Commissioners - Regular Meeting

Thank you.

Okay, good to you. Good afternoon. I'm going to call the order the July 20th 2026 regular meeting of Haywood County Board of Commissioners and our first order of business will be our Pledge of Allegiance. And after that, the sheriff will come forward for invocation. So if everyone please stand for the pledge.

Proverbs chapter 19 verse 21 says, Many are the plans in the mind of a man. but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand. I would invite you to join me in prayer. Father, thank you for this day. Remind us, Almighty God, in our heart to serve your purpose and to do the people's will today as elected leaders for this county. Give us. articulate words, clear thoughts, and a strong mind to do first what is right for the people of this county. It is in the name of Jesus Christ that I pray. Amen.

Okay, thank you, Sheriff. I'm going to... I do want to comment that Jennifer Best couldn't be here tonight. I think she's on family vacation maybe, so that's why she's not here tonight, or she would be here. Okay, next we have two public hearings. And so I'm going to, the first one will be a public hearing to consider a proposed economic development agreement with Pisgah Electric Services to approve the conveyance of a tract of land off Reno Farm Road. And we have the Hayward County Chamber of Commerce President David Francis to address that tonight. And I believe you've got Hannah White with you. Welcome.

Good evening, Commissioners. Mr. Chair, Hannah and I are very excited to bring to you our Project Homegrown. The public hearing is to convey two parcels of vacant land at the Beaverdam Industrial Park.

Okay, thank you. Thank you, sir.

The public here is to convey two parcels of vacant land at the Beaverdam Industrial Park in Canton to Willow Hill Soap Company, owners Ben and Allison McDowell, physical electrical companies owner Chris and Heidi Ash. These companies, these families have roots in Haywood County. Businesses were founded here, grew here, and are ready to further invest into our county. The Beaverdam Industrial Park have roots in Haywood County, excuse me, the Beaver Dam gives us land to offer these companies to expand, build, and hire right here at home. So the Beaver Dam Industrial Park, as you can see, it's a little bit blurry on the screen there, there's eight parcels there. You can see the big one there, that's what we call the Beaver Dam 10 Acres. That was built back in 2008, 2007, between the County and Haywood Advancement Foundation. Next to it, to the right, is Vestas, is a dry cleaners, professional cleaning company. And across that is Connet. They make plastic molding and manufacturing for big trucks, commercial trucks. And then below the dark spot there is... So this represents about 600 jobs into the Beaverdam Industrial Park and well over several millions of dollars in tax revenues. And so the property conveyance is pursuant to General Statutes 158-7.1. The Haywood County Board of Commissioners can approve the conveyance of property to private businesses at no monetary cost based on board finding that the prospective tax revenues over 10 years constitute sufficient consideration. In exchange, businesses commit to construct buildings such as warehouses, offices on the property, and to create further full-time jobs with an average annual wage exceeding the county median average wage. The economic development agreement requires the businesses to complete construction within five years and includes recapture provisions protecting the county's investment and should the businesses fail to meet their commitments. So the two parcels that we'll be talking, two homegrown projects that I'm excited to bring to you today is the Willow Hill Soap Company. It's a local artesian soap and personal care product manufacturer bringing the production jobs to Haywood County. Physical Electrical Services, a full-service electrical, plumbing, technology solutions company constructing a warehouse, office, and training facility. These parcels, let's see here. From the map, you see the big parcel. Where's another map? So the parcel for Willow Hill is the parcel next to the cleaners, and Pisco Electrical is next to Beaver Dam Road and Reno Farm Road. Willow Hill Soap Company. So one of the things that we are talking about as we do this, so I want to go back and reiterate the general statutes and what those mean for this consideration, okay? The county looked at creating these build-ready sites after the mill closed. We looked at taking that construction on. It was a little unsure. About with the mill closure, could we further invest in this? So we looked at what's the best next steps. So we sat down with the county attorney to determine the best legal approach to convey property to the companies at no cost. General statutes, as I mentioned, gives counties the tools to support economic development, including conveying land to businesses that create jobs and grow the tax base. The conveyance may not be less than the fair market value. This is actually from the general statutes. A city or county may lease, convey, interest in real property held or acquired for the purposes of this section and may subject the properties of such covenants, conditions and restrictions that the city or county deems to be in the public interest. In arriving at the amount of consideration, the board may take into amount the prospective tax revenues from the improvements to be constructed on the property and any other prospective tax revenues are incoming to the city or county over the next 10 years. This statute permits a $0 conveyance when the board finds that the project creates substantial jobs at or above the median county wage and the company is contractually bound to build within five years. So they have five years to build their commitments out for warehousing, whatever they decide to build there. We determined that the fair market value by hiring a real estate appraiser to evaluate each of the properties that we are discussing this evening. The parcel for Willow Hill Soap Company is valued at $130,000, and the parcel for Pisgah Electric Company is valued at $150,000. Okay, that'll come back in play as we keep moving through this. So now Hannah will come up to discuss how the respective tax revenues from the real business and sales and vehicle taxes along with new jobs create fair, far and away exceed the value of the properties that are mentioned. So Hannah, I'm sure we'll talk to you about Willow Hills. Good evening, Commissioners.

So Willow Hill Soap was founded in 2018, initially just with craft shows, but their business quickly grew and they leased their first space in Canton in 2020, expanded to Hendersonville the next year, and the business has continued to expand and grow. And now they are in a national retail space and looking for a permanent manufacturing space to continue to grow their business. So some information about the job summary. They're going to add eight jobs over the first five years, an average wage just under $52,000, and a 10-year wage investment of over $3 million. The first five years they're going to add $1.6 million in real property and business personal property and over 10 years that will amount to $15.5 million in investment back to the county. There's $74,000 in local sales tax and over 10 years that is over $170,000. SO JUST A QUICK SYNOPSIS. WAGE INVESTMENT OF $1.6 MILLION IN THE FIRST FIVE YEARS, EIGHT NEW JOBS ADDED WITH AN AVERAGE SALARY OF $52,000, AND THE LOCATION WOULD BE IN BEAVERDINE, WHICH WAS IN CANTON. WE MOVE ON TO PISCA.

