Town Council - Regular Meeting

excuse me, workshop number four. We're glad that you are all here, those joining us in council chambers as well as those joining us on our YouTube channel this evening. As a reminder, all of these meetings are on YouTube, so you can tune back through and watch one through three. We do have the presentation at our May meeting and then we'll be presenting again in June and voting on the budget in June. So with that, I will turn it over to Rob.

Thank you, Mayor. Good evening, council. And uh I'll reiterate, pleasure to present the final budget workshop. The next meeting will be the public hearing. So we'll present um at the council meeting in that public hearing forum where we'll have public comments. you'll see final manager recommended budget. Then we'll sit on that um take those comments back after the May meeting and adopt in June. However, tonight we will see um several things. If I can get this to work. Lee broke it. It worked a minute ago.

Yeah. Okay. Um, first we're going to see the the results of our um council exercise that we did looking at all of the um projects and uh programs that we put before you between the last budget meeting and tonight. We'll talk about those consensus items, which ones we still don't have a strong consensus on and discuss those in tonight's meeting. Hopefully to get really a final say on those. Is that something we we push till our next retreat and go through that in the next budget process or is it something that that we want to really pursue in this budget? We'll have our financial models basically what is the financial model look like right now? And I would say our our budget is 99.9% done from a financial standpoint. There's some nuance that we can we can still adjust in there, but we're very confident in our financial models. um go through our uh budget season graphics, look at the fee schedule that we're proposing, make sure that everyone is good with that. And then finally, the wrap-up for this this evening, that'll just be open discussion. Anything that wasn't covered before we get into the final MRB, I will say at the end of this evening, you know, we'll we'll be full bore ahead on presenting the manager's recommended budget. So, we're not going to really leave here, at least staff doesn't plan to leave here without having consensus one way or the other on the handful of things that we have. So, we will make sure in that wrapup area that that we all understand the path forward from a um process standpoint. You can kind of see the hours that that we've put into this so far. A ton of hours that you don't see on here, right? These are the these are the open to the public hours that we've had here in this room where we're presenting all this

information. However, all of our department heads have spent weeks on analyzing their budget, coming up with proposals, refining them based on on the feedback um as well as the the work that you all have done. I see everybody has their budget binder with them. You know, that's a lot that's not covered in in this, right? So at the end of this, we're open to the public. We're engaging with the public for for 20 to 25 hours. However, I would say, you know, when we look at manh hours from a staff standpoint, we have 4 to 500 hours just in in producing this. Um, as well as the hours you're spending at home, spending on the phone, sending in emails. Um, so we we really take a lot of pride in all the effort that we put into it and really proud of the product that we have for you tonight. Today is kind of that council budget exercise results. What it's not is a final budget. We do have, you know, a great recommendation for you, but we can change it tonight. We can change it in May. We can change it right up until June. Um, we don't like to get to that point. Um, we really want to understand what we have from this room this evening. That way when we put this out to the public, there are changes that are reasonable to make. If we don't adopt a budget in June, we're not like the federal government where we can kind of kick the can July 1st, we just don't operate. So, I don't like to get to a a scenario where we're giving ourselves, you know, a week or so. I've seen several communities in this county do that where they've had to pass a budget maybe June 30th on a on a special meeting on a 3443 vote. That's that's not the type of position we want to put you guys in. And so we try to make sure that we're spending plenty of time getting these results and making sure that we have a good consensus moving forward. I'm going to have Lee go over the next section which will be the council

exercise parts. But before he goes over, you know, the results of all of that, I wanted to remind everybody how the buckets we break this into when we analyze it. So a strong denial and we have we have eight electeds in here. If only one or two folks are in support of something, we just put that into a we'll look at that later bucket. Right? If if six of our eight electives are like, "No, I'm not for that. It's not really worth the the time." We'll put that on budget retreat and, you know, future workshops and try to try to vet those a little bit better. When we get into that three to five, one way or the other, even if we if we have four people on this board that say, "Yes, I want to do that." and three that don't. We still bring that back to the board because we think that's that's a coin flip, right? Somebody might feel really strongly. Maybe one of those that that are supporting it don't have enough information or vice versa. So that moderate approval is really what we look at discussing tonight in here. And then the significant approvals, six or seven members are for something. We we again put that right into the budget and we say that that's a strong consensus that everybody wants to go do that. it's already funded in this budget. We can talk about significant approvals, strong denials or the moderates, but from a staff standpoint, we're just really trying to focus on getting those, you know, three, four, and five middle grounds and making sure we know what we're doing there moving forward. Um, but everything that's significant approval is funded. Everything that's been a strong denial is not in the budget. And if we're going to make any changes to that, tonight's the night to do it. Lee, you want to take it from there and go over the rest?

See if I don't break it today. Are there any questions before Lee goes on to Hey, um R. One thing that might be helpful, I don't know if we have anybody here from Casey staff, but when we get to that point, uh it would be nice to see a summary. No tax increase for major projects funded. uh deni just some headlines that we could carry out and know because you know I don't know if the public's going to go through this but we're already working on it. Good deal. Yes sir.

Okay. So uh thank you everyone for having me tonight. I'm going to go through these try to go through them at at a decent clip. Uh I know all of you spent a lot of time in the extreme detail. So none of this is anything that was not on your exercise. So it should be familiar to everybody. Uh but there are a few things I wanted to point out as we go through so we're just not flipping through slides too fast. Uh the first one here is the revenues. Uh this was where we asked everyone, what do you want to do with the property tax rate? Uh the solid waste fee that we currently charge and then we always have that license plate fee. A lot of our uh area municipalities and then those neighbors do charge that fee. We haven't traditionally, but we have that out there just to see if y'all are ever interested. What you can see here is um it was a unanimous agreement that we stay with the tax rate as it is at 41 cents and then we keep the solid waste fee at $10 as it currently is. So, no changes uh were made by anyone here for those two. And that is how the budget is all built around

and that was unanimous. So we were we're happy to see that that we had very um clear consensus, no tax increase, no changes to fees. Um Stan Pat, we we all know the issue we've we've talked about with the state legislature where you know there is some unknowns there. Um, that's always that's something we can adjust to, but you know, certainly no increases is something we committed to three years ago and going through the 4-year reval process and looks like the board was all in consensus on that. So, next we'll go into the operations. Um, here you'll see these are some specific ones we pulled out for for you to consider. Again, going into this, all these items were in the budget that we presented to you. Uh, so all of these, you can see either strong or unanimous approval. So, all of these were in the budget and will stay in the budget. I did want to just point out, as you can see, most of these were unanimous approval uh on both sides. You have the the all the council votes on the left and then we include the mayor and council on the right side. uh you'll see there's about five of these that have uh some strong approval. So again, 52 uh overwhelmingly approved, but just to kind of point out again, so we have some of these items here, the athletic special recognition, uh the data trust pilot, town center, small area plan, and then you'll see the benches at Harris Depot and additional cultural events. All those had a couple of descents but overall again very positive all moving forward. Personnel these again this was a very light year on purpose that we uh didn't put a lot before you relating to this

and so these two items uh both small dollar amounts both were unanimously approved by everyone. Capital we got a couple of slides here. There was a lot of capital. Um, as everyone knows, we're have a lot of stuff going on. Uh, again, this one, as much as the other ones that you saw in the the operations, most all these are either strong or unanimous approval all the way down until you get to the sidewalk program. So wanted just to make sure that that was understood that currently 100,000 is in the budget that was presented to you. There was unanimous approval there to keep that 100,000 in place for the sidewalk program. We gave two options moving it up to $50,000 increments um over the course of a five-year upgrade there. And both of those had unanimous denial. So for the ADA sidewalk program, we're keeping it at the 100,000. You go down below, this is our first one where we need to get some consensus here. So this is the annual greenway program. Currently, as has been in the budget for a while, is a $250,000 annually that we have in there that was unanimously approved. So it's in the budget. It stays in the budget. Just like with the sidewalk program gave two $50,000 U options there, the 350, which would have been $100,000 more than we currently budget, had strong denial. So, we're off of that one. But the one here that we have moderate denial, that's a three v4 vote on council and then three to five with the mayor and council. That brings it up to 300,000. So an additional 50,000 for greenway and that would be planned to have each year over the next five years. So question would

be that we put out to the floor is there any discussion that we want to have as of right now it's in denial but it's in that moderate area so it's up for discussion if anybody wants to uh talk about it. I mean, I was personally I was in favor of it to increase just because of all the positive responses that we're getting from the residents. I mean, I rarely do we do very much that gets a lot of accolades. And, you know, from people just actually being on it to um using them on a regular basis, we've had folks come and compliment us on it. We even have a special group outside of the town that has formed that's so excited about what we have. So, I mean, I to me it just seemed like it was a no-brainer to continue to grow it as opposed to limiting it.

Yeah, I think I wanted to look at slightly differently. Like if you think about it, option two, you have three people that voted for option two and two people voted for option three. So option three would encompass option two, right? So those two people want at least 300,000, but they actually want even more. They want 350. So you actually have five people technically for the 300. Is that how you calculated that, Brian? the the two that want the 350 are also counted as wanting the 300 as well. If you want 350, then you want 300 as well is how I set this up. Okay. So,

so one person was not willing to go up to 350. Yeah, but they're the same people. Oh, they are the same people. Okay. But those people should not then be counted in the unanimous approval. There should be no if there's three people there there should be the 250 should be a 3 four I mean 43 right well I looked at it as if you said yes to the 350 then you are obviously okay with the 250 as well so that was an automatic yes at any lesser amount if you went with the higher amount but that's a good point taken

the way I the way I kind of interpreted it was I think I think honestly the entire room is fine with 350 if we know what we're spending it on. I think the folks that were held back were like, I'm good with the 250. I would be good with 350 if you if you can give me some more. Like, what does that get us? Um, so I think we can get there over the next year and say, okay, what would we do with another 50 or another 100 there? I think we're all intuitively knowing, yes, greenways are good. Let's do more of that. What does that really mean? what am I giving up for it? Um, so that that was kind of how I read it, just looking at

um all the feedback from all the forms and and trying to kind of triangular. That's exactly right. I also want to point out that, you know, with this exercise, we're trying to make it so that we don't go into deficit. So, you know, let's say I I want this and this and this, but then, you know, like I may have said no on something, but I know everybody else is going to say yes, hopefully, and that will pass. Like the slide before, somebody said no on 8,000 for benches. I mean, they probably only said no because of the they're trying to make the numbers work and to say yes on something else. So, are you manipulating Brian's system? Is that what you're Is that what you're telling me here? Yeah, I know. Exactly.

I know. So, we we all did the same thing. Okay. I I would have to I I think you summed it up right because I didn't have enough intel to know what's the extra 50 for. Is it shovel ready or are you just going to go out and find something to spend it on? But if you have $300,000 worth of greenway that can be fueled and take flight in the next year, like, yeah, sign me up. But I I I didn't understand enough about it to know. And then the second thing, is there any grant money? Anything that goes along with this? Are we doubling our money? If we're funding 300, is anybody else going to fund 300 or is this all us?

Yeah, this is this is all us. And it's mostly for that opportunity money, right? We we we fund individual large projects in and of themselves. And then we are also spending 250 on things that come up throughout the year. Hey, can we connect these two sections? Maybe we got a request, maybe, you know, there's there's a development going in and and they get to a point where they've, you know, finished 80% of it and there might be a connector in between, too. So, we we tend to do this and and couple it with other projects and and this is really our creative greenway monies. So, um, that that again back to why I kind of interpreted it that way is because I I think it's less defined. U, but it is there there's almost never matching funds with this. We we do get transportation greenway funds, but that's usually with a defined project. It's a multi-year project. This is every year and and we put it to kind of the best projects that we can find.

