really got out there and um really was in that house and trying to save that individual um on um on on James Street um and um then um we did have a firearm slo as well and so I just want to thank you thank you thank you so much um also man I I cannot remember because I'm on the safety part Um, we did talk about I I had some concerns about the um the railroad track. There was no arm rail on Carolina and uh Carolina and Georgia. What did you tell me?

So that's a we have to get DOT approval for that and DOT we we couldn't we would have to fund it ourselves and DOT's still evaluating that.

Okay. because I'm really concerned because there are kids over there and I'm pretty sure that they can hear the train, but there are kids and then we did have an incident where someone was um hit by a train because there was no train arm. So, I just wanted to kind of take a look at that and I could not I apologize. I could not remember what you said to me. So, um I also would like to um during the holidays, um Thanksgiving and Christmas are really difficult holidays for a lot of people and we have a high volume of suicide and I want you to just please check on your family, check on the elderly and uh if you can adopt a grandparent. I don't have one. And so I've adopted a grandparent and I know she's already tired of me already, but you know, try to do that and uh stay safe. I'd also would like to thank Miss April Choice for helping me with the young lady on um on Center Street uh and getting some information about um housing and tiny housing uh that and also uh helping me with the um information over there on Malberry for that that lot. So, I like to thank um everybody that really helps me, but those those I just um picked out because those working.

So, thank you. Thank you, Councilman.

Um I just have a few people I'd like to mention and give some thanks to. So for Matt and Jonathan, I just want to say thank you for um from the moment I mentioned that some constituents had been complaining constantly about um Aottabon and Malberry, they got right on it. um came up with some some solutions. And from then on, I see that um myself and other council members are realizing that um always stop signs or four-way stop signs are probably a good thing in a lot of places. Uh in my neighborhood watch, we have a saying that if you see something, say something. So with that saying, I'm going to ask anyone in district three and the residents of Goldsboro that if you see something, say something. It doesn't necessarily just go to crime, but it also goes to things that are going on your in your district and things because we can't see everything. So, a lot of times I ride around my district and I look for stuff and I report or try to find solutions to to things that I do know about, but then here comes someone telling me that um there's this issue here, this issue here, and I would have never thought about that if it wasn't for the constituents and the residents that bring that to our attention. So, I just want to thank you to the residents that um love Goldsboro, love this city, and bring things to our attention so we can help make this a better place to live. Um I also want to give a thanks to the code enforcement and to um Taj Pol um because as I am riding around the entire city, I'm noticing improvements everywhere. Um our city is becoming even more beautiful and I do appreciate it. So, those are my comments.

Councilman, floor is yours.

Okay. A couple things. Um, I'd like to say thank you to everyone that come out and uh participated in the Veterans Day parade and those that were responsible for putting it on. It was a wonderful event. Um, I was happy to attend. I know I saw the mayor was there, Mayor Pro Tim, Councilwoman Weekes, our manager Matt Livingston was there, and there might a few others if I overlook, but I know we were all in that wind together, and it was a little chilly, but it was well worth it, and it was a good event. Um, a couple things to touch on traffic-wise. as the councilwoman Taylor mentioned the I'm about traffic and things that's being reported to her. I'm happy that we're moving forward with this ordinance and stuff that we have got the ball moving with tonight about being able to evaluate intersections properly for a four-way stop because I I've got two in my district that I I mean it's just like a drag strip between Elm Street and Ash Street on Clayburn and and Best Street. And it wasn't just a few weeks or so ago, I got photos from a constituent over there that someone had ran the stop sign and the vehicle had overturned and end up in their front yard. So, I I know that those two uh streets are two that I'm looking forward being able to apply these standards to and see if they will warrant um something to where we can slow traffic down over there. Um next traffic related thing. Um, I wanted to give everyone an update on the Berkeley, Central Heights, Royal Avenue, um, project that's been going on. As as we all know, we've been waiting for this project for 20 years now to finally um, happen. And now it is. But in in in the middle of all of that and construction, there's always folks that's frustrated. We all know

what we went through with William Street and having to wait through that. But the good news is that yes, Berkeley has been frustrating and there I've gotten several folks in that general area asked me for an update and the good news is the end is near and I spoke with the resident engineer for uh Goldsboro actually this afternoon. and I've been trying to make make that connection for a week or so and got some real time update information I would like to share with everybody. Um the project is 90% complete at this time. It will be done uh before Christmas. Um the uh Berkeley portion of that project will be finished up next week so far as the the pavement being done, the striping being done and the traffic light will become operational next week um as well for um Fallon Drive, the new traffic signal at Fallon and Berkeley. Um so the Royal and Central Heights pieces will be done this week. So thing things are really fixing to wrap up and I know it's been frustrating over there but just like with William Street when it's open and done then all is well and we've been waiting for this for decades now. So I'm happy to know that it's fixing to be complete. I just wanted to share that with everyone because I know some of the other council members have gotten inquiries from their constituents as well. Um, last but not least, to piggyback on what Councilwoman Weekes uh led off with regarding um this Wayne Week article last week that out detailed and went into some detail regarding the effort that's being put into um taking care of some some blight and demol housing demolition and