MR. CHAIR. WOULD YOU LIKE FOR US TO FINISH THE PRESENTATION OR DO YOU WANT TO HOLD THE PUBLIC HEARING FOR WILLOW HILL AND OPEN IT BACK UP FOR PISCA? TO HOLD THE PUBLIC HEARING FOR WILLOW HILL OR DO YOU WANT US TO GET THROUGH THIS PRESENTATION BECAUSE WE CAN GO ON TO PISCA OR WE CAN DO.

OKAY. SO THIS IS FOR WILLOW HILL?

YES.

SO WOULD ANYBODY LIKE TO TALK ABOUT WILLOW HILL, THIS PROJECT? has the kids. Did you want to speak?

No, he signed up.

This is for Willow Hill. Okay. Would anyone care to speak? Okay. Seeing no one, I'll close that public hearing. So I'll open Okay, so this is Pisgah. He wants to speak on what? Little Hill? Okay, come on.

All right, here we go. Three minutes. Sir, I do want to apologize. The emotions got the best of me. I'm struggling to be a good father and to be engaged civically. This proposal, now that I see the faces in here, I get what you're after. However... The past few months, it's unclear what you're after. Funding prisons over schools is not the direction that we want to head. This proposal, I think it means that you're going to give this land away at an undervalued price to help the community, which is great. Don't all these other organizations, public schools, do we have to come out and ask for money every time that there's an opportunity for it? Because we don't have any advocates. I don't know who they are. They're not, they may be here today. They may be here today. I don't know when they decide to act and when they decide to step down. That's unclear to me. But what I do know is that Localism is a uniting force, and when you try to use it to divide us, none of us can excel. We can't move forward. haywood county schools needs that seven hundred thousand dollars two two people from the school board called commissioner ramey and said they didn't need that money two members of the school board i'd like to know who they are they don't need that seven hundred thousand dollars well if my daughter's school closes next month meadowbrook elementary then I won't do anything, I'll just come here and complain. But hopefully some of you will decide you wanna step up and be a champion for working people. I can see that you're gonna do that here today, which is great, but I hope you give consideration to the kids. Because just because the classroom sizes are small doesn't mean you can't invest in them. It doesn't mean we have to have more children. It means that we take care of the children that we have now by investing in them now. And in 1858, the commissioner, what was then the commissioner of Haywood County Schools, needed $580 to pay for school supplies. The county didn't give it to him, so he took them to court and won. I'm no lawyer, but that sounds like legal precedent. Y'all take care.

Thank you. Okay, so next is Pisgah Legal Services. I mean, Legal Services, I'm out there. Electrical, sorry. Sorry, guys. Sorry, sorry.

So PISCA services includes three branches, the electrical component, the plumbing component, and the technology solutions, which helps your commercial industrial infrastructure So physical services is from Haywood County and would like to come back to Haywood County with this business. His proposal includes a flex building, which will include space for offices, employee training and warehouse and operational space as well. So the job summary is he will add 38 new jobs over five years, plus keeping the existing jobs that he already has, an average wage of just under $59,000, $6.6 million in the five-year wage investment, and that grows to $18 million in year 10. The investment summary is 2.27 million in new investment by year five, and that includes the real property and business personal property and 20 million at the 10 year value investment, which also includes the real property and the personal property. Just under 90,000 in the local sales and vehicle tax over those 10 years and 218,000 in the local tax revenue. So just again, a quick summary is that 2.27 in that five-year mark of investment, the 38 new jobs, the average annual wage of just shy of 59,000, and the location would also be in that Beaver Dam in the Canton area.

Mr. Chair, I have some closing remarks, but that should conclude the part for Pisgah Electrical Companies. Okay. If you want to open it up back for comments. Okay.

So would anyone like to comment on this proposal? Okay. Seeing no one, I'll close public comment. So you can go ahead, Dave. All right. Thank you.

You know, as you can see, you know, Hannah laid out what each of the companies are going to do. Both companies are committing to wages above the Haywood County median age of $47,000, helping local families earn more right here at home. New buildings, business activity mean more property tax, sales tax revenue for county services. I hate they left, you know, for schools and for public safety. So the next steps after the public hearing is a resolution that the required findings under North Carolina General Statutes 158-7.1 D2 that the conveyances of these properties will stimulate the local economy, create substantial jobs at or above the median county wage, and the prospective tax revenues constitute sufficient consideration. Approve the conveyance of the parcels at Beaverdam Industrial Park to Willow Hill Soap Company, Pisgah Companies at no monetary cost subject to the terms of their respective economic development agreements. The conveyance of Pisgah Companies there and the conveyance for Willow Hill. So you can see that these are You know, this is a little bit new for the county and we understand that's why we wanted to take, you know, a little bit of time more to explain this because you can see what those jobs that they're bringing, eight jobs, 58 jobs all above the median wage and investing right back here. And so I think, commissioners, that we have met the threshold for the consideration for the conveyance of the property. So at one of the next meetings, a resolution would be passed for that. And then we'll also do an economic development agreement that we would do with anybody else that these commitments are made, as I mentioned earlier, building a building within five years. The jobs that they add over that five-year period There's a term that we use called beneficial occupancy. It doesn't start the day that they get the property because the building's not there. So when they occupy the building, that's when the clock starts running. Then you have the five years after that to meet these goals that are outlined between the economic development agreement and what we've discussed here tonight. So at this time, I would like to bring up Ben McDowell from Willow Hill Soap Company.

Good evening, Chairman, Commissioners, County staff and members of the community. My name is Ben McDowell and my wife Allison and I are the owners of Willow Hill Sub Company. Before anything else, I just wanted to say thank you and thank you to the Haywood County Commissioners and the Economic Development Team and everybody that has worked to make this opportunity possible. We know that it isn't simply free land, it's an investment in your local business that comes with expectations and responsibilities. We appreciate your confidence in us and we're committed to earning it. Our story began in 2016 when Allison's mom started making handcrafted soaps with a simple goal, creating products that were better for people's skin. Allison and I took over the business in 2018, and what began as a small family operation has grown into two retail stores and a manufacturing company, and a team we're incredibly proud of and we're based right here in Haywood County. We had opportunities to grow elsewhere, but we've always believed that this is where we belong. This is our home. Our employees are our neighbors, our customers are our friends, and our families are rooted here. This new manufacturing facility represents the next chapter of our company. It will allow us to increase production, create more jobs, and continue building a business that we're proud to call a Haywood County company. We're grateful that the county believes in investing in local businesses and are willing to invest right back into the community. We don't take that responsibility lightly. We intend to meet the commitments we've made, continue creating opportunities for others, and make you proud of the investment you're making in us. On behalf of entire Willow Hill Soap Company family, thank you for your trust, your partnership, and your support. We're excited about what the future holds, And we're honored to continue building that future right here in Haywood County.