How much did we spend last year? How much we actually spend? It's a great question. I do not know. 160 something like that. Yeah. And then we're probably 2 to 220 this year. Yeah. Okay. So maybe should we leave it up to let's say if there is a good project or there is a good opportunity to use like a certain moment and connect certain streets or something like if you can still bring it up to us even if it goes over the whatever the allocated number.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we're happy to bring budget amendment if we have a project that that we feel strongly about. Um and also, you know, not to terrify everybody in the room, but we start doing this again um from a staff standpoint in September and and so we start building out justifications and and we'll be starting to take a look again in September on what would we do based on last year's budget process. If we had another 50, if we had 100, what are the things that we have queued up? we're not doing now that that would accelerate and so I I think we have a couple of opportunities um to leave that at at the 250 and then bring those to you on a case by case. Uh another question when we have programs like that like this or ADA or any other programs and there's a set number we kind of build in adjustment for inflation over time especially if it's a construction like if it was 10 years ago if it was 250 I mean it shouldn't be that now so do we have some sort of like mechanism to increase that every year or no

we have uh not historically done that with these couple we've kind of set those 100 and 250 and left them for a number of years. Um, and then maybe in a process like this it would jump 50,000 at one time, but but we have not indexed those typically because I feel like, you know, we should probably think of that as well, especially when we know prices are going up so much. I think with Brian's, one of his answers earlier was, you know, last year it was 150, 180, I don't remember what he said, and then this year it's like 220. Next year we're probably going to max out the 250. And when once you run up against that wall, that's when you kind of get into that scenario where we come back through the budget. We go, okay,

for years we've been building this program up now, it's at its max. Do we do we start to allow some of its purchasing power to erode because of the inflationary pressures or do we index it up once at 50 and grow into that that next, you know, bucket of money? So, um, that's typically how we do these buckets. projects, they're a whole different animal. So, I'm hearing that everybody were still on board with the 250, but I think everybody has an appetite. If there's something ready that you could come with a budget amendment and we would evaluate it. Yep. And we still get our benches. That's right.

Okay. Uh this is the second page of the capital here. Uh there's no consensus issues to talk about here, but I did want to point out a few of these programs because there are a few more of the more highprofile items that we have. You'll see here the wayfinding signs phase 2 was unanimously approved. the Stallings Road roundabout artwork and landscaping that actually the RFP has gone out and so this will work out well in tandem when we get that we'll be able to get something turned around to you pretty quickly. Uh we've got the highway 49 and Roberto Road mitigation the design piece of that. So that would had a strong approval on it. Uh Harrisburg Common and Streetscape here in front of Town Hall and along Main Street. Um, this was a case where we had 700 request was up to 2 million and that had a strong approval there.

Can we stop there for a second? Yes, sir. I mean, I was one of the nos on it because to me that seemed like it was a pie in the sky. We we really didn't even other than we saw it in our retreat. Like, how can I go sign off on this amount of money? I don't know what I'm signing off on. Yeah. I mean, it would have to go through the same line. Like I've talked to Rob about it at length. Like I'm willing I don't even know what that say no to the whole budget on that.

Yeah. It it would have to go through design, but you know, we we already have 700 now. And I think when we went through our retreat, talking about what could we add to it when we talked about the historic features of it, right? historic train or um you know adding the the water features and really creating that downtown gathering place. Um you know if this would have come back two to five or two to six in the opposite way I' I'd agree with you. Um but I mean we did give handouts there. We we gave you know concepts. I have more deny it. We can we can flip to them. Um, but I think one of the one of the biggest drivers of this without a doubt when we went through our retreats and through the whole budget process, the number one priority on on this when we went through retreat, when we had our budget workshops was investment in Town Center and creating revitalization downtown and having, you know, foot traffic here and moving events here and really making sure that Main Street represents kind of a, for lack of a better term, just a gathering place, right? A a center of town. I think Councilman Fall mentioned, you know, when you take a picture in Harrisburg, you want everyone that sees that picture to say, "Oh, that's Harrisburg." And so, this was that attempt to to increase above that. Um, again, we can we can flip a bunch of slides and

we've had no in-depth conversation other than, "Hey, do you like this?" That's great. Um, and then, you know, I would like to have at least some kind of consultation of is this going to cause future delays or further issues or I mean, one of the things that we learned when the bonds came forward several years ago for the parks was nobody wanted to write a blank check. And while I see a design here, I'm very challenged by the idea of could be, maybe, we don't know. Let's explore. And for me to write that check to you and say, hey, sure, I'm on board. I'm not. I mean, I haven't seen enough on the paper. I haven't seen enough research done to even know that the numbers are even close. I did not realize that this was it had already um 700,000 and it was an increase to and I'm just looking at what my response was and I think I left it as yes, but now that I'm seeing the details on it, I'd like to say no on that as well.

Could we introduce I I understand. Yeah, a blank check is is scary. the idea that this would require approval, you know, more rigorous than just I mean, I honestly, Chris, I don't know. Were you in favor of closing the road and putting all the grass down? Was Lex? I I couldn't tell you. And And if you came to me as a resident and go, "Hey, what's this for?" I couldn't tell you. Yeah, I get that. I get that. 1.3 million. I'm sorry. I can't I can't prove that. I I I'm conceptually uh on board with the idea, but the details need to be worked out before you just sign off on That's every budget. Yeah. Mhm. There's not a single project in here that we're asking for money on. Yeah. That has full design.

Yeah. I think what that provides though, I'm I'm I'm on board. We need to do something. What the something is needs some rigor. Mhm.

I've seen more failed attempts for Town Center without lack of direction. And we need more than just us to go do this. We need another partner. And every single time we've brought in a partner, we've gotten close. They've walked away. And there's a reason they've walked away. And it's not us. I know we have the capacity. If we had a partner come in on this and work with us, we could get there. We we could find the money. But to approve it now and know we're going solo and hoping for the best requires any participation.

I'm not asking for particip. What I'm saying is the effort that we're putting into this needs to be echoed by another partner coming in to do other things besides just this. I my opinion on this is that if you had no other partners, this in and of itself is an exceptional project for the town that we already utilize this area. Our our farmers market, our art walk, our um trick-or- treat are all in this area. Not to mention the programming that parks has been asked in the parks master plan and that we've heard a bunch of times through this comp plan process of what can we do downtown Friday nights and Saturday nights? Can we have singer songwriters? Can we can we have a gathering place down here? We've had folks um approach us with the um social district and the different events and tying the the businesses up here at Roberta and moving everything downtown. So we don't know, don't get me wrong, we don't have to do anything in our center.

Bless you. But for 25 years and and I've been here 10 of those with you, Ron, where I've seen the same thing.

We're waiting for somebody to come in and do something. Maybe we'll partner with them, maybe we won't. So when it was the four acres across the street here that got right up to the finish line, then we pull the rug. Um Tony Jang project right up to the finish line. We pull the record. We had the town center overlay right up to the finish line. That doesn't go through. I don't know that this detracts from anything that that's going to come in. And I also don't think it relies on anything that can come in. I do think it drives foot traffic. I think it creates a gathering space. Harrisburg in general, our downtown is our parks system. When we talk tonight and you know the past four years time and time again people are Harrisburg Park they're on our greenways they that that's where our folks want to gather. So creating a park place for them to gather in your central business district similar to what Canapapolis has done with West 6th I think. Um it's the name of the street but theirs is more lineal. Um Concord has gone and redone their their downtown. We're in the fortunate position where we don't have to put a bunch of our businesses out of business in order to create this. Now, if we wait until everything's built up and we come back and we say, "Well, now we're going to make Main Street walkable and available for nightlife." I think you missed the opportunity. We could certainly put it off. That's that's not the point I'm making. I just think this does not tie to anything. This is something we can do on our own if we want to. And so, Ron, I asked quite a few of those same questions the other day about where does our ownership of this property stop because that drove my decision for some of the same reasons. I'm not so worried about closing the road. Um, permanently I and when I talked to Rob about that

link, like I think that that is a a a pretty way to slow traffic in the area as well. Um, so that part doesn't bother me. I I am cons and to I don't know that I really agree with the examples of when we close the roads because that's temporary. It's a couple hours on a Saturday or whatever. Um, I mean the concern I still have the concern about what does it look like? Do we need to do something? Yes. I don't want to be late to the game. So, it's just right in that line of where we are on that.

And and to be transparent, we're in the planning phase of this now. It's a matter of how far do we plan in the upcoming year. The council still has to approve renderings. You still have to approve an engineering contract. You still have to improve a construction contract. So, there's plenty of opportunity to participate. These renderings exist only because I was frustrated with the renderings we've gotten so far. So, what's the 2 million for? I created these myself. But what's the 2 million for? for what you see here, a for a center courtyard. Um what you'll see kind of on the the edges there are um swings like we have at Veterans Park.

Um knee walls and retaining walls because we do want to have just some natural bench areas for for folks to to sit. I think if you look at at these the string lighting, the lamps, the um natural vegetation that we'd have out there that's more like natural to North Carolina so that we could, you know, have our placards and and call out different plants. Obviously, you see the the gazebo there that could serve as a stage or an entertainment area and um a locomotive like you see at um is that Freedom Park?

You kind of see way back here um on the other side. And this really just becomes, you know, an area where go to the overhead. Um, so this none of this has to stay how it is. Like we have this logo and this water feature that can turn on and off.

Um, this is inspired by Burkeell. They have a a plaza that has water bubblers and fountains, but when they do concerts, they just turn it off and you can just sit out there. So again, this is this is imagination. And this is the way we get there is just come up with a rendering. If that rendering says, "Hey, that's worth, you know, some some further investigation. How much can we realistically spend out here?" The $2 million came from Dr. Banks and I's conversation at the retreat where he said, "Is this realistic?" And I said, "Yes, within two years and under two million, but you're going to have to put some money towards it to have that type of momentum to move forward with it." These things These things do take some some momentum.

So, I guess I got a question just for clarification because I think we need to do something right for our downtown area. Um, so the 2 million, what will the 2 million get us? Like what does that look like? You know, is that the rendering? Is that a redo of the renderings that you did? Like is that like you know getting you know 2 million is like construction and everything. Okay.

That's what that's what we have in here. I mean that will I for me I think that you know our community wants that and to see some kind of movement right is is needed like I don't know if it looks like this right but if we have someone who specializes in this and can do something really nice I think it will add value to to what we already operate for our town you know and so I just want to be clear like it's not just we're not spending $2 million still imagining right like in this hypothetical it has to be something that's real. Th

this is the rough um site overlay that our staff has come up with. We spent a lot of time. We have every department working on this project because we do think it's significant to look at all of these features. So, you know, where that gazebo's at, where that water features at, where the shade structures are at, where the swings are at, knee wall. Um you know, Jim Spina came up with the arch. Um, I don't remember when the train first came up, but Oh, yeah. I remember the train idea.

But, but it, you know, that was something it was like, oh, wow. You know, we we constantly talk about our heritage and our history and our lack thereof, but I really don't think there is a lack thereof here. It's just telling our story hasn't been done for a long time. Harrisburg has been here in name and in incorporation for 52 years, but as a as Harris Depot and as a significant historical area. It's been here for 250 300 years and was one of our first rail stops on westward expansion. So, you know, leaning into that I do think is significant and telling that story. And when we um go back and look at some of our archives there, there is significant stories to tell. So that has been one of our focus that that's been pushed on staff is that hey we want to define who we are. We want to make sure that we have art and culture and and those things. So the the farm mill the historic farm mill project this and adding to our other parks have all been thought about in that way. I I know what you're saying, Councilman Smith, because I've been here the same time where some of these projects just go and

Let me finish then because I certainly didn't come with a little bit. I've got time on my side on this one. Veterans Park, free piece of land. Let's develop it. Let's turn it into Veterans Park. $750,000. We'll get it done. Grew to like 1.2.

