City Council - Regular Meeting

Let me pull this up. All right. Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the November 10th, 2025 workshop for the Greenville City Council. I'm Mayor PJ Connelly, presiding over today's workshop. First, I'd like to call on honor city clerk for the roll call. [music] Yes, sir. Mayor Connelly here. Mayor Pro Tim Daniels has let us know she will not be attending the workshop. Council member Foreman here. Council member Blackford present. Council member Scully here. Council member Robinson here. Council member Willis here. Right. Mayor Connley. Thank you very much Mr. Manager. City attorney has a requested change.

Thank you Mr. Manager. Mayor and Council. Um I request the council add a closed session item to be read and considered after section 4 new business. Um number two watershed master plan. The um item would be considered after that if it's approved. All right. What what was that? A close session item to be read after um section 4 item number two but would take place at this meeting agenda. Yes ma'am. Not between workshop and regular session. It would take place at the end of this meeting before journ second. All right. Motion to approve the agenda as revised. Council member Skellyy. Second by council member Blackburn. All those in favor say I. I oppose say nay. Motion passes 5 years.

Let's move on by the new business, Mr. Manager.

Thank you, Mayor. Item number one, annual update from the Convention and Visitors Bureau. We have with us the president of Visit Greenville NC, Andrew Schmidt. What president? That's good. Let's see. All right, perfect. Um, good afternoon. Hope everybody's doing well. I'm Andrew Schmid. I'm president and CEO of Visit GreenvilleNC and also Play Greenville NC Sports is how we brand our sports commission. And uh just wanted to take about 10 minutes and just give you a quick update on how travel and tourism is doing in Greenville Pit County. Talk a little bit about what the future looks like uh for travel and tourism and then do want to just give a quick recap of Little League softball World Series. We haven't done that. Haven't been able to do that for you. And then just a quick update on staffing at the CBB. So um want to start here. Um these are 2024 tourism numbers. We don't get these until basically August, September. It takes a while to get them. Um, it's a study done by a company called Tourism Economics and it's, uh, done through the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina. Um, all good news here. Some really good news here. So, you can see the economic impact is $320 million. That's what travel and tourism brought in into Greenville and Pit County. That's a record. That's our third year in a row. Um, it's a 2.3% increase. Um, which is good and solid. We have 100 counties in North Carolina. 31 of them actually had decreases in travel and tourism expenditures.

31.

31. Yes, sir. Um, now some of that was due to Hurricane Helen. About eight of those counties were hurricane Helen related. Um, but others were not. Um, so it was a softer year for travel and tourism across our state, but we still did very, very well. Obviously, if that $320 million goes up, all the numbers below go up, but we had some good revenue generation for taxes. State tax is just under 12 million. Local taxes generated from travel and tourism under 10 million, but closing in on 10 million. Tax savings for resident, that's always important. Uh when we talk to other groups that really aren't familiar with travel and tourism, the more we can bring in, the less taxes people have to pay. So average citizen states save about $123 on their taxes. Set a record record in employment. Um thank you Matt Skully. You helped with that number. So over 2100 um employed through hospitality related jobs in Pit County. And then we rank 26 out of North Carolina's 100 counties when it comes to travel and tourism. That's a big important number for me because um you look at some of the larger cities, you look at [clears throat] um some of the leisure destinations like the beach and the mountains. Um so we do very very well with what we call our comp set. Those are cities that are very similar to us. Uh so we rank 26 out of 100. Uh and uh question.

Hey Andrew. Yes sir. Yes ma'am. That last number um do you could do you know what we were last year uh as far as the rankings go? 25th. So all of this is so awesome and I love it. I'm just surprised we're not higher when you look at our our [cough and clears throat] little league world series and when you look at football and we look at all the things we do. Why do you think that? I mean, I'm kind of putting you on the spot. Respond however you you feel most comfortable, but but can you talk a little bit about maybe why that number isn't as high as it could be?

Sure. So, there's there's certain cities that are automatically going to be higher than us. Those cities that have larger populations, bigger convention centers, bigger hospitality amenities like your Charlotte, your Raleigh, Wilmington, Asheville, etc. So, those cities are going to be because they have more and they bring in more people than we have the capacity to bring in. Then you've got what we call leisure destinations. true leisure destinations um in the beaches in the mountains that are you know you think a a little town like um you know Boone um they're they're much higher than we are they're so it's all about the tourism assets and people that are coming there all year long to vacation and spend money same thing at the coast so we really start to dig down and say okay what are cities like us that have the same amenities that we have and that the same size that we are um so that really starts really you know you got two cities that are that are ahead of us that are more similar than us. Hickory is one of them. And I'll tell you one reason Hickory's jumped us because we were 25th, now they're higher. It's because they built an indoor sports complex along with their convention center. So they brought in a lot of things that they didn't bring in the year before. And so that's important. Johnston County has also jumped ahead of us as well. And the only reason they jumped ahead of us is because they're on 995 and they built more hotels. Um, so not the amenities that they have, but if you really look at our competition set, we're doing really well. Um, so

is there any use at looking per capita visitor spending? Would that provide any interesting additional information? I have a slide on that in just a few minutes. We'll talk about that. It's actually [clears throat] we call it the percentage of visitors spending in the different areas across the state. So it's a great question.