Thank you.

We don't use the same shampoo, just to clarify. He's got a much prettier dome than I do as well, too. These things don't happen overnight. I mean, Ben and I started working on this back Maybe at the end of 23, the mill closure was happening when we started working on this, you know, going through steps, getting things done. So these things don't happen overnight. So I really appreciate your patience and everything as we got through this. So next I'd like to introduce the Pisgah Electrical Services, Chris Ash, Heidi Ash, Pisgah Plumbing Services, Chris and Brian Duvall, Pisgah Technology Solutions, Chris and Shane Fish,

and they will tell you about the numbers of haywood county employees that they have here already and how we're going to grow those more good evening men came a little more prepared than i did so i'll stumble through this um my name is chris ash i'm from haywood county i've lived here most of my life I moved here when I was about three, so I'll say my whole life. I want to thank you all for the opportunity to come before you today and present this to you. We started out our journey about six years ago. I purchased a plumbing company and then a year later started an electrical company. And this previous year we started a technology company. Currently we have 75 employees, majority in electrical. Out of the 75, 35 are from Haywood County. We're very excited about this opportunity. We have struggled to say the least with expansion and growth west of here. We have, we started in Transylvania County and then moved into Buncombe County and have ran into issues with expansion. And then, by chance, talked to David, and this is what's came about in the last six months, I guess. Yeah. So it's been a lot to me that Haywood County was this responsive and this eager to jump in and help us grow as a company. I started the company to do things differently than most other contracting companies. I've worked with several in high management, and I wanted to do things differently. I wanted to build a business that was God-centered and driven by spiritual and biblical doctrine. So we're in the process of doing that, but we really appreciate the opportunity to stand before you today and present this to you. We're growing. We just previously opened another branch in Duncan, South Carolina. looking at another branch to be open within the next 12 months. And we would love for the headquarters for all PISC companies to be in Haywood County. Thank you.

PISC team. PISC team, please stand up. Please stand up. Please come out. As you know, the skilled trades are very important to us. The continuing of manufacturing that Ben's doing is super important to us. We survived the mill closure. We're surviving Helene. But none of us think that we're back where we need to be. And these guys here, and what these two entrepreneurs You know, the only thing I kind of disagree with Chris is a Pisgah word in there, so I'm hoping it's a location and not the name of the school, but that's a different one. But this is what, this means a lot. I made a connection to an old high school person this evening as well, too. And this is what's important, is seeing these guys, this commitment that their team has made to both of these companies. Thank you all for what you all do. Thank you all very much. So, commissioners, there you have it. Any questions? Any comments? We'll be glad to take them on.

I would like to say that this is a big day. You know, it's always, we come to these meetings, you know, and you see the courtroom full. And we were in a prior meeting. Somebody come around the corner and said, well, there's a lot of people out there. That usually is not a good thing. When you're sitting up here, you get about two hours of public comments. There's usually some kind of controversy. That's fine. You know, we let everybody talk. But when I came around the corner and I seen all the faces in here, I knew this was going to be a good meeting. And so as you can see, we're tickled to death to do an economic development project. You know, we beat the bushes, and we beat around, and we try to lure businesses in, and, you know, we'll get them all the way to the 11th hour, and something will come up. But this is a really good day, and those parcels of property were sitting there just kind of just sitting there doing nothing.

That's a good point. Those parcels are not taxed right now because they're the county-owned. So this is all new tax revenue that comes on board. Good point.

Yeah, and you know, when you're sitting in our seats up here, you know, everybody's a critic. Everybody's an armchair quarterback at 10 o'clock at night. But there's a whole lot to this economic development. We partnered with our Chamber of Commerce, which is not associated with Haywood County government. We partnered with Buncombe County Chamber of Commerce, our actual Chamber of Commerce, We eliminated our economic development part of our county government and saved the taxpayers thousands. We had overhead. We had space to rent. We had the secretary. And we weren't really getting a whole lot out of it. So we partnered. We had to cast a broader net. But these local folks here, I know these folks, and it just does my heart good to see your business doing good. See all these folks come here to support your company, and it's just really good to see. And we're glad to be able to facilitate your growth and see all these jobs that are provided. Put food on the table, shoes on your children's feet. Give them a good start and, you know, We are all for that, and we certainly are hoping that that headquarters that you talked about, we hope that thing is just booming in a few years. So this is a good start. So thank you, and thank you for the work that y'all do.

Two headquarters. We're headquartered for Willow Hill. And Willow Hill. Yeah, yeah.

Appreciate it. And Ben, you may not use the same shampoo, but I hope y'all use the same soap, right?

I just want to thank you and Hannah for the work y'all have done. These people, of course I'm a lot older than a lot of people, but it feels good when you see people, local people that start in the business that you see how quick and how much they work to get what they want and that makes it a lot easier for us to try to help any way we can because I've told this two or three times, but I was on a trip here a while back, and we stopped at a Bucky's. The lady was looking around there, and she said, look, this is from home. This is stuff from home. We've got a big display in Bucky's. That makes you feel good when you're out way, way from home and see local people doing good and stuff in there and stuff. And when young people starting out here and doing as good as y'all are doing in both companies, that really helps our county. That shows the people that you're willing to do what it takes to make it work. We definitely appreciate that, and we'd like to help you when we can. Thank you.