Then guess what? What did we just do? We refurbished it because we found that it was done differently than what it should have been done. We we start on this and we're going to go down the same path. We have yet to build a project consistently through first phase that works. We always have to go back. We always have to expand. We always have to do more. I don't I would go on if if this is something that we would pursue. I want more understanding of what it is. I mean, you're telling me, you showed us those slides in that uh retreat and I'm like, a train? I I never heard of a a consensus of everybody was on board. I didn't know we were taking a vote. I took it away as, oh, this is something we could shoot for or discuss at a later date. when this showed up on the budget. I mean, and I clearly wrote in my notes, if this is what I think it is, count me out. And and I still say, if this is what I think it is, count me out because we've not done enough work on our end as a council to fully bring this back to the residents and be 110% in and go, we know better than you on this. I don't think

is there an intermediate step that that you think is I think there needs to be more discussion and you know feedback from the residents as well you're getting ready to make a a huge commitment to an area I mean you this community here has been very vocal throughout the years I don't know where they are today how vocal they are they may take it and enjoy it but then again they may come back and go you know what this is too much we're you know I don't know what they're going to say. I would be surprised if they didn't like a park. So, I I appreciate where you're coming from because I I mean, I feel like you're listening to mine and Rob's conversation about this. Sorry.

No, it's okay. But in li but in hearing you say those things, it makes me think about two things. Our parks plan was very clear that people want more parks. Um and also want to see something happen in Town Center. And let me be clear, I was a very strong no to this, but as I have talked to Rob through this and just listening and talking through it more tonight, I'm kind of leaning a teeny bit. But I wonder if this is an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone and understand that your concerns are absolutely valid that things have not been done well historically. We are very confident in the staff that we have here for everything else. And I don't know if these are the I doubt these are the same people that were here.

Um it doesn't even have anything to do with the staff. Government works at the lowest bid. Right.

No, I hear you on that. And and I don't think but even with that considered the projects that have come forth I don't think have been shoddy projects. So, I think that if they if there is an intermediate step step, but I'm not 100% what that looks like, I think that we would miss an opportunity to try and give it a go. Um, Rob, I think original 6 or 700,000 was allocated only because we got that free ARPA money, we had to use it, and we said, "Okay, there was this project up in the clouds that we were thinking about." Lee, I think you mentioned that um like you wanted to do something around town center for a while. So that's how that original money was allocated. I don't know if any of us of us envisioned that we're just going to like spend so much money on that. Um and then as far as people, you know, using it and enjoying it, to me it seems like so much money for a small space that's I don't know. It's just very hard to swallow. I mean, and I think that there's also So, again, everybody's clear. I said no to this, but now I'm like thinking it through. If we do this, then does that drive an opportunity to help Ryan when we're trying to drive the economic development because

you don't know, but we're already going to throw money on it. That's what doesn't make sense. That's why I said I would I'd be a buyer if we this was our part in having another partner there. If this is what we were going to do and they were going to do bring in this building and that building and develop this and develop that 110 I'm I'm in because I've seen every presentation but to do this and we hope

that it turns into something better. Maybe we need to push this to next budget and for now like get Ryan's input, get those folks around here input like what people want to see instead of like us trying to like just come up with something and just rush to pass it through. Like can we just move it out of this budget and put it to the next year's for now and kind of wrap our brains around what it's going to be? I can do anything that you all tell me to. Six out of the 80 has said let's move forward with it. I'm so I think I think it's really a conversation. I'm going no. So, right. Yeah. But she was a no and flipped back. So, now it's still Are you flipping to We'll do anything.

I don't know. Let's circle back. I don't know where even at 53 like we just need a clear direction. You know, from a staff standpoint, we hear invest in town center. Do some things that that bring people down here. Let's have more events down here. Let's do all that. Ryan is in every single meeting that we went through. We've talked about the opportunities here with the first floor of Novant being vacant, the different businesses that would want to locate in there next to this. You know, we we've had lots of different economic from a staff standpoint. We we have vetted it. What the top end number is, we've got to bid it. To to your point, this could be a million dollars. We I don't it's not going to go over two. That's our that's our top cap. We still have several steps to get there. If we're not comfortable going to those next steps, then we're not comfortable. But, you know, we're giving our our best effort to bring you guys things to say, is this something that you're comfortable with? Up until this point, the only way we've been able to describe it to you is with words. Um, I've walked it with a few people. Um, I thought this conversation might happen at this meeting. So, I'm like, let me get something visual so we can at least understand what we're talking about. And then if you know if the council doesn't want to do it, we don't we don't go any further. Again, tonight's approval doesn't say, "Hey, we're going to also approve all the contracts along the way." If the community doesn't like this or people in this room aren't comfortable with it, don't do it.

There's enough dialogue to say that not everybody's on the same page. It wasn't I mean, Aline made her comment. Uh Latricia, you've made your comment. I've made mine. and we all seem to have something here or there, but we don't have everything. And and I think for me it just felt like I was committed to something that I didn't really understand that I was committed to just based on. Do you like that? Yeah. Well, you're on board. No, I'm not on board. I want to have more discussions. I want to understand what is there ramifications. I mean, I think we just need to have more discussions around this and see where everybody really truly sits on it.

Is your concern more about the road being closed? My concern is the whole project in general. I I mean, we have too many residents today that go line by line through budgets and go, "What the heck? Why'd you get on board with this?" I can't tell them why I got on board because I didn't get on board because I'm not a fan of it. I'm not a seller of it. Um, and and I I for the life of me can't give them a reason that we should be supporting this

other than, oh, it sounds great. We've got a roundabout up there we really need to focus on and whatever money we're going to need, I'd rather see us get all that stuff taken care of. Let's come back and take care of our own once we get all that worked out. Because could be that we would need this road. I don't know. And the road really has no bearing to me one way or the other. It's more of this town center has sat for far too long. I get it, but we need another player in the situation because we clearly can't buy the land. We tried that and it went from 12 million to 13 million to crazy numbers. My ask is let's take some let's take a step back and let's walk through it a little bit more and have some real heavy discussions of what's in what's not in what ramifications does this cause how how long are we looking at for the roundabout all those pieces

roundabout's a funded separate project I understand it's funded in a separate but we have yet to work through it from a perspective of what does it do to our traffic is this going to be needed I don't No, we're always telling residents to avoid 49, right? We tell them to go down Harris through Harrisburg estates or whatever, old Harrisburg

to to avoid going down 49 to avoid all the traffic. This is one of your minor major arteries of folks cutting through. You know, they're coming from over there to go to McDonald's, to going to Aldi's, going to whatever. I mean, I had the same conversation with my daughter. She's like, "Don't close the road." And I was like, "The road is the least concern." And I said, "Because you've got whatever that is, uh, Physicians Boulevard in front. You can go that way." Yeah, there's plenty of other That's main street. How would you say something? I just I mean, for me, I voted no on this because I didn't I wasn't retreat,

but um I I didn't have nationally all this. I think I was I was ready to approve the 700 to go through this extra 1.3. Is this something we think we're going to be able to do in the next year or is this something we could go ahead with the 700,000 do the pre-work that we're talking about to get more information on what this is actually going to cost us. Come back next year's budget meeting and say this is what we're this is what we're looking at for that for the information that maybe you're looking for. Is this something we can budget for next next year and add that increase in? That's that was the reason for my no vote on this.

Yeah. And and so that the answer is yeah, we we can do those in in steps. The the only reason that we have the the larger number here is that we've gotten the feedback in the previous years that you know don't don't give me partial numbers, right? Tell me what you think this is going to be because we don't want to come back in with a second phase or third phase. So, you know, let me know if this is going to be a $5 million project. Don't just tell me the engineering is going to be 500,000 and then we do 500 and then we come back another year and say, "Well, we need another four and a half, Mike, because you already spent the five." So, the short answer is I think you can move forward with a design on a bigger project with the money that's already allocated. I just don't I don't want to get in a situation with y'all where we've designed something that's not fundable. Not to say you have to fund it now, but I think you need transparency on it that like if if 700 is our kind of topline number, it's not this,

right? We're doing a different style of project at that number than something something you see here, 700. We're going to we're going to do some sidewalks. We're going to put street lights up. We're going to we're going to do the the minimal. There's not a train, a water feature, those types of things. But if we want to go with a more um Harrisburg style park where, you know, people come to Harrisburg, they they know what they expect. I think this is this is more in tune with that branding. Um but yeah, we can we can certainly do it in steps and we would do it in steps like that regardless. Um I don't think we could construct this in a year, right? We're not going to be going to construction in the spring of next year.

And I think when when I removed that out, that money went to capital reserves. I think on my So I think that money was still put back for if we have these discussions next year, we come back and have some plans and have it drawn up or we have to do we can approve the the documents for research. We can do that in that 700,000. That that was my that was my prospect. What's that? Or if a partner comes in play. Yeah.

I'm not going to hold my breath on the partnerships. But um but yeah, we can certainly that that can certainly be a method if the if the full board wants to to go that route, we can go that route. Um we can pause it completely. We can move forward with the whole thing. It's this is really just a board decision. we're capable of doing all of those things. I I think what I'm hearing is we we want more information. I get that. I don't know if we regret Veterans Park as much as we regret not getting it right the first time. Uh and learning from that mistake. But I think if anybody looks back, even though we had to refurbish it, I was so proud of Veterans Park, I didn't have to live through all the history of doing it.

And please understand my words were I regretted it. It was it was a free part. It was a free piece of land donated by the developer. We were like, you know, we had talked about having the veterans back here. Why not have it there? But it a lot of things went wrong and it was people were like, "Oh, well, we got to have it open by veterans." Nobody looked at timelines and everything else. So now we're rushing and then we're doing poor work along the way. Plus, we're taking the lowest bidder. Um, and again, the people that were involved are no longer here. So, I'm not you know, contaminating any of our staff.

I'm just saying that we don't have the best history. And and if you go back to Rob makes the comment that we had the developer wanted to build phase one, but he wouldn't commit to phase two. And I forget that was after um um what's his name's plan? This was the Canapapolis builder. we were going to do something, you know, we wanted to get them to commit to something in town center, some type of artwork or whatever. And this is what I'm talking about. When you have a partnership and they're coming in to do their stuff, these are the things that we can offer up that we're going to do to enhance their product and their work as opposed to we're just going to go for it and hope somebody else comes in.

So, but but how long have we been waiting on a partner? The same amount of time. Well, that's my point, right? So, it's like I don't but the issue is greater than just the partner. No, but I'm just asking the issue is the land owner plays games and the land owner refuses to negotiate. We've seen it three times over that he changes the deal. Even the the deal where the town was going to loan the developer money. He changed the interest rates and he changed the agreement two days before the deal was to go through. So, do you think that this could potentially attract people to Town Center, but you're worried about what the land owner is going to do. No project.

Well, there's a time and a place for it, and right now is not the time nor the place. I think if you had a developer in the wings that was looking to come in and do whatever else and we were talking about this, it would be the time, it'd be the place right now. I mean, we could have six more minis stuck here. We don't know. It's whatever the land owner decides he wants to do. Is it 700 already there? So, this is just for the additional 1.3.

Okay. And what about business's perspective on closing this road completely? The more I think about it, it seems that it would be nice to have that open and only close it periodically for events. The businesses we've talked to love this idea. This gives their um well patrons because they're all different types of businesses. It gives them something to do other than just come to their business, right? So if you're coming down to Rocky River Coffee right now, you can sit at Rocky River Coffee. With this, you can then walk down here with your ice cream or your coffee and read a book on a swing under a tree

near a water fountain and enjoy. But are people prepared to pay two million for it? That's what we're gonna because I feel like we're going to be only you guys can answer question. Well, what what what was I remember our comp on the comprehensive plan? What did people say about this? Let's go back to the data. What did this they wanted? I remember right off. I think so. The devil is in the details. Oh yeah, it is. People said they wanted greenways and everybody voted against increasing the budget. That that number was there 10 years ago. So we're obviously not listening. Exactly. Well, no, because last year we spent what 200 would you say? 160. We And this is what what was that? 300.