So those are some numbers there. Um, looking at where that money was spent is very important. our food and beverage at 36% is the big winner. Why is food and beverage higher than hotels or some other place? Because we have three different things that we look at with food and beverage. We do have a lot of sports tournaments, meetings and conventions and things, reunions that come in that eat out. Um we have a lot of backyard tourism, which is a lot of culinary travel from other counties next to us. Um they don't have the restaurants that we have in Leno County and Wayne County and Martin County. So they'll come in and eat. Uh and then we have a lot of day travel to Greenville as well, whether people are working here or getting their education here. Um so food and beverage is big. Uh transportation 23% that's your Uber, your lift, your car rentals, um you know, airport, gas purchases, lodging, Airbnbs, hotels and Airbnbs, recreation, retail. So again, the idea here is that travel and tourism dollars touch a lot of different types of businesses. Um, quickly here just the the trends. Our trends have continued to go up every year and that's what we want to see. Um, obviously we took a dip at COVID 22, we bounced back, set a record. 23 was a record, 24 is a record. So we anticipate 25 to be strong as well. Um, so Miss Blackburn, this is actually what you're what you're asking in some relevance. So instate, this is the probably the slide I'm most excited about. We're in the top five origin markets for people traveling to North Carolina. That's big. Now, they do put areas in subsets, unless you're Charlotte, which is its own animal, and Wilmington, which has nothing else around it. Um, but if you look at that, um, 9% of the travel that's coming into the state of North Carolina is coming here, uh, or in the Newburn, Greenville, Washington area. And we know from the numbers that it's mostly Greenville that they're coming to. Now, Newburn does have some tourism that they, uh, bring in people, but mostly that's us. But the really great thing about that is that light blue line is 12.3%. That's the visitor spend. So our visitor spend is

higher than the number of people that we're bringing in. So people that are coming are spending more um than average. You can see some of these numbers. The visitor spends actually less um than uh the number of visitors coming in. So this is the the best indicator for us that we're doing very well in our market and across the state of North Carolina. So we're fourth in the state in terms of percentage of visitors. [clears throat] Correct. That's correct. That's amazing. Yeah, that's and so that that kind of again day travel and other things like that um really helped that number.

Um so let's look at what it looks like moving forward to 2026. Um this is the Smith Travel Research Report and Co-Star report on what the hotel forecasts are for 2026. Um you've got five different areas. Um I don't take a lot of stock in the supply that is really for your individual destination. Um we do have one hotel under construction. Uh that's a home two suites that's going to be behind the residents in [music] data will be ready in 2026. Uh but overall across the country there's more hotels being built. That's what that top one says. Demand is really important. That is how many people intend to travel as compared to the year before. And that's up 1.1%. That's what they're forecasting. Our up just a little bit. average daily rate up quite a bit at 1.3% and then revenue per available room. That's really important when you look at occupancy taxes and what you may look at moving forward and that's up uh forecasted to be up 1.5%. So pretty much all good news um when it comes to what the hotel forecasts are and this was just done so you've got obviously three months to go um but uh this is a good indicator of what we may be looking at at 2026. And when it comes to our hotel inventory that we have, I routinely get asked the question is, do we have enough inventory in Greenville Pit County to be able to support the tourism and the needs people coming to our area?

Um, I would say yes and no. Um, you know, on certain, yeah, that's my political answer. Um, on certain weekends we do not. You know, this past weekend was homecoming and we had people staying in Kinston in Washington as far away as Wilson in Williamson. Um so, you know, there's certain times we don't. Um we have 2,300 hotel rooms here. Um some of them are not as the same caliber as others. Um so there may be times where we do have sufficient and sometimes we don't have sufficient. um with a uh hopefully a full-on sports complex coming um we will need more of certain types of hotels I would think. So would

you say overall that I guess the hotel industry is relatively stable given the amount of rooms [snorts] that are being rented on I guess annual basis. Yeah, we run about for the year the average is 60% occupancy. Okay. Um so that's that's that's solid. Um, but you just have to kind of look at what hotels you have and what the needs that you need to fill. I'm sure that each each of them are different and it really and I don't know how much you want to [laughter] dive into this but really is a supply and demand situation. If you look at uh a lot of the hotels um their revenues have been really good. Mhm.

All right. So their occupancy rate is somewhere around that 60% 65%. So clearly their revenues are real high. If you reduce the revenues I mean you reduce the rates your your occupancy would probably go up. So, it's one of the it's a balance of the supply and demand and capitalistic market. So, they're just having to balance that. I would say during weekends like like Andrew just said,

the weekends where we have the bigger sports events, it is packed and people are having to drive 30, 40 minutes just to be able to get around. I guess in in your since you're more in tune with the industry, the travel and tourism compared to some of the more metropolitan areas, what is the the typical occupancy rate for hotels like in a Meckllinburgg or in a Wake County? Um 45 to 50%. Okay. Yeah. So, but that's that's the whole city. I mean, you have downtown districts that are going to run higher. you've got uh but it's you know when you've got as many hotel rooms as they have um you know it's going to it's going to lower that occupy.

So you can make a a pretty good argument saying that we probably could use more hotels given what the occupancy is in other larger metropolitan areas. Yeah, I would I would say so and I think especially I to me personally I think another downtown hotel would be huge um that would help us with our walkability some other things preferably with a little bit more meeting space. We'd love the Hill and Garden end, but it'd be great to have more meeting space in a downtown hotel. But question, um, is housing insecurity being factored into hotel stays? I know we've got a significant amount of homeless people living in hotels. Yes.

And what made me think about it, um, PJ was was you mentioning that you bringing that topic up and you guys talking about last weekend, I know we had a situation where a homeless person was staying at the Baymont. Um, and this weekend the rates went up to $150 to $192 per night. And so I made a note as you were talking about hotel quality because it for that hotel I was concerned not just about the the um homeless family that I was working with. I was also concerned about um people coming in for homecoming

and going to the Baymont and it not being of the quality that they would have thought they need it needed to be for $150 to $192 per night. Yeah. So, the best way to answer that is when you have a long-term resident within a hotel, um we do not count that occupancy tax. So, we don't really count that because the law in North Carolina is you pay occupy tax in a hotel, but if you stay longer than 90 days, um then you are no longer to sub you're not subject to that tax and then the hotel would return that tax because it's a long-term [music] stay. Um so, typically in long-term calculations that those rooms are not counted towards the travel tourism dollar because they're not

No, not towards the travel tourism dollar, but just that it affects traveling. Oh, sure. Yeah, it it would affect the amount of rooms available for sure. Yeah, absolutely.