David Hannah, thank you for all your hard work. Fortunately, I know both these guys extremely well. They're local guys. What a dream it is to live here in Haywood County, to grow up in Haywood County. and to be entrepreneurs and then hire all these Haywood County folks that have a job. You know, we lost the paper mill, and of course we were all devastated when that happened. And we're not gonna win getting another big manufacturer in, as we've talked many times. It's gonna take operations like this. And to see these numbers and the people that you're gonna employ is exciting, and I congratulate both you guys on owning successful businesses And again, when I signed up to do sitting a seat up here, one of my goals was economic development and to have a dream that our kids, when they graduated school, could still work here in Haywood County. And you two guys are providing that opportunity. And that's exciting to see. So thank you guys for all you do. Thank y'all, Hannah, David, for what you're doing. You know, we didn't do a lot in economic development for a long time. And now it seems like we've got the ball rolling and we got it rolling in the right direction. So everybody's working together. And we're not back where we were, but we're working on it. So thank you for all the work. And again, congratulations to all you guys.

I'll just comment. I guess I've been around for a long time. I was just thinking back. I looked this property up, and I surveyed it in 91, and I think the county bought it in 1999. We've owned it for 27 years.

Actually, 93. 93? 93.

Well, that was the park, not Ms. Reno's property. Oh, the 99 is the Reno, that's correct, the Reno property is that, yeah. And that's what, is that what they're getting? That's where Pisgah, Pisgah's going on the Reno farm.

Yeah, yeah, okay. And then Willow Hill's going next to the cleaners.

Yeah, and I know we've had folks look at that before and just didn't, we just, anyway, whatever reason. It's always been, seems like over the years it's always been just always one thing or another that we didn't get them here. But I know with keeping it local in 2003 when we did our economic development, we did this study in 2003 and what we came back with was we need to maintain what we have was one of the things that we needed to do. And so that's what we're doing now. And really, by us growing businesses here, we're growing jobs here and to keep people here. Because we always say that when people graduate, they can't stay here. But with the wages that you guys pay, we can. And it's such a big need. If you need an electrician or a plumber, if you can get them out in a few days, that's great. But then it's going to cost you. and everything so and I'm so glad that the community college is gearing up to do the trades back and I always thought that's what they should be doing and they are doing that and the leaders and the trustees are doing that so but anything you guys need the community college is there so if there's programs that we need to have you know let us know because they are great partners and it's just so good that you know that we can have people here that create jobs and we're not trying to land, I always said the big wide elephant, it doesn't exist anymore, you know, we're not gonna get that plant from overseas or anywhere like that. I mean, we might, but I mean, still, it's just, we've had 30 years trying to do it and we've not done, or 40, 30, 35 years, I guess, and we've not With Conmet, we got that one, but thank goodness. That was a local company from Bryson City that kind of went in there, and then look what they've done over the years. So, and I know you guys are going to do the same. So, maybe you'll be looking for more room for expansion later and everything. So, but thank you all.

We might have to talk to Dr. Wilde about starting a soap manufacturer in the class.

That's right. Yeah. Or at least a hair transplant, right? Yeah. That would be good. Ben left vacation to come up here and spend the afternoon with us. I appreciate you coming up, Ben.

So we'll vote on this in the next meeting.

So, you know, there will be a resolution that you pass to convey that. We started working with Frank a little bit on that as well. So hopefully we'll have that ready to go up at the August meeting. I will not be here. Hannah will be here for that meeting. So that should be up and ready. Again, the resolution will just reiterate what we talked about. Willow Soap Company will create eight full-time jobs at an annual wage of $51,875 and is projected to generate $170,000 in local tax revenue over 10 years, exceeding the $130,000 fair market value of the property being conveyed. Physical electrical companies will create 38 new full-time jobs and an annual wage of $58,868 and is projected to generate $218,000 in local tax revenue over 10 years, exceeding the fair market value of $150,000 for the property conveyed. So, as I said earlier, these far exceed the value of this property. As Hannah was going over, you know, We're talking about what they're generating over 10 years is this phenomenal amount. The wages, you know, 10 years. You know, Will Hill, a million dollars in the first year, or in the first five years. You know, I mean, it's phenomenal. So yeah, we feel lucky. You know, it's easy to work with companies when you have companies like this, that's for sure.

It sure is. And, you know, we're chipping away at that, all those losses we had from the mill, because this will take a pretty good chunk right there of the losses. So, you know, adding back jobs is what I'm talking about. So this is great. Thank you guys for coming out. It's pretty amazing that you guys came out to support your employer. Yeah, thanks. All right.

Commissioners, thank you all. Good to see you.

Okay, next is our public comments session. I have one person signed up to speak. Please limit your comments to three minutes and Anna will be keeping the clock. So is Ellen Pitt? Oh, there you are. Welcome.

My name is Ellen Pitt. I'm not a stranger to you all, as you know. I wear a lot of different hats, but I was born here in Haywood County, and I live here. I'm here tonight as a former public health nurse, as a grandmother, and as an activist against child abuse, endangerment, and substance use. I and two young Haywood County residents attended the June 16, 2026 meeting of the Haywood County Health and Human Services Board. We left disenchanted and embarrassed for the agency. Our team does a lot of research, and we expected to hear relevant information and specific data related to some of the current and emerging issues in our county. And we particularly thought we would hear some kind of line item report on expenditures from the $2.9 million already received in the opioid settlement. and the impact, if there was one, from those monies. We also thought there might be at least a passing interest in the Child Protective Services legislation currently pending that was introduced because of ongoing CPS debacles across the state. or that we would hear something about the main problem plaguing middle school and even elementary school children in our county. we thought there would be some degree of respect for citizens with an interest in the health and socioeconomic welfare of our county. Instead, we were seated away and isolated in a corner with the garbage cans where we could not hear hardly anything that was going on. And the presentations, the two that were done, were done on the wall that we were seated against. So other than stand on our heads, we really couldn't see them. The health director and the director carried on some kind of casual conversation that we couldn't even have here, but it did not seem to be any kind of a report, anything we expected. No data, no information.

I've provided you with a folder. I encourage you to read it.

I hope it will encourage all of you to be much more aware of what failing to impartially and continuously oversee an agency that operates with little other accountability can lead to. It's all across our state. It's happened here before. I've warned you before. So thank you very much for your attention. I hope you'll read what's in the folder.