300.

Two. Yeah. So I mean the money's there. So I don't see I don't think that's an issue. But what I'm saying is that we always talk about the data and and what the people want, right? What they've said they've said they want it. This is our effort in doing that, right? just like the parks, just like you know increasing what we do for Fourth of July and all the other things like we we don't want to listen to them over here but not over here like and I personally don't think people want to wait until a partner comes before we do something because then we'll just be waiting for maybe an infinite amount of time. So then we So wait, wait, wait. So then do we not address like do we not like it's kind of like and I get it and and to Ron's point, I don't want us to waste money doing things twice with what the the saying says measure once, cut twice or something like that,

but you know what I mean, right? Yeah. You know, measure twice, cut once. Measure twice, cut once. Measure twice, cut once. So like we don't want to waste money because they're really going to be mad, right? So, we just got to make sure we work out the details and get it right. But I think if when it when it becomes right and it's something like this, people are going to enjoy it, you know. Yeah. Are we going to be inconvenience? Probably. But I think it will be a nice thing and we we will it it will tell the community we heard you and we are working towards doing what we said that you wanted. And so, yeah,

my take on it, this may be a great thing, but I feel like there's a recession coming. there's going to be a drop. So, you know, like Farmington, they planned it 10, 15 years ago

and then the drop happened and now it's finally starting to come back around. We may be planning this and doing this, but then there maybe there won't even be any minik coming in. There was not going to be much development. We don't know. So, I don't know if I'm prepared to allocate this much to this when we have a lot of other needs. So, um, can I have one thing? And and I like, look, I'm I'm in favor of this. Uh, I I don't know if you could spend $2 million if you're like spended on it in a fiscal year. So, that takes care of some of that, but maybe a public workshop where people came in and we said, "Here are three designs. What do you think? Get on board. I like this. I don't like that."

It was funny when I was coming in here tonight, there were kids out there playing in an open field. Um, and they were just, you know, I I think I use that analogy, don't build the sidewalks until you see where the paths are worn down. They're telling us they want to play right outside of this town center. There's nothing out there now, a gazebo. Yeah. Big enough. I know which field you're talking about. Well, we don't own that land. So, someone comes in, they can build something. And you think, so you want no kids kicking balls around here, but it doesn't have to look just like this. This was again, this was Rob, right? We're going TO GET SOMEONE NO, NO, NO. I'm just saying like this is going to be something a little bit more sophisticated than But I looked at the I looked at the map.

I feel like everybody liked it until I drew this picture. This looks beautiful. But I looked at the map and this space is smaller than the Veterans Park. So, it's like it's a it's a small space. Like I I don't think there's going to be as much research. I'm I'm looking through this through the lens of if we all woke up 15 years from now, would we look back and say, "Boy, I I wish we'd never done that. I can't imagine the scenario unless it was a road thing or an Indian burial ground or a radioactive field or I can't imagine we would say I wish we hadn't done that."

Yeah, but you all you're doing is blocking the road and spending money. You can do that next year, the year after, the year after. It's not like somebody will sell the road from under you. Yeah, but we haven't and this is us and this is our moment. So, what does 700 get us right now? Because that we already that's already in the

So, I think we have I think we have three options and you know we've we've had what I think now sounds like a a five to three um with five wanting to pursue this, three not. Um I think we have three options. We have the 700 and we can just, you know, do street lights, plant some more trees, kind of do the best we can up and down. Um, leave the road open and talk about this at some other time or just never do it. Um, we also can just move ahead with say let's allocate up to two million, go into design, start doing some things and and we for the most part like this, but we'd like to see the public come in and comment on it or we'd like to give you some suggestions. I think that the third option somewhere in between those is to say let's use the 700 pursuing a concept like this and come back for the additional amount once we have a concept we're we're all on board with. So I really think you you either abandon this type of concept and just stick with what we have. you go full board and say I like this or that middle ground that you know council me going to mention can we just start the design start the public engagement and then see what type of money we have and then we can make a decision hey do we want to go more or less whatever maybe it's more specific maybe this comes in at a million and everybody feels a lot better maybe it prices out much higher and you don't

I I I like the third option and I'm bullish on this because if this were New York City, this would be our Central Park and people would come get their wedding picture out here, take a picture of their dog and say, "This was Harrisburg and this is where uh you know, I got my ice cream and proposed to my girlfriend and you know, all of that. We there there's no place to go. I mean, we're getting there other places, but u it gives us character and it's lasting. And if you take $2 million, it sounds like a lot of money, but if the life of this park is a hundred years, that's 2,000 bucks a year. Mhm. I paid 2,000 bucks a year for this. This space is so small. There's going to be so many people there. No one's going to come take pictures there because there's going to be

I don't know. I took my daughter's wedding pictures in Concord cuz they have a little garden that's a heck of a lot smaller than this and I drove over there. Yeah, but Concord is huge and they have lots and lots of parks and they're empty. Have you seen like it's going to look like you know like the playground in Harrisburg Park? Like there's going to be people there all the time

which is not necessarily a bad thing. If we if if we do more of them though, we hope to get them spread out, right? So, if we if we do historic Farm Mill, if we do this, if we keep adding to to Farm Mill Park, if we do a Southern Park and then we, you know, continue to to do the improvements that we've done to Harrisburg Park, the hope is that all the new people that move here aren't overcrowding the existing facilities. Um, I I think it is hard to to look at something from a conceptual, even if it's just me drawing it. Um, and say, "Yes, I'm I'm fully on board with that." I just think it's that we're in that, you know, we're in that twilight zone of a project where it's like we either

invest in it. We, you know, what we design next, we really need to know how much effort we can go in. There's no sense designing something if we want to spend 500,000 versus 5 million. Those are completely different instructions that we would give the engineering firms. And Rob, can you revisit what your third option again was? Yeah. So the first two were just don't do it. Se don't do it or go full board. The third was pursue this concept but not settle on that on that 2 million. So go ahead and say let's spend the 700 on engineering with this concept in mind. But we're gonna get feedback from the council and the community and okay

before we set it to holler amount. Now the only irony about all of this and I'll hear Councilman Smith on this. We're going to make the unreasonable landlord's land more valuable next door whether he likes it or not. It will be a magnet. I'm telling you. Um and it might not take for two years or three years or five years. It's like oh I want to be next to that park. So 12 million is 20 million. Well, it's not. I mean, we've recognized we're not the buyer. Yeah. When he went over 12, you know, the numbers that he went to, we're not a player in that space. So, it could lure that partner in. I get that. But, you know, for me, it was 12 years, 12 budgets.

No, one I didn't support. So, I'm 11 and one. I'll go 12 and two on this. I'll I'll hold hold my vote this year on this one if we leave it where it is today. If we were to do it with the third option, I'd be willing to switch to a yeah for this one. What does everyone think of the third option? I'm a yes. I'm a yes. We need to evaluate re-evaluate whether we want to close the road or not. put that in front of people and have them weigh in on that. So that's part I thought that was part is that part of the study.

Yeah, that's part of the third option. Yeah. So we would present them, I'm assuming some designs, but some designs would have to have a road open so that people I don't think there's a design that has a road. We can do it now with the road open with what we have. I I I really think you always council always reserves the right to say we've heard from the public. We did this with parallel road when we talked about oneway streets and the public came out and said we don't like that and we said fine we won't do the project. Council always reserves the right to say we're not going to do a project up until we do the project. But I don't I mean it's an exercise in futility saying do we want the road open or not. Mhm.

If you either do or you don't. I I think that's that's up to this board and we've talked about it at Nauseium about whether or not we blow open side streets in order to get people up and down roads. But honestly, if we're going to have anything on Main Street, whether the roads open fully or not, that's going to be a slow road. You're going to be going 15 miles an hour through here. if we're going to have people walking on the sides of the streets and dining and crossing the streets. We get multiple complaints now. You guys get these complaints up at um Fenture Church and Percent where people are almost getting hit because cars cut through here and they try to go too fast and they don't feel like the lighting is adequate. Truth is, there's just a lot of people out enjoying themselves at that intersection and that pedestrians and cutthroughs don't mix. I mean, I would have loved to see something like this at the train station to be honest as opposed to right here, but you know,

I don't think there I don't think you can I don't I don't think this this doesn't prohibit you from doing other parks throughout town. I think the point of this is do you want something in your town center or not? And if we don't, that's easy. You you just don't. If we do, then we got to decide what does that look like? And I think your your point's fair, like you're not willing to to put a number on it at this point. You don't know if it's 2 million, you're out. You're not a blank check. Um that's a that's a fair assessment, but the the idea of, you know, are there are they mutually exclusive with other parks or should the road be open or should it not? I think that's something that

Yeah, but it's just a few decision. Money is finite. you know, and we can build another park. What about um something like that would be nice next to wherever our future library will be located and the hope is that it'll be here, right? I would hope to have it. If that's the case, then we can I would hope to have it that in conjunction with and so that was maybe that's the missing piece for you because that was it for me. I know that the hope has always been to well, not always as of late been to bring the library here.

Yeah. When we've been negotiating with the county on town center library relocation for a few years. They've had some hiccups that have taken them away from the negotiating table, but uh that remains our our position. I just want to say great job on the drawing. Well, thank you, Mike. Yeah, they're not.

I think this would attract people to town. I mean, I think we're looking at economic development. I think it would be it would be something. I went to a little place in Parish in Houston and they had not really similar, but they had businesses all around the field kind of in the middle and there were people out there, kids playing soccer. It was turf, but it was um it was it was a nice area in between the businesses. I is this something we think we can get done next year? I mean, that's what I was looking at was this is the 27th budget.

We we we have money now. So, we're kind of at a pause thinking, do we do we go forward or not? If this is approved as a concept in this budget, our next step would basically take the consultants that we've already hired, give them this concept, and say, "Design it. Get me some pricing. let's start taking this back, you know, through the through the so yeah, we can move as quickly as we want to it. Um, but we have to have consensus on it, right? And if if there are problem areas with it, let's workshop that and and figure it out. We certainly don't want to do anything that the board or the community doesn't want to do, I think our plans that we've looked at with the comp plan and the parks master plan, all the elements in here

are reflected in there. They didn't say, "Hey, I want it between town hall and no font." That's those aren't that specific, but all of the elements that we see in here are pulled straight from our plans and and reflected. So, I know the community supports having these types of things. Is it here? Does it fit the the board's vision and all that? That's up to y'all, but we can get it done quick if we want it to get done quick. Mike, to your point and Ryan, you weren't here, so I don't don't feel a dart on this one.

Veterans Park, wonderful park. We were going to have a restaurant sitting next door. You have a restaurant. They would overflow. They would come into the park. Great space. Kids could play while they're on the wait, blah blah. You got Panda Express and Chase Bank. So, while you're waiting on your deposit, go hang out at Veterans Park. While you're waiting on your Chinese, go hang out at Veterans Park. And that's some of the stuff where I'm at in all of this is, don't get me wrong, a reasonable concept. We could certainly go there. I didn't feel like there was enough conversation, and I've seen other things in town go sideways. And goodness gracious, I don't know that I'll see people walking out of Pando's Express, going to Veterans Park to stroll around.