Andrew, I do have a question. Is there a way to look at what I would call the hotels that service the hospital and see if they need more in that area? Because I I've talked to a lot of people that say they come in to try and stay for a relative or ch a lot of us children. uh because we do service most of East North Carolina and a lot of times they're full and they're having to go to more higherend hotels, you know, that that charge a lot more and but that's the only thing that's available. Do you are you able to look at that and say what their occupancy use is the ones that I call surround the campus over there versus our other hotels?

Yeah, we could ask um we'd have to get that information from them. I think the best course of action are the patient reps over there because they're the ones that are going to work with the families um and get them housing um so we can certainly contact them and see if they've got data on that. I don't personally have data on that. That that's that's one of the things that people come into town and want to stay because their kids are not or something and and you there for four or five nights and and because they're full they're having to go to a hotel that may be $100 more a night. That's the only option they have. Right. Yeah. I think that's why I'm asking. Why don't you look into it? Look back to it.

One more quick question about that 60% occupancy and Charlotte Meckleberg being 40 45%. What is considered a healthy occupancy percentage? It's all based on your population base. I mean, you want to be in a bigger city, you want to be around 50%. Um, [music] you know, the smaller the the the town, the higher your should be. Um and again it all based on your amenities and what you have on your calendar of events and what kind of larger events you're running. um you know the the downtown AMC for Charlotte Meckllinburgg is probably in the 60s um right around the convention center you know so it's it's all relative to the area

and and again I would I would just be hesitant on just gauging it based off of that that occupancy rate because remember that occupancy rate is just an aggregate of the whole entire period right during times of high volume that occupancy rate is going way high and also the rates per room are going way high just at that hotel you speak of that went up that much I dare say some of the finer hotels were at $600 to $700 a night. So they flex those rates in those times of high volume.

Yeah. And that's again that's supply and demand. I've had I get calls all the time is is this price gouging? And by state law it's not. Price gouging only comes into effect with hotels. When there's a reason for people to have to leave their home, hurricane or evacuation, something like that, that's when that law comes into effect for hotels. Otherwise, it's it's pure supply and demand. And and I know people have talked about the hotel rates here. It's in every city and every town um that has special event weekends. That's that's what hotels do. And and we do have quite a few hospitality developers that are looking our direction, which uh they like that 65% occupancy rate. It's really attractive. You bet they do. Yeah.

So that makes us a and from the standpoint of it have there there is word on the street that uh the streets talk that there might be a uh a sports complex coming down the road. So So people are also looking at that. Is that the worm on the street? That's the word on the street that we're putting that word out of this street.

Well, speaking of sports, great segue. Um so I want to give you some some uh research. I love data and I I love making my decisions based on data. And this is something that Project Play does every couple years. They did skip a year because of co um they look at what youth and amateur sports are doing um and how much people per person are spending on sports and I like these studies but there's also some flaws in these studies to me um this is average amount spent past year for child's top sport that means their top sport but we have kids that are playing two and three sports at a time which means that some of this data is probably a little low um that we're seeing but everything from team registrations equipment uniforms travel lodging lessons and instruction uh camps and athletic schools. I think those could be combined. Um other expenses, but you can see from gosh 2019 to to [clears throat] 2024, the cost per child playing a sport has really skyrocketed. And so that's really important for us since we're looking at at kind of investing a little bit more into sports travel and sports tourism. Um to see those numbers and everything that we see continues to show that even during recession times, those kids are going to play their sports. That's what the parents are going to spend their money on. Um, so this is a great uh great chart that I want to share with you since we are looking at at sports travel. Um, Little League softball happened obviously seems like years ago now from last August, but um, we had record setting viewership. This is great for our exposure. It was great because we generated $1.6 million in the local economy. Um, but total attendance by reported by ESPN was over 18,000. That's huge. All right. So, a lot of people exposed to Greenville and Pit County. Yes, a lot of them were locals, but we talked to a lot of people out there and we had people that were down from Delaware, West Virginia, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and [music] Tennessee. Um, that came specifically just for softball. No team affiliation, just came to watch. Um, peak viewership, 2.98 million viewers on our championship game. Every time they throw that ball,

they see Greenville, North Carolina when the catcher catches it. Can't buy that kind of exposure. It's awesome. Um and so you can see everything was up and so we're excited about those number for Willig. Um and then last thing and this really is also going to help our marketing for the city. Um prior to CO we had seven full-time equivalents. We've got these folks in place. We're back at 7.5. So we've got an extra equivalent based on um where we were before CO, but we did hire a social media coordinator. That's going to be huge, especially when we're trying to market our sports complex at NRC. Um and also just marketing the community. who've never had the funding for a social media coordinator and you've got to have one. It just changes so fast as soon as you put your stuff up. It starts falling below and you got to have constant um presence in social media. And then we also hired a visitor experience specialist want to try to make our visitor center more of an educational uh place where people can come learn about Green Wington County um and why to stay, why to work, what, you know, why do we want to live here and and why do we want to play here. So, we're excited to have those two folks on board as well. So, um, things are going well. U, but we still have more work to do, but I'm happy to answer any other questions.