Thank you. Okay, that concludes our public comment session. I'll move on to constituent concerns. Does anybody have constituent concerns? Tommy, do you have any that you want to comment on? Or I'll come back to Brandon. You or Teri, do you have anything? You have anything? Okay. I just want to let people know this time of year a lot of farmers are getting their crops in. So you might want to visit some produce stands for the local farmers, kind of get the word out that you can go and get those. I know we got some fresh vegetables the other day and they're really great. And you can't beat fresh vegetables right off the vine or right out of the field. And you can get that right now in Haywood County and you'll be supporting our local farmers. Okay, did you want to make a, I guess on the health department board is an advisory committee, and you might just, just for everybody.

Yeah, I'll talk to Ms. Pitt. I think she may have stepped out, but I do sit on that board, and that board is a, as you guys know, is an advisory board. It's not a board that makes decisions, so. I KNOW SHE HAD SOME OTHER CONCERNS SOUNDED LIKE, YOU KNOW, BEEN ABLE TO SEE, BECAUSE IT IS OPEN TO THE PUBLIC, AND WE WELCOME THE PUBLIC TO COME AT ANY TIME, AND THEY CAN GET THE SAME INFORMATION THAT WE RECEIVE AS AN ADVISORY BOARD. SO THERE IS SOME CHANGES WE MAY NEED TO LOOK AT SO THAT folks from the public can see what's been projected and some other concerns that she has, but I'll reach out to her personally and address some of those.

But in the future, if somebody wants to make a comment, they just need to submit those.

Yeah, I thought she might mention something about that, but if you do want to make a public comment, you need to sign up ahead of time. I think a lot of folks think that Because of our meetings, you can sign up, you know, right before the meeting, but you can do the same at our HHS meetings, but that's not so. Again, because it's an advisory board. So anybody that wants to sign up can. The chair will have to okay that, and we welcome any comments.

And who would they contact?

Just DSS? Yes, they can contact Griselle or just reach out to DSS or the chairman himself.

Okay. Or even Ira. You know, I will comment, there's never a bad time to publicly state situations around DHSS. I see our director sitting back here. I know everybody across the state is fully aware of what happened out in Sister County out west. There were some situations where they were doing some illegal stuff. in our department around childcare. And that news went all across the state. They had a huge class action lawsuit, and it cost the citizens of Cherokee County eight cents on their tax rate to do the debt service on the lawsuit settlement. So the county was at fault. And, you know, publicly, you know, I always talk to county manager and department heads. You know, a slow government's a good government. Make sure you got it right, make sure we're abiding by all the laws. And we have, and I commend you guys, but you never can be too cautious. So it's always good to be humble and be proactive and stay ahead of some situations that might turn bad for the county and the county taxpayers, and by the children. And I will say, the gentleman's gone, had the two little girls up here. But we need more babies, folks. That don't bother me a bit. It really don't. It really don't bother me a bit. As a matter of fact, I would be a proponent of getting some child care here if you want to bring your child to the public meeting. Our birth rate nationally is crashing. We need to promote folks having children. We're dying as a nation. The crying babies, that don't bother me. I may not agree with the gentleman. I may not agree with anybody here on some views, but that's okay. That's the American way, but I sure do appreciate people who are having babies, and we need more children in this country. All right. Thank you, Tommy.

Okay.

That'd help with a lot of things, wouldn't it? Yeah, it'd help a lot of things. Workforce.

Get the numbers up in my schools.

Yeah. Build more houses. So next is administrative agency reports and presentations. And the first is a Habitat for Humanity update. Habitat for Humanity director, Jared, I can't pronounce your name, Irriga, okay.