I I have no retort for any of those things. Um I think some people in this room have heard me talk to some of our developers within the past few weeks and say almost identical language to what you just said in another location. I think that's different. It's a memorial. place more, but it was sold to us just like we are here now. The same way it's going to be great. We're going to have a restaurant. We're going to have this. We're going to have that. Fast forward, we got Panda Express. I have no bones with Panda Express. I have no bones with Chase. What I'm saying is

it started out amazing. But you know what I'm thinking as you were talking like when I go to and not to like

your spotlight Burkeville but I am like when you go there they have that open space they have the shops you walk you can spend a day there. You know what I mean? And like imagine if we can do that here like we can leave our dollars here and we can and then when because when people start coming out the businesses are going to come. It may not be overnight but at least it gives some momentum. Even in Farmington, even bringing Dario there is bringing more stuff over there. Chick-fil-A's probably upset, but it's, you know, it's bringing some it just it's a different energy, you know, and I haven't been here as as much as as long as some of you all, but it feels different, right? And it feels like we're going in the right direction because there are folks who come from New York and and different places, California, and they're like, "What do y'all have to offer?" This is a start in in my opinion in in that direction. And hopefully it'll bring the momentum and the businesses and the partners um to that space, you know, and so I just think I just think and it and it also answers the question the or the survey that the the the folks sent that they wanted right and but again measure twice, cut once. Okay, we want to make sure we get it right. We don't want to spend any unnecessary money doing this again. And I I I I I envision people going to these places, Bubbas or whatever, and then hanging out at the park right here in our community.

Yeah. I think it's leaving it better than we found it. Yeah. I mean, it's Yeah. It's a cool project, but I don't know if the 53 is enough for you guys. I mean, we're I'm No, you three. You were We moved to 62. Well, I think we have one. We have focus. She shifted. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. But to to Councilman Thevan's position of, hey, pursue the design. Let's wait on a construction number, you know, as a as a third option. Is there anybody dead set against that? I know. Um, listen, I think Councilwoman Cotel is like there's a lot more that she'd like.

Councilwoman Smith on board somehow. What would it take to get you? Um, because I your your wisdom is ringing in my ears. Let's not make a mistake. And and I don't want to make a mistake. Like I said, there's only been one budget that I said no to. And I have ridden with everybody all the way through the last 10 years except for that one. Yeah. And this one, when I saw that, I was like, "No, this is an absolute dead deal to me." So, and and it's because we as a council haven't done our due diligence. We basing it simply on that's a great photo, great concept. That doesn't constitute. Oh, I get it. I get it.

I think it hits the survey though. I mean, I feel like that's what So did as Aline said, so so did the uh greenways and and we poo pooed on those. Well, we didn't we're asking for if when if a project comes ahead, we haven't even spent. Yeah, we haven't been rolling at 220.

We haven't really been allocating a lot of resources. We haven't really there hasn't been really big push from like the the council on onto the the employees to push those further, you know. Um, this just seems like I I thought 700,000 was going to cover, you know, beautifying this area, but if you are going to use all of 700,000 just to do like the the design work. No, but I didn't understand it be that way. My my thought was you're going to use part of that for the design fees. You're still going to have some.

Yeah. My thought was I don't I don't want to go ahead and find I don't want to go ahead and put in a budget the extra 1.3 for something that we don't have any we don't know I mean it could be $5 million to do probably not but

we just we don't know and that was my my push back on it was I wasn't sure I I didn't have enough and I put that on the exercise I just didn't have enough to know I mean how how can I justify another 1.3 we don't even know what that looks And if we're just doing the budget for this year, that's to me that's that's what we're this is the 2027 budget, right? And it's what are we looking at? I mean, are we going to go ahead and allocate $2 million for this? That was my that was my push. And Chris, you know, and for those that weren't here for the the bond vote, the reason the park bond failed was because it was presented, we wanted x amount of money, and there was no list what we were doing, how we were doing it, anything else. And everybody came back and said, I'll be damned. I am not writing you a blank check.

Yeah, that's fair. And here again, I can't explain it. I all I can say, oh, it's a concept. We're going to explore 2 million. Maybe that gets it. It might be six million. and it might be half a million. I don't know. And I don't feel comfortable answering those questions when presenting our residents.

So, if we had the 700 as is, which we have the 700 to do the exploratory, you could always come back and say, "Well, turns out it's 1.9. We've done a survey. Everybody's good. Council you on board, we can say yes or no, up or down." You come back and say it's 5 million. We all say, "Uh, no." You know, that's going to be a no for us. It's harder than we thought. there's utility lines or something we didn't anticipate. Um, but I I don't like the idea of another year going by and another year going by and year because then work with the 700 that you've already got.

We've got the 700, but I I think what Rob has done is say it's not 700. If you keep on this path, it's going to be up to 2 million. So that's sort of full disclosure. It's not a government plan that keeps on giving. It's like two million could probably get it done.

You know, we're we're at a fork in the road on the on the concept. You know, are we closing the road and doing a signature downtown, you know, Harrisburg Common or are we beautifying the exterior edges and calling it a day? It's not 700. You know, generally rule of thumb, 10 to 15% per design fee. So you would expect a $2 million project to have, you know, 200 to 300 in complete design. So yeah, we have that in the 700, but we don't want to go and spend 200 grand on a concept that

everybody So when we send it out to you, it' be like, "Oh, that's a terrible idea." So, if we leave the 700 in and we come back and it's 2 million and we've done customer surveys and we're on board with it. I mean, is that reasonable to leave the 700 in, keep the exploratory knowing that we've got an aiming price of 2 million for whatever design that we do the company, the customer survey. Uh, we bring the citizens in, we do renderings, we show them concepts, and then we could say it's a very reasonable. I think that's what Councilman Devon's suggestion was. Yeah.

But I'm not sure if it's an all or nothing proposition with the with the road being open or the project in general pursuing it. And I think that's where we're that's where we're at right now is are are we going to are we even comfortable spending any money on design and renderings and and public involvement because I think we need to those it's what our people have asked for. Yeah. I think we're doing a disservice by not looking into that. I'm obviously open for number three. Yeah. Go for three.

I'm still for three because to that point and I don't know that I mean I'm kind of torn on the survey but because I feel like we do a ton of those. We know we got a lot of data what people want. We're still moving forward on that. I mean, I think that's this is just this is getting us more information to be informed on what if we're going to vote on this and we would still have an open house kind of like we've done before and they That's what I'm thinking. Not like I think the the most impact, you know, somebody might not drive over from Camelot to see this, but somebody back here may weigh in and they may be less than positive or something. Uh I don't know, but I think we

and if 12 people show up, all right, you were heard. We sent out a survey. But did we do the same thing for farm meal? So that's what I envisioned. Yes. We didn't just have a concept drawing. We actually put money towards getting the research done, having somebody design that. I know I did a proono, but I mean that was that was part of the process. Yeah. I think, wasn't it?

Yeah. But concepts are um you know, public involvement summary is part of that process for that project. That's that was further along than this is. And we're just in the infancy of this. We're either going to do public involvement with something like this or we're just going to do the edges. We we've never really went and said, "Hey, are we on board with something like this?" The first time we talked about this was in the retreat

um of whether or not now I've talked about with select folks on what if we closed it and what if we you know had an open field out here. Uh but as a group that's first time where we're able to get any anything from our consultant to you to look at and say what you know what if we put something here put something there. Um so yeah I think that is normally part of the process. We're just we're early on on this. I'll be honest when I first looked at that I thought it was back here. Yeah that's what I thought because the gazebo location right there and we still have the columns and stuff in the back. That was my initial thought. Yeah, I don't know why across the street.

Yep. I like that. So, I think I'm hearing unanimous. Yeah, I I think it's fine and it closing the road may be fine, but let's just not kid ourselves. This is a small little area like let's say Veterans Park, there's like three families and then it looks comfortable, but you know, you're going to have a bunch of people come in and it's just too small to be any sort of meaningful park. It's just going to be a small little pretty area. So, let's not like overblow it and spend too much money on it. All right.

Well, we're ahead of schedule. Plenty of time tonight. So, we I'm just kidding. We're we're uh we're on page uh four of 36. So, we're going to go ahead and back up a few And oh and that wasn't even one of the items that was

past that.

No, we were here. That's uh we didn't even get to the to the strong denial one here. This is the one that um I just want to bring this to your attention. Strong denial, so we we didn't fund it. Um, however, I think this is one um that uh is our fault and I think there the criticism that Councilman Smith gave us on that one is is better pointed on this one because we really haven't talked about emergency generator for this building in any, you know, deep capacity. It's just kind of a one-off. This isn't one of those kind of fun, you know, flashy capital projects that we're always, you know, doing renderings and talking about. This is more of a issue with town hall where as we've had these emergency events, as we get larger and larger staff, we have more and more people at town hall. Um we can't operate through like the ice storm that we had um guess it was a couple months ago in mid January when we had

Yeah. Yeah. I mean we're we were down for without electric there for several days. Um, when we have that situation, there are some folks that can work remote, but we just need to either be okay with closing operations when we have hurricanes or ice storms or things like that or we're going to have to have backup power at this building. I think, you know, we we've had we're continuing to go through and and look at costs on on this. We'll do that and we'll come back to you at some point with a fine number and you're more than welcome to say no then. I just want everybody to have I was actually on board with that.

Yeah. I just want everybody to have clear eyes. Back in the good gracing game. I just want everybody to have clear eyes what that what that is. When when the power goes out, we just we we're just going to send folks home until we have a generator. Um there's no real way for us. We can What's that? $,000 buys a lot of candles.

That's That's true. It just it doesn't run one drive and that's the that's the difficulty we have. So, we do send a handful of folks over to John's building at public works where we have generators um so we can keep continuity of operations going, but it's a skeleton crew. And so if we really want to have um full operations, which our customers do expect, I mean, they call in and the phones are dead because there's no power to them and everything is voice over IP now. So, you know, as long as we're okay with that scenario, that's fine. We'll get better numbers on this. It's not in the budget. Um and I'm not going to waste any more time on it. And I'm going to let Lee get back to you. Trust me.

Yeah. Remember you guys said Lee does quicker meetings. Well, to be fair, Lee wasn't talking. He got you there.

Uh, hey, so, uh, this part gets into the what we call the word cloud. And, uh, just as a point of reference, especially anybody that that's here that's not familiar with it. Uh these work clouds is just a culmination of a bunch of different projects that have come in from surveys, from talking internally from residents. It's just kind of a you truly is a workout where we thrown all this stuff there. None of this is in the budget. So uh this is purely putting it out. We do this every year. Put it out to council and just get some feedback to see if there's any of these projects that have moved up into the level of wanting to uh take them on. So you'll see there most of there there was no on this page there was none that rose to the level of any type of uh consensus to do any of them. But I did just want to point out you'll see there's five here that had low interest. So a little interest going into it. We have the fire station uh one in admin preliminary design. um a community space or the community center space. Uh the historic train, the let's see the outdoor activities and the basketball let's see is the basketball court. Yeah, basketball courts. And then we have down here towards the bottom this open green space natural areas. So again, nothing rose to a level of moving it into the list. Uh but wanted to point those out. Another page of these. A couple of things here. Again, we had no areas of consensus to move forward until we get down to the bottom. We'll talk about that here just a second. Uh business incentives. Dang it, I did it again. I'll get a hang of it one of these days. That's had it for years. uh the business incentives

and the site ready EDC had um one vote of interest and then we have the start the tree canopy down at the bottom. Uh at the very bottom though you'll see the one area that we got a 43 under council 44 with mayor and council vote was to increase the facade grant funding to 100,000. Again, this is uh 50,000 is what we've historically had in this account and uh it that 50,000 is actually in the budget. So, this is just uh bringing up the question, do we want to bring it up to a 100,000? Uh right now, pretty much this program is if um any of the businesses that qualify want to come in and ask us to start that process, we will do it. but we don't physically go out and put a big effort into uh going to these businesses and and putting it out to them. This would be part of that to try take a more active role in working on the facade areas around town. So, uh any discussion that want to have on that? Scared to ask.