Does ESPN do they really like that viewership numbers? Is that what they expected or did it exceed their expectations? I I I don't know the answer to that question. I don't know what ESPN was expecting. Um, I know that they were records from last year. Every time we All I care about, Mr. Robinson, is that we are higher than we were last year. [clears throat] That's that's always good. Yes. That's always good. we never want to see this. Uh so we just want to continue to to but I think they're they're pleased based on the fact that they're putting more games on ESPN and ESPN 2 and not as many on ESPN plus showing cornhole instead of the girls playing softball.

The fact that uh that Greenville, [clears throat] North Carolina is now prime time on that Sunday afternoon nationally televised is a great sign. the the the the network ABC and ESPN would not be doing that if we're not moving in the right direction. And just in the mayor and I's conversation with the president of Little League International, which is also a good indication of where ESPN falls in this is that they could not be happier with the experience that they they receive here in Greenville, North Carolina. And I think it's kind of unprecedented too because,

you know, I think they're finally starting to dabble in that segment of the sport that they haven't before because I know when I was out in Tennessee and they were finishing up some of the regional um matchups throughout the country. ESPN was was broadcasting those on a national platform, too. And I know we were at hotels and we were watching those games out there. So, I think that it's tough to say because I think they've just started that and they're continuing to build up and build up and I think more and more people are really starting to catch on to uh softball and watching it on TV and I think it's going to get grow the more that they do it. I think ESPN probably understands that too that you it kind of has to catch up things go it's it's things are so cyclical, right? You know, sometimes baseball's really popular and then people get sick of baseball, they move on to the NBA or they move into the NFL and they just it does that. But I think that we're starting to really see softball get broadcast on a national platform and I think that you know you'll probably see those numbers go up continuously as the years go on.

Thank you guys. Appreciate it. Thank you Andrew Andrew. We Hey, we blew away your 10-minute uh challenge. We just we just killed your presentation and now Daryl's Daryl's going to do 10 minutes here too. Andrew has only uh been the preamble to this great presentation. If you can do it 10 minutes, I bet Mike will give you a huge raise. Well, we have we do have some bets on this. Tell you what those are. Item number two, watershed master plan and storm water capital project update. We have with us our civil engineer 3 Darren Morse for the presentation.

All right. Um thank you mayor and council and city manager. Um, so I'm here today to uh update you about our watershed master plans. Uh, if you did not realize it, our current wershed master plans were completed and adopted nine years ago. Um, and so we are coming up on a 10-year renewal of our wershed master plans. Um and we'll be coming to you uh later um with a contract for wershed master plan update. So in preparation for that wanted to give you kind of a snapshot of where we are and what we have got from the uh wershed master plans that uh that we completed back in 2016. So to start with, I I'll briefly go over the wershed master plans in 2016 and what they did. Um what came from that with the stormwater advisory committee recommendations and utility rate study. Uh a little bit about the development regulations that that happened after that with rule changes with the state.

Um a snapshot of our capital project [music] status. These are projects identified, started or completed since the wershed master plans. And then a little bit about the update to the master plans. So in 2016 uh we completed the master plans for all uh seven watersheds in our jurisdiction. uh in 2013 was the pilot project for the meeting house branch and the council at the time loved it so much um that uh you guys said go and do all of them now together and so we hired three different firms and every surveyor within 100 miles of Greenville uh to complete them. Um those plans included inventory of our storm water system, every catch basin, drop inlet, pipe, covert, all parts of our storm water system, modeling those storm water flows uh for for flooding and and capacity issues. Identifying those areas where we have problems, where we're undersized, need more capacity, have flooding. Identifying stream bank erosion and analyzing our streams. [music] uh and then coming up with a list of capital projects and recommendations uh for how to address both water quality and water quantity in that data collection period. Doing that inventory, we discovered we had roughly 227 miles of storm drain pipe. Um almost 16,000 structures, drop inlets, catch basins, and whatnot. um they walked over 44 miles of stream um and did 200 stream cross-sections. So quite an extensive effort that first go around.

Um we determined during this master plan project desired levels of service for all of our city streets and that varied depending on the type of system that we were talking about. So all of our pipes have at least a 10ear desired level of service. [music] minor thoroughfare crossings. These are the culverts under roads at a 25 year major thoroughfare 50 with railroads at a 100redyear storm. So the idea is in a 100redyear storm the railroad shouldn't flood. That's what basically what level of service refers to. What what what's what's the approximate um inches or amount of water for a 10-year event?

5.8 inches in a 24-hour period. They're okay with the numbers. Oh, there it is. Okay. Um, yeah, that's a that's a 10-year 24-hour storm event, at least as it currently is per Noah. Those numbers change, and I I'll mention that uh a little bit later that we're regardless of what you believe is the cause, we are seeing more rain and more intense rain when we see it. So, um, yesterday's numbers are not today's numbers. Um, correct, correct me if I'm wrong. I think we paid a million dollars for that storm water master plan, didn't we? I think the the original one. Yes.

Yes. And he's going to show you how much that has produced. Oh, yeah. I'm I'm Hey, I'm not I'm not arguing. I remember sitting here and we had a heavy rainfall and I remember we had a dumpster at that business down there that was floating in uptown Greenville. I tell you what, that Town Creek Covert that I am happy to say that since Town Creek Covert has gone in, that dumpster has not moved. [laughter] I remember I remember seeing pictures. I said, "Oh my gosh." Victor and I sat in the office and watched the security video on the on the cameras of the dumpster going around the building. And for y'all for those that were not here, I mean, it literally dumped. It was fast.

It was almost like that. And next thing you know, we have dumpsters floating. [laughter] Yeah, it's true. I've seen those.