your this is a haywood habitat for you man heywood habitat for humanity my name is jared raji i'm the executive director for haywood habitat thank you commissioners for having me i appreciate the opportunity to talk about affordable and workforce housing here in haywood county it is at both a local and a national level one of the most important issues before us facing our generation so I want to tell you a little bit about what we do, and then I'll tell you a little bit about what has changed with our organization, things we're doing differently, and things we hope to do going forward. So Habitat for Humanity has traditionally been, in Haywood County, a new construction builder. Built two or three houses a year. It's done so since 1990. They've built over 100 houses here in Haywood County. That's one piece of the solution, but we can no longer afford to just build new construction homes. We need to protect our inventory as well. So Haywood Habitat for Humanity is now focusing on repairs here in Haywood County. So our approach is to continue our new construction work. It is to establish a critical home repair program, which we have done this past year. And it's to advocate in situations like this for more affordable housing, for changes to our local zoning ordinances that will promote more housing being built. And that's what you'll see us do here moving forward. We partner with churches, civic groups, local organizations. We're meeting with local schools to hopefully get some build programs going and develop more partnerships. So the biggest thing that changed when I came to Habitat in June of last year was the culture. I think it's important to note what an asset Habitat for Humanity can be for a community. It's a great brand. Everybody knows Jimmy Carter. Nobody has a bad thing to say about Habitat. And quite frankly, in this county, we can do more with it, and we plan to. So what I did first when I came in was change that culture. We build our expectations. We're going to increase efficiency. We're going to add new programs. We're going to go out of our community and bring money into Haywood County. And the first year, we brought $1.5 million in grant funding to Haywood County, in addition to $350,000 worth of Helene Recovery money to Haywood County. So in this past year, our first year with new leadership, we have really taken action to change how we're doing things over at Haywood Habitat. I came in just over a year ago. We've tried to change the culture. In that year, we've doubled down in Investing in our workforce is the first year that we have expanded staff. We've expanded from 9 to 14. We've allowed, for the first time in Haywood Habitat's history, we've provided health insurance to all full-time employees. We've expanded our construction vehicles. We've expanded our repair program. We've opened two new construction sites here, one in Maggie Valley and now in Clyde. And we closed the most successful year in the Restore's history. And we're going to do more moving forward. One of the big things that I do want to talk about today is the National Neighborhood Promise Grant. We were one of 14 organizations chosen from around the country for Republic Services Neighborhood Promise Grant. And with that money, we built an all natural integrated play space here in Waynesville, Chestnut Park. It is the last bit of our ten home neighborhood. And when we complete this playground, our hope is to then turn it over to the public, to turn it over to the town so it'll become a community asset. What I want is for Haywood Habitat to build the neighborhoods that we touch. We are an asset. We are not a blight. And projects like this are going to show the community over time that that is true. Please come out and visit it. It's a beautiful space. All the trees fell during Helene. The ropes were... in a barn in Georgia. The mulch came from 60 miles from here. Everything was done locally. It's shaded nine hours a day, and it is all wood, all natural, and it's integrated into the existing Chestnut Park. And that was all paid for by an outside donation. What we are continuing to do is provide affordable housing for families here in Haywood County. So we serve families making between 60 and 80% of area median income. Based on need, ability to pay, and willingness to partner, we will incorporate and partner with families here in Haywood County. We currently have three families that are working with us through partnership agreements. At the end of their agreements, each homeowner will contribute 250 sweat equity hours in building their own home. They attend financial education classes, and they attend homeownership maintenance classes as well. And at the end of this, we sell them a house with an affordable mortgage. They carry insurance. They pay their taxes, just like everybody else here. Haywood Habitat is not a handout. A predecessor used to say, it's a leg up. So we are here to uplift our community, to reinvest in the community, to bring resources back into Haywood County. And no, I wasn't born here. I chose this place. My son will be born here. And I love this community. I love it. And you now have an advocate for affordable housing in Maine. So as I move on and talk a little bit more about how we can be an asset to the families in Haywood County. We do serve between 60 and 80% area median income, and that's workforce housing. What we're looking at are salaries that are equivalent for a third year teacher, for a third year police officer, for a third year firefighter. Families with two and three individuals making kind of in that $40,000 to $50,000 range are solidly haywood habitat families. It's remarkable. We're building workforce housing. It's not just affordable housing. So I'll tell you a little bit more about the repair programs we're doing. We are still offering hurricane repair disaster programs. We've done about $350,000 worth of repairs, some as big as $35,000 foundation jobs, and some leaky roof patches. We've run the gamut. We've done 20 of those repairs in the last year, and we expect to do at least 20 more this year. What we are using this hurricane repair program for is as a springboard for a critical repair program. What this is is a first of its kind program in Haywood County where we have an in-house repair staff. Our repair manager has 30 years of construction experience. We are going to do fully charitable repairs for individuals in the community, families in the community that can't afford to do deferred maintenance. The first thing that goes and the first thing that's overlooked are gutters. For $1,200, to overlook $1,200 now, you can cost yourself $30,000 down the road. And that's what we're seeing a lot of when we're doing these hurricane repairs are poor drainage issues, poor drainage mitigation, broken gutters leading to foundation problems. So what we want to do is is intervene earlier on in the cycle. So we've bought a repair truck, we're going to go out and get a guttering machine paid for through a grant, and we're going to go out and put gutters on houses all throughout Haywood County. And hopefully by doing this, we can keep our houses in inventory. Because now more than ever, that housing costs so much for new construction, we really need to be reinvesting in our inventory as it exists now. And if you go through a neighborhood like Allens Creek, or you go through a neighborhood like Hazelwood, where there used to be 4,000 great factory jobs, that no longer exist, these are homes that have been passed down to generations that don't have access to those jobs. And the easiest thing to do is look away from a set of gutters that need to go on. So Haywood Habitat wants to be a safety net for those families. This is an example of some of the things that we're focusing on with our critical repair program. We are prioritizing elder adults, families, individuals with disabilities, and we wanna do these critical safety repairs, these urgent repairs, trips and falls, things like that, that have a host of downstream negative consequences. So I would I want to talk to you a little bit more about the advocacy and some of the things that we are hoping to move toward in the coming years. One of the things the picture at the bottom is what we've seen of traditional neighborhoods here and across the country in the past. What I'd love for us to move towards is something that will help us maintain our character while building homes efficiently and also creating and establishing an access point for young families and seniors looking to downsize. Because, I don't know if you're aware of this, but in 1980, 40% of our housing was single, stand-alone family housing. That was our new construction, 40%. Now, that number is 4%. We're not building an access point for young families anymore. So if we don't do it, if we don't innovate, if we don't create things like pocket neighborhoods that make these access points available, we're pricing out teachers, we're pricing out firemen, we're pricing out police officers, and I don't think any of us wants that community. So what Habitat is going to be focusing on is building these cottage-style homes, 800 to 1,100 square feet, small neighborhoods facing a common green, Hide the asphalt, focus on community, create outdoor space that's covered where individuals can interact. I would encourage you to look into the work of Ross Chapin. He has championed pocket neighborhoods in the Pacific Northwest for the last 40 years. These neighborhoods create a great feel. They create community. They ensure that there's intergenerational living. And every time we see intergenerational living, we see better education outcomes. We see better health outcomes. We see more community. We see more engagement in civic organizations. Those are all the things that are going to go away or go downhill if we don't now invest in our access point housing.

It's OK to interrupt you, I guess. I don't want to break your train of thought. On the pocket neighborhoods, how much land do you need if you have water and sewer? If you have water and sewer? What's ideal?

as little as an acre and a half there's one in in hickory that is 12 units on 1.6 acres okay so they do 12 units and then they do this neighborhood theme if you will and it's kind of contained right there and then

So really, if you have a tract that size, you probably don't want them too big, do you?

No, too big, and you're going to look more towards the traditional development, but there's nothing stopping you from creating multiple pockets also. So each pocket has its own feel, and it might be a way to more economically situate parking around the outskirts of these pocket neighborhoods. So while ideally we're looking at parcels into one to three acres, you could realistically do it on more if you wanted to.

Right, but I think, so when, if a builder does, you know, a lot of times I think they build the bigger houses because maybe there was more money, but if you build a bunch of them in one little area, it looks like your profit could be the same and you'd meet the community's need the most.

Yes, absolutely. Right now, infrastructure and land are accounting for, in some cases, 40% of a home's cost, which is... was never the case 20 years ago. And those are the things that we need to mitigate. And we mitigate it by creating things like pocket neighborhoods, being more efficient with how we run these water and sewer extensions, and how we organize parking on the outside. Right, yeah.