Yeah. Yeah. Scared to ask. I think that it's I'm in support of this. when we saw I think the easiest example is with the Morehead sign. Um that just made it look so much better. I mean it fits like it looks like Harrisburg and I think increasing the dollar amount helps to update some of our older buildings in our community and we're you know aesthetics are important to our community. We we see that on everything that we put out. So, I think that I mean increasing the dollar amount just makes sense. It's a pretty rigorous application process, right, that they have to go through to even get

it is um it has a high impact because it it generally incentivizes folks that can't really get there without without the grant, right? They they want to spend some, but they may have half. Um, so you know, we we've traditionally under spent on this like and I think my interpretation when I read these was 50 seems to be plenty because we're not really spending 50 over time. I would say with the addition of our EDC

team, um, we're getting a lot more interest because they're out there, you know, knocking doors, beating the streets. So they they're letting people know that these things exist and making suggestions. Hey, I noticed your, you know, your signs really run down. We have a program if you're interested. And so I think we'll spend, you know, the the whole hundred if we go that route. Um, but we haven't talked about that program a lot. And so the the 43, you know, really made sense to me. 44 makes sense. Um, but I also think it's a high impact, lowcost addition to to some of the private property that we can't really affect without their buy in. We can we can build $2 million parks all day long, but we can't uh we can't go into private property and and fix their signs.

I voted in favor of it. I think it helps um you know those u businesses that we have that like to your point that can't get there themselves and heck I didn't know about this until the last presentation however long you know and I think word of mouth is a snowball effect is real and I think that the money even if we don't use the money it's there right and I think mo when people hear about it they're going to probably want to ask even even if it's a rigorous application I think that now they know it exists right and it's something and I think it'll and more in alignment with what we're asking our new company, our new businesses to have, right? So they they won't look like a the sore thumb, huh? The sore thumb.

Yeah. You know what I mean? It'll just bring everyone it'll, you know, bring everyone up to kind of what what we're expecting now in Harrisburg. So, I mean, and there look to be some interest in it, too, on the recent social media post about this program, too. Killian Plaza is the first example. Thank you. I couldn't think of the name. They um You know, some still see it differently, but it it's much improved than what it was. I mean, ideally, I would love to see the the shop center across the street from Killian Plaza take advantage of it or the car wash, but I don't think the car wash is going to do anything other than what the car was. Yeah. But, you know, for some of these businesses that are just dayto-day trying to survive, they're not spending

$10,000 on a sign improvement because they don't have it. to pony that up and think, okay, that could draw more people in. I think it's a great way to support our small businesses. Yeah, I think the Morhead sign is a great example of it. Does anyone feel strongly that that we're in those nos or um you know, we staff was going to recommend we we move forward with this unless there's, you know, some strong opinions on do we is this an absolute nogo? We just we good with the 50. All right. Once again, like once we allocate a h 100,000, what happens to it at the end of the year if we don't spend it?

This one's a little unique because we have a capital reserve fund just for economic development purposes. So if it's not spent here, it just remains in that fund for this purpose. So next year we could go over. Mhm. Okay. If you allocate it. And this fund has about if you allocate it, right? Um, I think we have like 400,000 in in this fund right now. That was that was my question. Because it's been building for years and years,000. I wonder if I was actually yes on it, but I'm wondering if we can can we keep it at 50 but have like okay from the council like if somebody does come in and they want to do something and we run out of that budget that we just do a budget amendment

because we have 400 because there's 400,000 in it to use now. Yeah, I'm fine with that. I'd actually be okay with that. Yeah, that would be a great thing if you said, "Oh man, we're at 425. We're about to run out of money. We need more." Yeah. I mean, that fund is just like in fea, right? They operate the same way. We just stick it in there until there's a time. Self-perpetuating. Okay, we'll do that. Okay.

Okay. And the last slide I have here, uh, these were the open-ended priorities. And so, uh, if you remember, we got to the bottom of your exercise and we just left it open to ask, is there anything that you can think of that you might not have seen otherwise in the exercise that you would like to entertain that? And none of you have seen all of the these weren't put together for y'all to see. So, this is the first time y'all are seeing it. Uh, we have a on the right hand side there, you'll see the status checks. All those mean that those projects that were put down there u are currently in some form of discussion. Uh you know we can we just talked about the facade program so we know what we're doing there. U historic train we've had those discussions. The dog park that's an area that we're currently uh working on. So, we hope to have something to bring back to y'all soon on that in this current budget. Um, additional money for the greenways. We already had that discussion earlier in what y'all decided. And the new sports program, just wanted to remind everybody that uh we are going to be having lacrosse camps this summer. So, that'll be the first time we've introduced that. We feel like that's a way to begin moving into that process to gauge interest, start getting people to know what it's all about. We have adult kickball that is already going in in this summer and is moving forward with that. Um and then we're also partnering with the Y to get volleyball started. So they started volleyball uh this fall. We're working with them. So eventually we'll take that program over uh at this point though we're letting them kind of you know use that to get it started. So we are working on those. know what this amount is would be a much more indepth uh pointed attack to it. Uh but just

kind of leave it open here if there's any of these that anybody uh that put these down would like to speak for that we haven't talked about already.

I I'll speak for a couple of these. One was a discretionary fund for the mayor council beyond the athletic funding. I'm glad the discretionary funds were in there when we sent the team. I have no idea what that would be or what could come up, but it just seemed very easy when we said, "Do we have $20,000 to send somebody somewhere?" And the answer was, "Oh, sure. We've got a fund." No idea whether we'd spend that or not or what that would be, but a year is a long time and anything could come up. So, I put that one in there just to give us some flexibility. The second one was the um grant research application. I'm not sure we're getting all the juice out of all the grants and we have somebody, you know, on contract basis or something who's looking them up and funding themselves and saying, "I just found a million dollars for you if you you fill out this grant form and it's we got the thing from uh from Duke Power and you know, there's all kinds of grants out there. I'm not sure we're taking full advantage of those. So, I'm advocating that we put something in there to make it somebody's job, somebody's responsibility with an ROI that says, "You spend $75,000 with me and I'll find you $2 million in grants, and if I don't, you can fire me."

And then the last one on here was this Robinson Church Extension. I can't tell you how many times I come up to that road and people put their turn signal on like, "Yeah, you've lived here a long time." Because that road used to go through. I feel you, man. Uh it's crazy that that road is closed. I don't know if we go over it, under it, but I know it's a multi multi-year project. Have no idea what it is, how much we would fund, but it it's ridiculous that that road is closed. So, I don't know what the funding is, but that was certainly less than you guys asked for, but I think we need to do something on that. And and that one, to be clear, is Robinson Church to Harris Depot. Right.

Right. And by the way, I still put my turret signal on when I get through that. I think we allocated some money for it to to research the above or below grade. Yeah. I wonder what the results of that is. Yeah. So, we'll be able to report the that stage of it within this budget. I think what this was to say, hey, whatever those results are, sounds like Councilman Fall's willing to put some engineering dollars to it to get it more shovel ready. Um, and so I think that's what he was advocating for there. Y after the planning stage. Yeah. But it was less than I think you guys there was some big number in there. Well, something, you know, what could be spent?

Yeah, I think we we estimated that at like a $26 million thing up front. Um, like I said, they're still working through those final engineering planning level estimates, but it won't be cheap. Yeah. Would you have to buy like the businesses and the houses there?

Um, no. So, there are there are no total takes in our preliminary estimate, but I I also think there's some where we left it off, they they did um basically uh earn um fill. So, you know, the instead of doing like retaining walls, like think of uh three as you're going into Canapapolis and they've got that retaining wall on on it and it's like 60 foot in the air, right? They did that to save that house that that was up there because it was a historic home. Um the preliminary estimates that came through just have, you know, two to one slope or so that really take that goes into people's front yards and impacts them. That's not really going to be viable if we go through there. you're we're going to want to tighten that up and have more um tight retaining walls so that you don't have to take any businesses or houses. You wouldn't even with the fill, but you you would impact them more than you'd be comfortable with by filling the whole front yard.

How it would work. You've got Cory Wilmont on that corner, right? His driveway is right up against the train tracks and then he's got a business in the back, Acme Welding or whatever that is. Yeah. And we'll have to show you the Yeah. The planning level, but it also impact Harris Harris Depot Park. I mean, how do you get in? Yeah.

Yeah. Access. I mean, it it's driveways that just move. So, like take Harris Park, Harris Depot Park, for example. Um, you know, we've got the grass parking lot right after the retention basin there that we paved half of it. Now, you would just move the driveway up about 70 ft and come in before the road either goes over or under depending on which one you pick. So, instead of going all the way up and taking a 90 in, you're you're just going to 90 in and then work your way into the park. So, it's not as impactful as I thought it would be. Um I thought I thought it would be much more unrealistic. The cost is going to be the part that we're we're the town of Harrisburg is never going to pay for that project. it's going to be a federal government grant that pays for that or it just sits on the shelf waiting for, you know, some type of public works funding to come out of Washington. So, I think the cost is going to be pretty. The design, I think, is actually more doable than than I envisioned it would be when we started it. Were there any other on this list that anybody wanted to kind of explain or advocate for? I think the reason we we have this slide is just one to say those open-ended items that we're doing, hey, we're working on those. Don't worry about it. The other is nobody else except for the the elected official that put this on their form has ever seen it. So, we didn't want to be kind of a gatekeep to that and say, "Hey, look, if if one of you has an idea, maybe everybody else likes that idea and at least get it on your radar. If they're small dollar items like the discretionary funds, those are things that we can easily make in this budget. If if it's something we want to add to a future retreat and and talk about future budgets, that's fine, too." Um, but just wanted to have it out there for full

transparency. I mean, the the dog park came up several years ago. The Harrisburg with I guess whatever that is today that's being built. Village, is it village? Yeah, Harrisburg Village. So, they they put in a dump, but they clearly put in a sign that says residence only, right?

Um and they're very strong about it. They they also believe that the greenway is theirs, too. But um I I think the town has probably explained to them that that's not it's their property. Um and we're finally to the size that we uh several folks have asked when are we getting one and I'm like I don't know makes sense but do we have the space and where would it be?

Yeah. And we're working on some options for existing spaces that we have to put um you know more more temporary dog parks like you know wouldn't be insignificant. Um it'd be a nice park like we do here but something that doesn't take years to design and have you know all the things like we we need water and parking and fences and I I don't think dogs are very objective when it comes to what they like and what they don't like. My dog has never turned his nose up to a fenced area with other dogs in it. They don't complain if you put a flower there, make them walk around sideways or whatever.

All right.