So, those master plans that were invested um 10 years ago, uh the results of them was developed a list of prioritized capital projects. And of those projects, there were different types of projects for our open system. These are our streams and our culverts, things like that. Our closed systems are our neighborhood uh storm drainage pipe network. uh water quality projects and stream stabilization projects. Altogether, the projects identified over the seven watershed master plans combined totaled just over $200 million of of capital improvement needs. This does not take into account the normal replacement of the lifespan of the pipes and systems. This was in undersized capacity issues. there was an additional $150 million of identified um just lifespan replacement uh needs. The other thing to keep in note those are 2016 [clears throat] dollars and so 2016 was prior to CO. So these dollars today uh would be the prices that we're seeing on our capital projects are 2.5 to three times the amount that we budgeted for in 2016. So that would that would equate to over half a billion dollars worth of uh stormware projects in today's dollars. [clears throat]

This is this is Daryl's way of buttering it up that he's going to see you in two months. June June of January June of next year. [laughter] I I'm coming. So obviously this is a this is a problem too big to solve. I remember I had just started here in Greenville in 2016 and we were doing this presentation and and council was giving me glassed over looks like how do we fix that? Well, [clears throat] it's the same way you eat an elephant, one bite at a time, right? So we uh we object to that. [laughter] that [clears throat] some of us don't eat the elephant. He meant to say berries, [laughter] right?

How you eat a really big watermelon. How about that? Is that better?

Uh so the followup to the wershed master plans was the stormwater advisory committee. So council uh appointed a stormwater advisory committee of stakeholders that met over two years 14 times and took a look at the services that we provide in storm water. Um the extent of service where we provide it, what we do, the level of service, how often we do what type of maintenance, um and what the wait time is if you call in with a storm water problem before someone can get to you. uh we looked at our capital project prioritization and the list of those projects and how we make those determinations. And then there was a financial uh analysis and rate study of what our stormwater utility rate could pay for of of our long list of wants. Um and also looked at our ordinances and policy recommendations as well, how to be the most efficient with the dollars that we had. The results of that stormwater advisory committee uh came out with some recommendations that the city should maintain the stormwater drainage system if it carries public water. Basically being any storm water running off a public property or right ofway. Um and that regardless of where those that system is located in the rideway or outside of the rideway, we maintain it if it has public water in it all the way to the edge of our jurisdiction. um that we should increase our level of service for our maintenance activities. That's how often we sweep the streets, how often we clean catch basins, those uh check our culverts, those type of things that uh public works does a great job of maintaining. Um how that we should do regular master plan updates, hence why I'm here. That's this one. uh and that we needed to do all of this, we needed to increase staff for maintenance, inspections, asset

management, and utility billing and revenue. So the that utility rate study, the the rate in 2018 when this study was done was $5.35 per eru per month. An ERU is 2,000 square foot of impervious on your site or portion thereof uh per month. The average the average uh utility rate payer it pays two erus. So at the time was $10.70 a month. Um the SWAC recommended a $2 increase for 5 years which would have brought it all the way up to uh 1535 over a 5year period. Um they also recommended a minimum of one eru per account. We have some that the apartments and stuff that split that and they have very small bills and a minimum or a$120 a month flat admin fee to cover the cost of actually [music] billing and and for the the billing staff. Um the 2019 council looked at that and that was uh too big of a watermelon to chew. Uh so they uh decided that what they could stomach was $1 per year increase for four years. Um and then that then CO hit and so that delayed uh due to CO didn't want to compound the issues. Um and so it started in July of 21. We have now completed those four years and our current rate is at $9.35 per eru per month. Um, this gives us a projected revenue of about 11.5 million a year for our stormwater revenue. Now, one thing I want to point out, we talked earlier about how the watershed master plans u increase the cost increased two and a

half to three times. You'll notice our rate did not increase two and a half to three times. So all of the all of the increase that was adopted in 2019 that we were putting towards these additional services basically was eat up with inflation. Um relatively speaking we're um we it we're doing good to break even but we're also still providing those additional services those a higher level of service with that additional staff and equipment. Um, so what's the trade-off? Well, the trade-off is our capital projects. Um, since then, uh, the next update was the state made some modifications to the [music] stormwater rules that we are required to implement. Um, some changes in those rules. Uh, we now regulate high density versus low density development requiring storm water controls. Um, we since the master plans implemented uh additional peak flow requirements in the 1510 and in areas of concern the 25-year storm events requiring those peak flow controls. Um, we still have nutrient reduction requirements for nitrogen and phosphorus. The state just kind of changed [music] the calculation method for that. Um, so the stormwater regulations have become more more stringent since 2016. Um, and you know that that helps with our issue, but obviously it it only helps for ensuring that new development does not make things worse. It doesn't necessarily make it better. Um, with those new regulations, we took the opportunity to add in some flexibility for the development community. um where we could in the form

of a fee in lie of detention program. This allows the developer instead of providing on-site controls where those controls might not be effective or might not make sense, they can pay into a fee and lube program and the city can then use those funds to fund those capital projects that we've identified are more critical than the pond be on the on their particular site. Um, in some cases it was actually counterproductive because they were having to build a stormwater detention pond in a flood plane and and we didn't want to require it, but it was the requirement. So, this allows us to give them a different option and we can take those those funds those same funds they would have spent providing stormwater controls and invest those into more appropriate uh projects.

One time fee payment or it is one time. They can't break it up in payments. They got to pay it one time and one time only. one time at at the time of development. Yes. And how do you how do you determine that fee?

So we uh did a a study of the cost of providing stormwater treatments and the idea was to try to make it balance out that the fee would be a wash as to what they would spend to construct an equivalent storm water treatment device that that they no longer have to. Um so the idea was for the development for the developer that it would be about the same money spent where they where the savings comes is they save on land and ongoing perpetual maintenance and inspection of that facility but that has to be approved. It's not something just do instead of build build the

correct it is and on top of that it's limited in its scope. So what we did not want was everybody to be able to buy out of the rules and then pass those problems along to their downstream neighbor. So we limited the fee and lube program to only those areas where there is not a problem downstream of you. All of the red here there is a problem downstream. So everything in red is not eligible for using the fee inl um unless they're under a 10% increase. Um the areas in white are eligible to use it. Those are basically the ones that are discharging directly to the river. Over time, as we complete projects, capital improvement projects, and we better our system with these projects, we anticipate this red area actually shrinking and turning white so that we uh more and more fee and loom will be available as we resolve those problems downstream.