I read about this in the Mountaineer, and I was really intrigued by it when I read it. So that's one reason I wanted you to come and give this presentation. But anyway, go ahead. I didn't mean to interrupt you.

No, it's something we're excited about. It's a vision that I think maintains Haywood County's character. And as we've seen tonight, I think it's a great meeting to come to. We're seeing economic development. I'm sure there's a bunch of young families that work for Pisgah and Willow Hill. They're going to need a place to live. So I believe in this community. I think we're rebounding. Just all in on haywood county and I, I will be a champion and an advocate, and I think we have an opportunity, even at the at the local level. With some modernization of zoning codes right because we are at kind of a pivotal point so i'd love to see some incorporation of some of this innovative housing solutions which I presented here tonight, and I will. continue to be an advocate for affordable and workforce housing here in Haywood County. And I would love to note some of the new partnerships that we've worked on these past years. One of the big things that I'm focusing on as well is just eliminating the scarcity mindset with nonprofits. So we've established relationships with United Way, Mountain Projects, Rebuild Haywood, First United Methodist Church, Central United Methodist Church of Canton. and Haywood Pathways Center as well as Heartfelt Haywood. There's a whole list. Haywood Waterways, Development Services in Waynesville. We are going to continue doing that because the repair program's survival is going to depend on us doubling volunteering in the next year. So my public appeal here is for the people around the county that want to get involved with Haywood Habitat, want to get involved in building homes for your neighbors, Please reach out. We need bodies and we need help. So one thing that we are rolling out here in the next two weeks is our revised volunteer portal. So you'll be able to just access our volunteer portal on our website, reduce the friction, get out, get involved. You can pick your shift. You can pick the type of work you want to do and come out and join us. The last thing I will say is the other position I'm passionate about is number two here. Housing is essential infrastructure. Housing has been treated as a commodity and speculative asset for the last 40 years. We've seen it go up, we've seen it go down, we've seen it bust. This housing, while individual families might benefit, Our community has a vested interest in our housing inventory, and we need to maintain that housing inventory just like we need to maintain our roads, just like we need to maintain our schools, just like we need to maintain our police department, our city water and sewer. And I would encourage you to think of housing in the same way. So thank you very much for your time. I would encourage anyone from the community and from the commissioners, please reach out. I'd love to talk to you. I'd love to talk to anybody about housing.

Am I getting it?

Any questions?

I'll just say, too, I appreciate the repair work that y'all are doing. That's something that hadn't been done in the past, I don't think. I think Mountain Projects had a program maybe at one time, or they do now.

They still do. They help a ton of families. They use mostly subcontracted labor. What's novel about ours is that we are staffing now a project manager that is going to go out and execute these repairs with volunteers on a day-to-day basis. So we're hoping to make that sustainable in the coming years. Okay.

Well, I appreciate your vision and reaching out and just recognizing what our community needs. And, yeah, when I read about all you were doing, I'm like, you know, this is what we need. Well, I appreciate it.

Thank you.

Okay. Thank you.

Thanks.

Okay. Next order would be the Water Connect project. I think Rob. Rob Hites, former Town of Waynesville manager, is heading that up, and Mark Cathy with McGill Associates. Welcome, Rob, and welcome, Mark.

Thank you, thank you. Brian told me that if I'm not a manager, I can't wear a tie, so I apologize for that in advance. I'd like to talk to you about a project that the managers in the county have been working on for seven years. The Canton-Clyde-Waynesville Interconnect began its history with the frequent breaks in the Canton water system and the impact it had on the Clyde water system. In 2017, the town of Clyde received a grant to do an asset study of their water system, and they found that while they have an active interconnect that interconnect does not provide water to Canton. Canton is shut off from the rest of the county for emergency water. So we began to work as a group to look at the possibility of designing and constructing an emergency water connect from the Waynesville system to the Canton system. In that period, 2018, Canton had a number of breaks. Then we had Fred. Then we had Helene. We all know those. They are seared in our memory. But it also emphasized to all the towns and our colleagues at the county how important it is for all of the towns to be interconnected in their water, with their water system. So the town of Clyde applied for a preliminary engineering report in 2021 to study, to get serious and study the potential for constructing an emergency water interconnect from the Reservoir Drive tank in Waynesville through the Carolina Boulevard tank in Clyde then over the mountain in the canton and that study was conducted in 2024 it appeared to be a very feasible project that carries a 19 million dollar price tag so the towns again working together independently applied for state revolving loan grants to see if we could fund this concept We were very fortunate to have a very open group of folks at the Department of Water Infrastructure, and they gave the town of Canton a combination of grants and loans for $10 million, Clyde a combination of grants and loans for $4,316,000, and Waynesville a grant of $2 million. 84,000. That provided $17,158 for the $19 million interconnect. I think every one of us have been through the hurricanes, and the one thing that we all say very frequently is that we're going to get other weather events that are going to damage our systems. As you know, Canton has a run of the river intake system which is fairly fragile so that when the water either drops too low because of drought something that we thought we were going to have three or four weeks ago or goes too high the intake system can't provide the town of canton water even if their water lines are intact so if we can provide a million four a million gallons a day to the town of Canton from Waynesville's eight million gallon plant, that can hopefully mitigate some of the frequent boil orders that they have. It would also help the town of Clyde by relieving them of any boil orders they have. The line is meant to be what's called a wet line. That means it stays chlorinated and it stays pressurized. You don't have to wait to chlorinate it and to charge it and to bring it back in service. Mark Cathy will describe the system in detail in a second, but basically the town of Clyde will buy the water necessary to keep the line excuse me, keep it chlorinated, that means if we have an emergency break in Canton or if we have an emergency break in Waynesville, both cities can push water through this line. It's designed for future use. It's designed up to two million gallons a day. We anticipate Canton to have tremendous growth as soon as they get the sewer plant online. They're gonna be the growing city in Haywood County. They'll end up with a eight million gallon plant. They'll be able to push two million gallons of Waynesville. Y'all know that in the last year, we've had a catastrophic water loss and had a boil water in Waynesville. That line's capable of moving both directions, and that's one of the real joys of this line. Once we receive the 17 million gallons, excuse me, the $17 million of grants, we began to look more seriously at how we would administer a fairly complex project across over seven miles. And we used a model interconnect agreement that was developed between the town of Statesville and the city of Salisbury. about 20 years ago, and using that model we built a, we split the interconnect in three sections. The first section moving from the reservoir drive tank to the Ratliff Cove tank would be the responsibility of Waynesville. from the pump station just below the Ratliff Cove tank to the Carolina Boulevard tank would be Clydes. From the Carolina Boulevard tank into the Canton system would be Cantons. That's important because in terms of dealing with property owners, Each town knows its property owners best. When we look at having to acquire easements and purchase land, it's easier for Canton, Clyde, and Waynesville to deal with folks they already know. So each town will have the responsibility of acquiring its own easements. Each town will appoint a member. of its staff to an informal group that will review, will help draft and review requests for proposals for the design and the engineering. That same group will review those proposals and recommend to their individual boards approval of the engineering firm to do the design. They'll approve the negotiated contracts and then present them to their individual boards. And once we have a construction project in force, each individual member will look at their section and help the contractor work through the construction process with the advice of the other members. The three state grants that we have, one of the requirements is that each city administer its own grant. So having these three sections helps when Canton applies, gets an application from the contractor for a million dollar payment, they would review it, and then that payment would be approved and would be sent to the finance office in Waynesville because it'll be easier for one group to handle the payment of these loans and to keep up with the paperwork. And so Waynesville will present an itemized hourly bill I wrote into it that they can't make a profit on this. It's just going to be a per hour thing. But they'll provide the accounting services, the auditing services, and the necessary contact with the state agencies. So the agreement has gone before all three towns. All three town boards have approved the interconnect agreement. So that's where we are as far as the administration and the history of the project. I'm happy to answer any questions. Mark Cathy of McGill and Associates was the lead engineer on the preliminary engineering report, and he can talk to you about the design particulars of the project. Do you have any questions?