All right. Uh so I've got some uh pretty quick slides here. So we'll go over the financial models and some of the budget season graphics. um this financial model and all all three of them that we'll look at tonight are almost identical to what we've seen all throughout budget season. Uh we did not have any sort of significant change in our projected revenues. We did get an updated number on property taxes from the county and our real property value went down by 50,000 and our motor vehicles went up by 50,000. So you see no change in the budget as a result of that. Um, and then we did incorporate some of the very small items that we've talked about tonight. We'll pull out the 1.3 million that was added in for Harrisburg Common. So, that will just improve the bottom line here. But this model does look almost identical to the one that we saw on April 9th. So, here is a graphical representation of the model and I think this might be a better way to share the results of the model over time uh versus looking at at all the numbers on the screen there. So on the left side is the y ais for the capital reserve fund ending balance uh in blue there. So you can see that we're starting north of 20 million as we enter fiscal year 2027. And then we have sort of a spin down of that savings account uh in the first year representing all the authorized projects that we have ongoing right now assuming that those are spent down. And then you see our cumulative capital that's funded across this model as we progress through the 10 years. And so you can see that the capital reserve fund balance incorporating all of the um about 100 million in capital improvement projects, all the expansions of programs and staff and and all sorts of estimated growth that the town has produces um a model that's very successful. It stays positive the entire time and we accomplish nearly 70 million in u capital that's paid for with cash. And so that doesn't include, but it is

represented here about 30 million in capital that's um financed as well. So we are accomplishing a lot across this 10-year model. Uh and it and it remains healthy the entire time. And that's you know what what we see here. And and how much capital is involved in this model is the reason that we're so nimble when something pops up that we can take advantage of or that we can respond to. It's because all we have to do is shift uh capital here. You know, we can move capital back. we can have savings on it. We can outperform in operations to make up some ground. So, this is kind of an illustration of how nimble we are and uh and how good the outlook is for the next 10 years. Uh for the water and sewer fund, same story here. This is almost the exact model that you saw about a month ago. And so, here's what that looks like. Uh starting at 8 million, it does dip down in 2032 to just below a million and then recovers. Bless you. And so that tells you that we don't have a structural operational problem. We just have a spend down of u of our capital reserve balance and then that recovers as well. And then same story here on the storm water fund. Um you can see it dipping down as we spend about three million on spot improvement projects over the first couple years of the model and then we don't have anything planned out in the future um as you see that capital level off. And so then over the next four or five years, the stormwater fund starts to build back up capacity for those types of projects again. Now, any questions on the financial models? All right. Also have budget graphics. These are literally the same as you saw on April 9th because we haven't had changes to the departments. So, just to refresh everyone's memory of the dollar bill graphic showing you how um the departments represent a typical dollar paid in in property taxes and then our breakdown of the general fund expenditures

uh by function. So, public safety still makes up right around 50% of our general fund budget. Parks and wreck at just under a fifth. And then environmental protection and streets combined are about another fifth. And then all the remaining uh supporting departments and engineering and planning and economic development make up about 16 or 17% there combined. And I'll pass it back to Lee for the peace schedule.

Sir. Okay. So I'll run through these much like what Brian just went through. Uh that you're going to see here. U we went over at a higher level last budget workshop. Just want to kind of go through a little more detail. Uh first thing, everything you see on this screen is fee schedules that have no increases. So they'll stay the same as they are today. Uh go through a couple of these here. Uh utility account fees and charges, those are all going to stay the same. The one change is actually reduction with the security deposit removed. And you'll see that here. uh in a moment. Uh the fire plan reviews and inspections all stay the same as well as u the plan review fees and inspections. So, no changes to any of those. Uh there's no changes to our resident athletic registration fees. We will talk about the non-resident here in just a second, but no change to our resident fees and no changes to the facility rental rates. So, all those stay the same. Now, we'll get into a few of these slides that show the changes. Uh go through these here. You can see that uh the credit card convenience fee, I think we talked about that last time as well. That increased half a percent. Again, just trying to keep up with the cost of those credit card fees so that the users are covering that cost. Our water and sewer rates as we had mentioned also uh went to the 5% increase due to the increase u that we're having to pay for increased rates since we're reselling them. System development fees also 5% increase. Those are the fees to the developers that pay for the development. You'll see the account delinquency fee. Um the $100 is still there, but what is changed in this presentation is that the uh one time a year, the first time can be automatically waved uh per year. And

this really is aimed to try to help those people that just for whatever reason that's not something that ever normally happens, but something happened and they missed it um for a month. So every 12 months, they'll have that opportunity to have that wave if that's the case. Um, if you're one of the people that chronically are getting cut off, that fee after that will continue to to build as it does today. Your utility account setup fees, the deposit uh was eliminated. I think we had mentioned that as well. And then the account setup fee has been increased by $5. So ultimately what that means is whenever someone comes in to create a new service for the town, they used to pay $75 to the town, now they pay $35. And that'll be it. Parks and recreation fee changes. Uh again, these are only non-resident fees. Uh you can see that for most all the regular sports is a $10 increase. The pee-wee sports is $5. Uh the big changes are going to be down at the bottom with Pop Warner. you'll see uh $25 increase for cheer and then $50 for popner football.

And I did get questions about, you know, cheer and pop warner on based on our last meeting. Are we transitioning? Is there a plan in place? Are we continuing that indefinitely? So, I did want to open it up as if there's any conversation for that. We have everything proposed here for the for the upcoming year as this just is business as usual. Um but there has been requests for hey what's our is there a transition ever and if so how quickly is that? So I'll open open it up for that if anybody has anything.

I mean I've been very vocal about I'm I'm very supportive of popcorner football. I would like to see them transition and stand on their own like other pointers. I'm not saying a immediate cut, but like a a transition over a couple of years.

Yeah. Um any other thoughts on that? I know, you know, Jim and I have talked about this and we had some discussion at budget three about just what does that look like if the if the organization doesn't want to do it. I mean, I think some of it came up because there were local events that were pricey. And when I walked away from that, I'm like, it was always pricey. You guys weren't in Orlando when it was pricey, right? Just because it was local, it touched you, it touched Jennifer, touched anybody else in this room, touched me. But it was a nothing within our control. It was always that way. I mean, if you even go out to the website and search, there's a I think a 90page PDF that all these teams are given that explain from the very beginning the cost involved. And so, it's unfortunate that Pop Warner charges what they do, but that's not within our capacity control. Um, the downside is is what are these kids going to do? I mean, there's nothing feeding our middle school. There's nothing feeding our high school. You would hope that the middle school would feed the high school, but sometimes kids get discouraged between the two and you still have that relationship. and and if you ever go out to the the high school football games, you see those coaches that mentored these kids throughout the years. I mean, relationships, you'll be amazed how strong they've gotten over the years. I would always advocate for um just from

I see the benefits. I I you know, the other side of it, Council Member Banks, you talk about you know, like basketball courts. where would these kids be if they didn't have somewhere else to go? And I'm still asking, you know, I'd like to see more of the basketball courts because the only two that I know of besides at the Y behind Harrisburg Elementary. Um, you know, if we're not providing opportunity for the kids, then sooner or later they're going to find other things to get them get themselves involved in. you know, whether you think it's part of what Harrisburg is, at the minimum, I'd like to see us invest in our kids, whatever it is, you know, that we're giving them opportunity to do something.

I I could be wrong, but I think a lot of this discussion came up last time because we were looking at what population this was serving and it was a lot of out of Harrisburg residents. I think that was an overwhelming. it was not Harris for residents. That was certainly part that was that was a major part of our discussion. That's part of um that doesn't necessarily like that. Yes, that's a thing that I'm concerned about. And also I want to see it be successful. BUT TO YOUR POINT, popcorner has its own rules that we have no control over.

And I don't know that our community really doesn't really understands that. And I Pop Warner's rules are what they are. We we're we just have to deal with it. That's not there's not a city league or county league that we can invest in to give them an alternative. And that's why Pop Warner has always been there. It's like we don't participate in the little little league world series because that's a whole that's similar to POP one. It's run by a different organization and the town's always chose not to participate in that. um in this there there's really no other competitive for these kids. So I mean I I I my struggle with it is

we are their fundraising source. We are their like

if we look if we look at other Pop Warner teams um around us, they're doing the work. They're doing the thing. They're not backed by a municipality. I think that we should strongly encourage Harrisburg Cowboys to stand on their own two feet. Again, not saying like, "Oh, yeah, next year that's it." No, it needs to be I'm I'm a huge proponent of of, "Hey, let's figure out how to make this a healthy transition because we I don't I mean, I have a vested interest. I don't want to see them fall. I don't want that at all." So, we figure out what's the best way to make sure that we're leaving them in a good spot. So if that's a hey watch us do it, you do it. We're here as a help the following year and then you know year three like it's yours. I mean that's just a tentative that's just a spitball idea. I do think though that there should be a transition.

Well they do they do their own funding. I mean they don't rely that's why they're a 501c3 or whatever that special number is. I know those kids throughout the year are always looking to raise money and do raise money quite a bit. So there is a benefit from the fields and infrastructure and absolutely signing them up and things. So and I would still be in support of hey yes that'd be our partnership. Use our fields take the equipment. That's just what makes sense to me. Guess I'm the only one that feels that way and that's okay too. I just

Sorry, I have Mayor asked me a clarifying question about the fees and whether or not um the program costs are covered by the registration fees, which they are, and and so clarified that. And I also clarified just that I think some of the feedback that I've gotten from the parks department and some of several of the council members is not necessarily the cost as much as how it operates. it does it does it operate um consistent with our vision, mission, values, goals like our other kind of recreation programs versus it's just a very competitive league which is why they have recruiting and which is why 75% are not Harrisburg residents and how long does that go before it breaks. we've seen some tension between what you know the 501c3 board wants to do and what we will allow them to do because we have you know different restrictions um even as much as you know their practice schedules and things like that. So, you know, those were the things I was clarifying over here and passing those.

And Rob, I think it's important, too, like yes, we want to we do want to feed into our high schools. I mean, anybody that's had a private conversation with me knows that I think that athletics are number one dropout prevention program. I stand firmly on that given that these students are not ours. They're not going to feed into Hickory Ridge or middle or high school anyway. I I don't I can't say it's fact or it's not fact. I was just told Saturday um apparently one of the teams are considered to be like top five in the country right now. Yeah. So where do they live?

You know, I mean that's and and they are I mean that I've heard that same thing. But I think it's important to consider the impact to our staff, what that looks like and just again figuring out what that transition looks like over the next couple of years. But I don't think it's any harm in figuring out a transition plan. It's not immediate. I mean, it gives us time to kind of still work collaboratively. It gives us it's not saying that we don't want it and and there are huge benefits of it, right? But I think there is some um benefits of having the preparing them for success on their own.

I'm confused though. If you don't want it, then why would you transition? Either you want it or you don't. There's not I mean, you wouldn't transition it just to say we want you, but you're over here. I mean, that's part of the transition, I guess. Not understanding that. Well, I Well, I'm I'm I'm talking about the I mean, the money spent, right? So I I mean I think I'm saying I think Pop Water is a good thing. I just don't know if we as a as a town should be paying for it. But we're not paying for

not for the program costs and and again with the folks that have I've talked to about it both staff and elect. It's more about who's in the driver's seat and who's in the co-pilot seat. Right now we drive they co-pilot. Do

we? And That's theoretically u but there's there's there's there's always an argu argument over who's got the stick, right? So, you know, at what point do you switch those? I don't think there's I I have not heard anyone um staff included say like they run it and we're out. I think it's more we're the support group. We provide fields. We provide assistance. We do all of that. they're running it as a true Pop Warner, collecting the fees, selecting the players, doing and there's probably a transition period that would have to happen there. Um, and it probably takes a couple years to to really transition into a successful

um 501c3led program versus a municipally program. I'm just curious um maybe you know maybe I don't know how our other pop one or because in in in Florida they're not like this. They're not run by our town. They're run independently on their own. Well, let's start there. We can't compare athletics to I know. I'm just saying. So I'm like So how common is it to to have this have it structured this way? I from what I understand it's not. We're the in in our league we're the only municipally funed. Okay. Okay. So, that means that we can do it a different way.

And it it's that way because it was long before sports was a part of the town, there was HYA. The town took in HYA. Therefore, the town took in all of it. It wasn't we're not going to take this, we're not going to take this, we're going to take it all, good, bad, or indifferent. And there's not been a decision since that it was brought in. It was always that's just the whole enchilada, right?

I don't know. It sounds like it's a very successful program and a lot of kids are enjoying it. Like adults, I see them posting on Facebook. Like I'm not seeing where the issues coming in. It's not like Rob is coming knocking on our door every meeting saying like we need to get rid of it because this is too much or whatever. It's like it seems like there's some conversations here and there, but like if you're all thinking of doing this that will affect a lot of people, maybe we need to kind of look at the what the numbers and what the issue is. Like if Rob, you tell us that this is really bad and we need to make a change here, then let's look into it. I mean, and if we're going down the path of these aren't our kids,

then I want us to put a gate at the Harrisburg Park and you tell me, "Sorry, you're from university. This doesn't apply to you. You're not allowed to come to our park because we can't do that." Right. No. Right. We We have a program. Yeah.