and that's being done. And I was happy to see that article and go into those into the specifics that far because the first step in that process was this council putting their foot down when we got elected and saying we're ready to clean up this city. And then the things that happened after that, one of which was Councilwoman Taylor advocating for us to put into the budget and hire a minimum housing officer, which we all know our minimum housing officers, former council member, former former mayor promos Pak. He's doing a phenomenal job as has been pointed out already. And I think it's also important to point out, and he and I have had this conversation months ago about the money that we're saving as a city by him being able to get voluntary compliance on properties that we so when we allocate money for demolition, if he's able to get voluntary compliance, then that's money we can spend somewhere else. And I know one of the first ones he got voluntary compliance on, which I'd been fussing about for a while. It seemed like it was going the tab on it was going to be like 40 grand to get it tore down. Well, he had was able to get voluntary compliance on that. So, for 40 grand, we can tear down one or two more with that money. So the the point of that is just to again to congratulate and and really um send a shout out to that department and then particularly to um uh Taj Pak in that regard because it's the money he's saved this city is up over six figures. I mean I I know just two I can think of that's over $100,000. So I mean it's probably two 300,000 by now. But that's money that directly he's saving this city by him being in that position and us hiring a minimum housing officer. And not only

did we hire one, we've hired one that's doing a a phenomenal job. So, um, that's all I have on those three subjects. And to end with, as always, thank you to all our hardworking city employees, our staff. Each and one, every one of you are valued and appreciated. Thank you, mayor. Thank you. the point about code enforcement being just an absolutely critical piece of of what we have to do. A number of the we've had a lot of fires lately. A number of the fires have been vacant properties. Not all,

but a number have been. and the work that goes into trying to secure those properties and bring them hopefully back online as as residences and businesses and other things is um is a very intentional thing. you know, we we have to get these these structures secured. Otherwise, you end up with um you know, with additional fires and things as folks are looking for shelter, which also leads me to the need for shelter and the need for services this time of year. Uh city of Goldsboro is fortunate to have a number of organizations that do try and support our community and those that often are are unseen as we get into this time of year. organizations like um for a movement, like Cry Freedom Missions, like uh Tommy's Foundation, like Forom House. I mean, they're just and I'm I'm obviously not listing everybody there, but just an incredibly generous community this time of year. If you're looking for a place to go and figure out how you can volunteer, how you can help turn the tide in your community, start with organizations that are very deliberately trying to house and help folks get into better spots as they go into this time of year. Um to Commissioner AOK, Commissioner Wayne AOK and his family. Um my sincere condolences on what appears to be, you know, the inevitable. And um God knows I'm grateful for the the time that he has spent talking to me over the years. He was one of the first people that um made the made the point to me that farmers understand seed corn and communities have to understand kids because kids are your seed corn for your next for your next generation. And um he's right. Lastly, I'm going to make two final points about things we've already discussed if you're not already

aware of elevateg.com and gosservey.org. Uh and again, those things are all over social media right now and all over uh the city's web page. But take part in what your city is trying to build for you and around you. Uh take part in the survey for what city services are working working correctly and which ones are not. And with Elevate Goldsboro, take part in the planning for what Goldsboro is going to look like 20, 30, 40, 50 years from now. Again, you're planting seeds for trees you may not sit under yourself, but you're doing it so that you have a community you're proud to leave behind. So with that, I will stop. Well,

yes. Yes, ma'am. I I am I am so sorry, but I do need to say this. We have a beautiful sidewalk on Virginia Street, and I would be remiss if I did not uh mention that uh doing for my safety because that was really uh that sidewalk was a problem. It had a hard large hump in it and kids were falling through there, falling across there when they were trying to ride their bicycle. So you guys, thank you so much. It looks really great and they're starting on the other side. But I I could not leave out of here without saying that. I had it down there, but I didn't do it. So, thank you for letting me mention that.

All right. So, with that, it is time to move into a close session. If it is the will of council, I know there are items to be discussed. Uh, Mr. Lawrence, the uh subject matter would be property acquisition. Okay. Personnel and litigation. Perfect. All right. So with that, council, you've heard from Mr. Lawrence request to go into close close session to discuss property acquisition, litigation, and personnel. Is there a motion to go into close based on those three items? So moved.

All right. Motion's been made. Is there a second? All right. Motion made properly seconded. Is there any debate? Hearing none, we'll call the vote. Please vote by show of hands. All in favor, please raise your hand. All oppose. Same sign. Seeing none, motion passed unanimously. We will go into close session and come out hopefully relatively soon.

All right, everybody. We are back in open session as of 10:17. Uh there being no further business to come before council, we entertain a motion to adjourn. Some move second. Motion has been made and properly seconded to adjurnn. There's no debate on a motion to adjurnn. Therefore, we'll just have the vote. All in favor, please raise your hand. All oppose. Same sign. Seeing none, motion passes unanimously. We stand at her.