That thick green line, the Tar River, is that right? The thick green line through the middle. Yes, sir. That's the tar. All right. So, now I'd like to tell you a little bit about the stormwater capital project. These are the list of storm water projects that have been started or completed since the watershed master plans in 2016. Um, so they're in a few different categories. This is not the only chart. Um for our open systems, these are our stream our open streams and coververts major drainage systems. Um we've got a few projects you may have uh may remember approving contracts for. Uh Fire Tower Road, uh Troaler Drive, Corey Road, York Road, and Memorial Drive um at Parker Creek. Um we we managed to work with the DOT to do some of those. we've built some partners throughout these capital projects to help us um accomplish them as best we can. Um the other thing we've done is we have been able to go after grant funding using these watershed master plans. It has been these plans have been critical to us applying for and getting grant funding from several different agencies. Um that that helps us. Um, I've got a little bit of those numbers a little later. Our secondary systems, these are the closed pipe systems that are typically neighborhood tip your street storm water drainage. Um, Greenbryer, Greenfield Terrace, [clears throat] South Elm Street, Cedar Lane, uh, Arlington, and Hall Drive. Um, and you see these are in various, some of these have been designed and are waiting on construction dollars. Um, some of these

have actually been completed, some even completed in-house uh by our public works [music] uh operating. Darl, what's on South Elm Street?

The South Elm Street project is from Fourth Street to the river. Um, the pipe is in poor condition and failing. Um, Pullet Works is having to perform far greater amount of maintenance on that pipe. It basically needs uh replacement. Um, it's also slightly undersized in some places. So, be upsizing the pipe, but mostly it's a condition issue. Um, the other part of it would be uh daylighting the portion of stream from the greenway to the river. The last the last little bit, it's pipe now. We would open that up to daylight a channel. Um we also had a proposal for a constructed wetland there um near the dog park just just upstream of the greenway. So that's part of that Elm Street project. It was bid and unfortunately the uh contractor went out of business and so it's now put put back into the mix waiting for funding. We had a really good price on it too.

Of course we did. That's why that's why they went out of business. that project is is fantastic because um that most most of the area certainly from I would say roughly I mean certainly after first street you're really getting into [music] to flood plane there um and many I know the apartments are gone and opening that up into a a restored wetlands would just be perfect for that area. So fingers crossed. And here, let me make one comment in that a lot of these storm wire projects, the the community only sees what's in their front yard or their backyard.

But the the fact is is that you you can't peacemeal these type of of projects because if you correct one without doing the whole, you're just going to create a problem somewhere else. And they're massive. Like I said, just to correct that that Elm Street issue is it's probably higher than that. That's $13.1 million. It's massive. So, these are very, very large comprehensive projects. You just can't piece. You got to do the whole thing. All right. The next category is our stream stabilization projects. And we have managed to get um some grant funding for that as well. Um some of these are cases where the stream has eroded to well overhead high and it's endangering uh buildings, sheds, fences, uh sewer systems exposed um lots of lots of things like that in danger of of causing even more problems uh because of the ongoing erosion in the streams. Um and so this St. Andrews, uh, Cedar Stream. Um, we did a repair to, um, this the stream bank next to the greenway off of 10th Street. Um, and some repairs on Crooked Creek. Um, there's there's more identified in the plans. These are the ones that we've been able to to work towards. Um, water quality projects. Um JC Park has a forested wetland um as a as a research and innovative uh facility. Uh Corey Road detention facility and uh South Elm Street that we talked about with that uh constructed wetland there. Um you'll notice I don't have any numbers on here because we manage to work the water quality projects in with the water quantity projects. And so a lot of times that's how we are able to leverage grant funding. And by using the

watershed master plan where we're identifying them as both quantity and quality issues, we're able to use that master plan to justify no matter whether it's a FEMA grant or a a DEEQ grant that we're going for. We've got a way to justify each and every project. The uh next one, these are some projects that have been completed since those master plans, but were not actually listed in the watershed master plans. Couple build big ones on here. Uh the Town Creek covert project, it was already in process when the master plans were were being uh created. Uh so it was not specifically identified. Uh the build project was not identified. Note, note that this is only the storm water component of the build project. That $4 million is by no means the entire build project. Uh [clears throat] the uh our annual storm water repair and replace contract [music] um at at a million and a half a year. And uh the recently completed public works uh pipe project, the big pipe running right through the middle of the public works yard. Um, altogether, this is probably the slide you're more interested in, the total slides. Um, altogether, we're talking about in the last 10 years, $114 million worth of stormwater projects started or completed. Um, those that are started and designed, they're waiting on construction dollars. Um, we've actually spent about $68 million so far of that 114 of these projects that you saw today. Of that, we've actually contracted for $20 million worth of grants. [music] We've been selected or awarded for more than that, but we have

to get FEMA to release some of that money. Um, so we anticipate another $24 million worth of grants coming soon. So, um, it is it is these watershed master plans that have allowed us to go after this $48 million worth of grant money. What's the process for FEMA releasing those funds?