We let everybody come. But if we're going to go down that road of saying who can play, who can't play, then let's put it a gate on Harrisburg Park and start telling me because I don't know how many of y'all have driven through on a Sunday evening and looked at all the garbage that is left from the surrounding area that comes in. It's Harrisburg, it's Concord, it's Charlotte, you name it, and they leave a a god- aful mess behind. I mean, I I hear and see that comment a lot about the condition of Harrisburg Park, and I don't want to pivot too much, but we spend a lot of time at Harrisburg Park, and there are a lot of people that go to Hickory Elementary School at Harrisburg Park. So, I I'll leave that there. But the other part to this is so it's it's our people leaving our park dirty. Um, but Pop Warner still, my concern with it is is it has its own rules. To your earlier point, we have no control of any of that. It doesn't run like any of our other programs because it cannot run in that way. Coupled with like the other point you made, we want to feed into our schools. We're feeding into somebody's schools, but it's not Hickory Ridge Middle or High. I just I hear you and how the the origin of how it came into Harrisburg athletics, but as we're trying to figure out, you know, even what our Harrisburg athletics look like or programs look like going forward, I I just don't see why why do we need to keep pointer as as it as it is with us. It serves a purpose today and they've never been told that we did not need them. I mean I I I mean I go back to what Aline said. We're not we're not they're not knocking on the door. All this initially started with first it was God the the the fees were crazy to get

into this playoff game. Well, the fees were crazy because they came to Charlotte this year or last year. They were here the last two years. pivots from location to location and then when it gets like that, well, hey, how many of these kids are really our kids? Well, hey, I mean, it's it's sustaining itself. We we've shown that it pays for itself. It provides uh opportunity for the kids. Whether you say it's not all of our kids, it's part of our kids, it doesn't match up, then make the motion to remove it. That's all I can tell you. If you don't think it does,

wouldn't this go under the same platform that we've done everything else? If it's, you know, where we stand on it as a council like we just like we've done every other item we've done tonight. Is there an expectation this would be done differently? No, I think these these budgets are always set up in a consensus format. So, you know, I've heard kind of four people speak and and four not. And two have been like, "Hey, I don't I don't want to see any change." to have said maybe we'd look at a long-term transition. So, you know, I've not interjected to to the conversation so far, but yeah, I mean, that's generally

for this year from a budgeting standpoint. It's budget, right? We're running it as I think budget process is the time to to talk about like we're not going to reach out as staff and say, "Hey, we need to work on a transition plan unless a strong consensus of council is like, hey, we need to transition." Um, you know, if they were to come to us, if Pop Warner's, you know, board was to come to us, say, "Hey, we want it." We'd bring that to you guys and and say, "Hey, look, they want to take the pole position and have us in in the secondary seat." I I think most of the things I've heard are all valid. Historically, we've always done it. It's a successful program. It's good marketing for the town. Also, most of the kids are not from Harrisburg. it does not match up with our other programs. Those are all those are all true things and we can we can run it successfully.

Yeah, but we can also transition it successfully. Since when are we worried about if it's our kids or not? Like I remember when we were discussing a piece of land that was close to like on south south of um Harrisburg and it was close to Charlotte and I think somebody made a comment well then all the Charlotte people are going to come up and I know several council members were like well what do you have against Charlotte right because our parks are for everyone. So since when are we saying like oh there's some kids in there that are not ours or I don't know what percentage is like that we're not doing a program

they're paying a different price the kids that are not ours or not Harrisburg they're paying a higher price to come play there's a you know when the program continues to grow and and this year what Jim what's the number this year as well we're gonna cap it at 300 300 right 300

you know several years ago go. It was at 60, it was at 70, it was at 80, you know, and then we saw 125. Next jump was 175. And I think every coach that was associated with Harrisburg Cowboys was scouring Gastonia, Charlotte, Salsbury, every surrounding town looking for helmets. And the town actually was writing checks back because we had to accommodate for those helmets. It's a successful program. I I I just don't understand why you walk away and leave it alone based on it's doing what it's doing. I mean, and it and it works. And if the kids keep coming, there's a need for it.

I don't hear a consensus either way, but if anybody wants to jump in on a consensus,

I'm listening intently. I I think it has a a halo effect for Harrisburg. You know, I like it when I drive over to the Canapapolis library. They don't check my ID when I walk in. It's Canapapolis. It's cool. Uh I think we might want to do more recruiting in the future. Say, "Hey kids, we got this wonderful program. You're right here in Harrisburg, an outreach program and maybe we can increase the population." It doesn't really bother me if somebody comes from Concord to play in Harrisburg as long as they win. So I I do think that pop I mean, and it's a mutually beneficial relationship. I We've got a good facility. We've got a well-run program. You know, we know what the heck we're doing. So, Pop Warner gets benefit out of it. We get benefit out of it. I'm not I'm not juiced up about it. As long as we're not getting taken advantage of,

you know, and we fixed that years ago. We made sure that it wasn't a drain on the town finances. We went back and said, "Okay, we've got to change so that we're not offsetting the cost."

Right. And I I made the comment, "Oh yeah, you get to use our two million, you know, dollars of facilities that we have." That's fine. That's what they're for. So I I like it and I took great pride when the Harrisburg Cowboys were playing, whether they were ringingers from out of town or not, that was fine. So uh I don't have a problem with it as long as long as we're not funding, you know, unduly somebody else's, you know, war chest, which it doesn't sound like we are. I mean, we're they're covering the cost, our cost, shenan,

we'll add it to the we'll add it to the retreat discussion. Where are we in these 44 slides? I I I got about 10 more minutes um for you all. I'll just flip this one real quick again. Nothing that you haven't seen already, but storm water, talking about some specific new fees related to listed discharge, working without a permit, violation of stop work orders. All those are issues that we currently don't have in place, but this will lay them in.

All right. And a wrap-up slide before I turn it back to to everybody. I I think tonight's a great example of um the first bullet point here is that we are very thorough and transparent and tonight was very engaging. Um we spent a lot of hours doing this and and we don't leave any stone unturned. We circle back on things quite a bit and and have them out. So um 24 total hours of public engagement in this year's budget process. Our um proposal in the managed recommended budget is to freeze the tax rate and hold it at 41 cents as we promised with the FY25 revaluation. The total operating budget and this is just operations if you exclude our capital which kind of goes up and down and and doesn't have a year-to-year impact. The general fund water sewer storm combined is um 51.98 million which is a 2% decrease over our current budget of 53.03 million. That is the revised budget. So we have had the budget amendments and and things come in the operations but um our goal is always to to be below our growth rate. Our growth rate is kind of steady at that 5%. I think if you look at our our base versus before budget amendments. Um it's only going up about three and a half% right in that range. Um but if you count our budget amendments, it's actually a year-to-year decrease, which would be the second year in a row where we were able to achieve some operating budget decreases through efficiencies, attrition, and just doing things uh a little better than our our neighbors are. We do have the 5% rate increase to the water and sewer onetime refund. Getting rid of that $100 um uh was it reconnect fees?

$45 deposit. Yeah, we're getting rid of the hundred as well, right? The one time for

um and so we're eliminating some fees that are kind of a pain in our side. Um I've had several of those emails this week um every month. I just don't think we get what we need out of that, but we'll keep an eye on it. I think eliminating the eliminating those fees um will help us operationally and make our customers more satisfied. Uh current service levels are going to be maintained. Actually, I think we will increase most of those across the board while still meeting our adopted mission, vision, values, and goals. The major significant investments that we have over the next one year is the $1.2 $2 million in Highway 49, Robera Veterans Mitigation, doing the design for that, as well as a million dollars, just over a million dollars in greenway, sidewalk, and pedestrian projects, and over a million dollars in our signage, monuments, public art, street trees, and lighting upgrades. The rest of the budget calendar is very straightforward. After tonight, we'll take all the feedback that we got here. We'll turn that around into the manager's recommended budget, which I will present at a public hearing on May 11th. After that public hearing, it'll it'll remain open for public comment until the June 8th council meeting. We'll take any feedback that we get there at the May 11th meeting, make any adjustments that we need to, and be ready for adoption. June 8th, 3 weeks before our Fourth of July celebration. Are there any questions? I got one thing I do want to say and you know one thank you Rob and thank you staff for making this yet another easy process. Um, but for those of us in this room, we're not immune to the high political climate that we all live in today. And I thank God every single night that I go to bed that I live in Harrisburg. Because if you look at Canapapolis, if

you look in Concord, you look at the county, go as far as North Myrtle Beach, go as far as Rocky Mountain, there are towns fighting day in and day out, aggravated, mad, upset. We don't have any of those problems and it's nice to live in a wonderful town. I don't say that we don't have problems. I say it we're not showing our butts. We're not on TV. We're not in the paper literally. Right. So, we all wear pants. All in favor. Any other council comments before we move to our two folks in the public? if they want to speak this evening. Just just make sure you state your name and address for the record.

Water spring course, North Carolina. Just a couple of questions. Just a couple of questions here. Talking about solid waste, how long is that contract for? Is that annually or is that for a four-year period? I think it's three year. Five. Is it five? Yeah. Five. And we are four into it. I'm sorry. Five years and we're four years into that. So we got one year before. Is that 27 and then 28? Yeah. We'll we'll start a new one in 28.

Okay. All right. Um you may have covered this and I may have not been able to hear clearly. We talk about did you agree on the additional 50,000 on the greenway or not? say at 250. It It's a great question. I believe it's at 250 and if we need it, come back and ask for about increasing it to 300. So, what did y'all decide? It's staying at 250 with the option to bring projects back specifically.

Okay. Then we get into the park, I guess you called it, out front. Uh my question there is when we did property taxes again, the three the $6 million that was supposedly put aside for parks is when you were looking at that one uh the 2 million, was that part of that money? No.

Okay. My point is, is it really a park? Okay. Because when you look at it, that's a pretty small area. I know y'all discussed this. All right, but my question is who would use it and what would you use it for? It's a small space. I realize that the part that through the surveys and all the other discussion that the public wants parks, but that is not what I envisioned when we deal talked about parks. Okay. Now, maybe I'm misinterpreting something. So, uh, that's my take on it. All right. And I think y'all made the right decision with the third third deal. Okay. On the facade, is that for all businesses or just new businesses?

All businesses. Well, are you sure that's not new? It's just new businesses, I think. Is it is not new businesses. All businesses. Okay. All right. All existing businesses. Okay. That 2% reduction that you were talking about up there, does that include or did the budget in I can't remember include the 2 million or was that just the 700,000 in the budget or was it the 2 million? They're separate. So, what I showed James turned my clicker off because he must have thought I was going to click you. But um what I showed was operations, not capital expenditures.

Okay? So our our capital varies year to year. It's hard to look year to year in capital expenditures. And we cash flow all that. This is what it costs to operate all of our funds, but those are operating funds. A park expansion or a roadway, a new roadway, something like that would go in a capital fund. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you, Ollie. Jesus 810 Wakoma Court. Uh just want to say appreciate the thoughtfulness that goes into this process and um that we are more than happy to um help create a list of prioritized uh projects that would benefit from that extra 50 or 100k um in the annual green wave program. um sounds like that doesn't exist today. Um we'd love to help get that in a in a good place so that um those dollars are used uh responsibly and effectively. Thank you.

Any other questions from council? We didn't go too far over tonight. So, thanks everybody for the dialogue tonight. Rob, anything else? All right, meeting is adjourned. Thank you all.