Um, court. Uh, [laughter] so we we are part of we are part of the uh list of communities who were awarded brick grants. We have two brick grants and we were awarded um the full project, but it's a phased project. So, we only have a signed grant agreement for phase one, the design of both St. Andrews and Fire Tower. Um the current administration issued some some decrees and FEMA shut down the brick program entirely and is clawing back what they can of the brick program. Um we don't even know if we're going to get fully reimbursed for our phase one awards. Um we we've been told we are not getting the phase 2 uh components of those awards. However, we are we have been working with emergency management to convert those grant programs to the HMGP program which is the hazard mitig hazard mitigation grant program. That's actually Hurricane Helen or Tropical Storm Helen dollars. When there's a disaster in the state, that money is available statewide. It's federal money that's made available and it's available statewide. And so the state is using that to offset the all the brick grants that were promised but can't be fulfilled. Um, having said that, there's also ongoing lawsuits that North Carolina is a party to um against FEMA um to to get them to release those brick funds um that they've already awarded.

How long ago were we I remember getting notification. How long ago was it that we were notified about those brick grants that we were awarded? Was it a year ago? About a year ago. It's been over a year or two years period. Um but Like I said, we're going around different avenues through the state through the hurricane route and receive some grant funding there. Even try to throw the bulkhead in there fly. But no, yeah, we're going to try to take advantage of these guys will take advantage of every single dollar. That's for sure. Daryl, about how much money is being held up by the current administration?

Those two projects, um, [snorts] those two projects altogether, I don't have it up here. Um, the total award for fire tower was $12 million. Of that, phase one is only about a million. Um, so the majority of it is in construction. The total award for St. Andrews was 3.4 million and so far the phase one is about 600,000 of that. So we're talking about probably 134 million to the city that's outstanding with phase two. Um

so Darl the um Corey Road project the detention and this and I apologize because I always ask this question. the Corey Road Detention Project. Seems like that the money was was um called back for that. Do I have that right or No, we we got that money. So, that was through ARPA. Um it was a it was ARPA money that was given to um the division of water infrastructure with the state and then they put it out through uh it's called a Lassie grant. And so we got that um due to the water quality components of that project. Um, we originally asked for 7.5 million. They gave us five. So, we didn't get all that we wanted, but we got a $5 million grant award. Um,

thank you. So, that project is ongoing um with the uh acquisitions pending. Um, we're about to begin construction on that. It's under design build contract. And how big is that going to be? Like 20? It's about an 8 acre uh constructed wetland.

It's pretty large constructed wetland. All right, moving forward our wershed master plan update. So, um we have gone through uh advertisement and made selection for a consultant um that is Ardura which is the new name for WK Dixon. You may be familiar with maybe not. they were the lead the uh consultant on the last master plans and they've been selected to um do this wershed master plan update. Um the idea behind this new update is to update our current inventory um use new rainfall rates, address increased development that have happened over the last 10 years. There's been a little bit of it. uh updated our land use plans and take it uh make sure that we count in any completed projects that um that we have done so that we reflect those in our new modeling. Um also from that we will develop an updated project list and prioritization matrix uh analyzing criticality of those projects and the options some additional alternatives for regional investments larger more regional type uh facilities that can provide um benefits. The other thing we found that we use this master plan every day. Um, that's really what's different about Greenville's watershed master plan than all the other communities plans. The other communities do these plans and most of the time they get some grant funding to do it and then it creates a notebook on a shelf and that's where it sits. We use our master plan regularly. Um, we we refer citizens to it. We refer real estate agents to it and then we use it every time we get an email about

another grant. I got one this morning about another half million dollar grant. um we go down the list of our projects from the master plan and say what is the top project that fits that grant and how can we apply and normally we've got one that fits it. So um the master plan allows us easy uh application for that. But to even further take that, we want to make sure that with this update, we are getting project fact sheets, just one, two pages about every project in the master plan that you can share with your constituents. We can share with lobby lobbyists and we can um show the public these are the projects that we hope to do um if we can find the funding to do them. Um, we also want to take a look at equity and how flooding affects different communities differently. We don't all have the same resources and we don't all have the same ability to recover when uh when we're impacted by things like flooding. Um, one thing I wanted to point out, I I love this graph up here at the top. What that is is that's actually a cross-section of the city of Greenville. If you were to slice Greenville and look at it from the side, this is the cross-section. And over here on the left where it's way up high, that is downtown because downtown is way up high. And over on the right is North Greenville. So the Tar River would be right here and all this is North Greenville. Those colors on that graph represent the different uh year flood levels. And so what you see is it's just a matter of topography that we have a massive flood plane. You see on the map here, the blue area, a massive flood plane north of the river that also happens to be um places where

communities uh don't have as many resources and and are struggle to recover from events like this. So we want to take uh take acknowledgement of that in our study and determine where we need to focus certain resources and efforts um to help with equity. Um we also want to look at our operational and regulatory recommendations as well. What can we do there? So our next steps from here is um the next thing I will I should be coming back to you in January. um at the regular council meeting uh with a contract um with Ardura to complete a watershed master plan update. Um and so we'll be uh presenting that and we'll execute that complete the wershed master plans. It should take between 12 to 18 months uh to do this process. Um the uh after that after the new master plan is updated we're starting this whole process over again just like from 10 years ago. The next step will be to look at our utility rate and do a rate study again and say hey we now know we have an updated picture of where we stand what what our needs are and let's take a look at how do we how do we finance those? How do how do we eat the watermelon? Um, one bite at a time. Uh, so let's uh that's that's part of the developing that implementation strategy. So those are our next steps and if you've got any other questions, be happy to help.

Darl, I do. This is not intended in a critical way, but there's projects that have been [snorts] on tap since my previous terms. I'm thinking about St. Andrews. I'm thinking about some other projects. And it seems like in the current climate with everinccreasing costs, you know, it just I I can't imagine how frustrating it is for you and for others, you know, in your department to know that these things need to be done and yet here we sit 20 years later. And um it just seems like it gets further and further out of reach and you you can't really impose, you know, you can't really ask, you know, that storm water rate to cover all these capital projects. Do you how do you see that changing or do you see that changing? How do we get where we want to go?

Um I I think prioritization is is key, right? We're not going to be able to do everything. I can't stand here and tell you that I know a way for us to come up with a billion dollars of storm water money to to do everything in [clears throat] our master plan and then some. Um, so I think prioritization is key and and really looking at those criticality factors of what we what we mean by criticality is we examine the likelihood of failure multiplied by the consequence of failure. And so that determines your criticality and how you prioritize things.

Um, and so looking at that, we can we can decide where to spend what dollars we have. The other thing is obviously leverage leveraging grant funds as much as we can and [clears throat] we've we've done really well at that. Um, and eventually eventually those agencies will work out their issues and we'll get what we get or not what we don't. right now the ambiguity and unknown is is more difficult than anything. We get a different story every day. And I would uh thanks Darl.

I would [clears throat] echo what uh Darl just said because it was a very forthright answer and because that's not that answer is not just an answer that we're giving back to council. That's an answer that we have to have with many people from our community after every single rain event that happens around here. Y'all get you get the emails and you forward them to us and then we go back and we talk to the property owners and talk about the comprehensive nature of this and the fact that it is it's a half a billion dollars worth of projects. There's no way this community can take care of all that at one time, even over an extended period of time. We're gonna have to prioritize. And that's not always the most popular answer, but it's just the reality of where we are with that level of projects. There's not enough money in in the world to be able to solve all those issues. You just got to take it one bite at the watermelon at a time and just prioritize what those projects are. I believe it's actually um I am very proud of our storm water engineering department to over the last 10 years in the environment that we have been in with the the co with the inflation with the interest rates to say that we have moved on over $und00 million of the projects and we've expended $67 million and made some major improvements. It has put a small dent into it. Is it enough? It's never going to it's never going to be enough. It's never going to be. So when I was um we were talking there was a meeting and we parks came up and um and this is just you know one of those 30,000 foot view questions but I almost wonder are we looking at the need for a bond like a parks bond uh storm water bond infrastructure bond because there's several areas it seems like in our city where there are long-standing issues and and needs capital needs that it's just

not going to be possible to pay through just regular tax. And I think what we've got and I'll answer this question. I think what we've got is a very strong waters util a utility rate system the $9 and looking at that and what we've done over a four-year period and the money that we're able to access from the grants. Let's just face if you did a bond today there's no feasible way that we could even spend that within a decade, right?

Because of the amount of time it takes to engineer it and the amount of time it to bid it. you can only do so many projects at one time. So, I don't believe that is the most efficient way because what that does is it puts so much money in one fill swoop at that at your at your at your doorstep and you don't have the capacity to actually get these projects done. Taking a methodical step by step knowing and I'm not here to say that we're not going to have to adjust that utility rate. You're not going to hear me say that because like Daryl said, every single dollar of efficiency that we hope to gain from that increase has been swept up by inflation. So, we're going to have to increase that rate. But I don't believe it has to be done through a bond because there's just not not the capacity to get it done.

Okay.

I I will say we to add to that, we certainly looked at that at at those options. Um and so far we've been able to avoid um going into debt to do it and that's that's due to um getting those grants. So we've been able to move forward with doing the projects with grants. Um and what that what that really means is that those projects that are that are not tied to a grant move down the priority list. um because we've then got to spend our funds to match the grants. In order to get the money, you got to spend the money. Um and so any projects that aren't associated with a grant then get moved below those grant projects on the priority list.

Thanks, D.

I do want to I do want to say I echo what um Michael said. I think that you guys have done a tremendous job with figuring out ways to be able to address some of those issues and I remember having those conversations 10 years ago when we were talking about the amount of needs and I remember I think it was about $350 million if I remember correctly and I like how in the world are we going to possibly do that? But you guys have done an outstanding job being able to allocate the funds through um the storm water fees that are being charged, but also leveraging some of that with state and and federal dollars to be able to get some of those projects done. You know, I think the frustrating thing as a local a local elected official is is that, you know, sometimes it doesn't seem like there's a real plan in place to fix things. And that's not just that's not just here. I think we do have a plan in place, but I look at it from the NC DOT standpoint, too. There's a tremendous amount of projects that are being held up over time, and I feel like they don't have a plan, right? We at least know what our plan is and how do we get to that point? You know, I don't think that problem's been solved at the NC DOT as far as, hey, people are transitioning to electric vehicles and we're collecting our revenue at the the pumps. How are we going to make up for that loss of revenue? we know the revenue source here and how we fix it, right? You know, we can adjust that. I don't think they've made that that determination and to me that's a frustrating thing. You know, it's frustrating that we can't do every single project, but at least we have a plan in place and we know how we can leverage it and we can continue to lobby to get these projects done and we have to make modifications as time um moves forward and we'll have those discussions through the budget process and make the determination of what's needed as a city to move forward. So, I appreciate all that you guys do and the hard work that you put in over the last decade to make sure that the city's prepared for the future.

Thank you. All right, mayor. That's all we have for [clears throat] the agenda. All right, I'm going to kick it over to our attorney, Mr. McGurt. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Mayor and council members, I recommend that council adopt the following motion holding a closed session pursuant to North Carolina General Statute Section 143-318.11 to instruct the public body staff or negotiating agents concerning the position to be taken by or on behalf of the public body and negotiating the price and other material terms of contracts or proposed contracts for the acquisition of real properties by purchase, option, exchange or lease. Do I have a motion to move? Second.

All right. Motion has been made by council member Willis, second by council member Foreman. I know you. All those invol in favor say I. Those say nay. Motion passes 5. We are officially in close session.