Just for clarification, Mr. Heitz, this interconnect, IT'S BASICALLY, COULD YOU BREAK OUT THE FUNDING? I KNOW THE COUNTY'S PORTION OF IT COMES FROM AN ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT GRANT THAT LEGISLATOR PLESS. YES, SIR. I THINK OUR PART OF IT THROUGH THAT ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT GRANT IS JUST A VERY SMALL PORTION OF THE ENTIRE PROJECT. COULD YOU JUST BREAK OUT THE PARTICULARS FOR EACH MUNICIPALITY? YES, SIR.

I'M HAPPY TO. FIRST OF ALL, FOR THE COUNTY, IT'S $2,006,840.

And that was the economic development grant. That's correct. From Legislator Pless. Yes. That we'd use some of it for some other things, and we had that portion that was a sunset on it. Is that correct?

Correct. Representative Pless helped get this money after Tropical Storm Fred, and it needed to be basically infrastructure to support economic development. We did a project with, at that time it was Premier Magnesia, now it's Martin Marietta, KIND OF A RAIL SPUR, IF YOU WILL, A TILTER OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT. SO THOSE FUNDS HAVE TO BE SPENT BY I BELIEVE IT IS 2029. AND CHRISTIAN HAS WORKED TO GET APPROVAL FROM STATE BUDGET WHO IS OVERSEEING THESE FUNDS AND THIS PROJECT MEETS THOSE STANDARDS. THANK YOU.

MR. LONG, THE TOWN OF CANTON HAS A STATE REVOLVING LOAN OF $10 MILLION. of which the majority of it has 100% principal forgiveness. However, they do have to bear 25% of that loan. It is a loan with forgiveness, but they'll have to pay, I think it's $1,250,000 back as a loan. The town of Clyde has a $4,316,538 loan. grant-loan combination. Do you want me to read that again? $4,316,538, of which 75% has complete forgiveness. They'll have to pay back, help me out, Joy, $1,073,000. They'll have to pay that portion of the loan, Waynesville has the smallest amount of $2,084,960, of which 100% of it, the loan is forgivable. That total is $17,158,338. And then should the county commissioners find it in the county's best interest to add their amount, the total project budget is $19,165,178. I think as a public policy, this would go a tremendous way in protecting the county's urban areas against the damages from future storms, and also as an economic development issue, You don't have to answer the question that people may have of what happens when the water mains break, what happens when the water plant goes down. You have this interconnect to promise future businesses that you've protected your county against this. In terms of traumatic fire flows, if a downtown catches fire, Martin Marietta, couldn't remember the name, Martin Marietta has a drastic fire and we use a million gallon tank, we can open up that interconnect and push water from Canton to Waynesville. So I think there are a number of reasons why an emergency water interconnect is good for this county. It would certainly, I think, give Lisa Stennin a lot of emotional relief knowing that she can get up to two million gallons of water when she needs it as they improve their plant over the next four to five years.

So just, again, for clarity, this is just an emergency crossover valve. In layman's terms, this is an emergency crossover valve where you can, you know, if your neighbor's well goes out, you can open your valve and give your neighbor some water until they get their well fixed. I mean, that's just kind of a simplistic explanation.

I think it could be used, you know, for any catastrophic failures. It could easily be used for dramatic drought issues. that we had one in 2016 when I first moved here, and we just about had one up until last week. So I think we could look at drought conditions. So there are any number of reasons that the towns will feel much more comfort in having this. And I want to say, having been all over the state, that the towns and the County of Haywood cooperate more frequently and more harmoniously than any other place i've worked and i've i've enjoyed working with this project and i think it'll be good for the county and and mark is here to describe the the um design of the project for you i remember seven years ago when we had our council of government meeting out maggie i think that's when it was first proposed this idea about you know this emergency

crossover valve in case it was needed. And that was prior to the tropical storm, Fred, prior to Helene. I think there had already been some hiccups. And so, yeah, just for clarification.

I wanted to comment too. I forgot, I failed to mention Joey Garland, town manager of Clyde, and Lisa Stennett, town manager of Canton, are here tonight. And I did want to comment, you know, I think most residents probably think we're already doing this, but But we're not, so this is going to be just a good tool to make sure that, you know, the county has, the county's municipalities have water. And then I was curious too, the red line on your map, are those going to be able, residents going to be able to access that line for, because there's some areas that don't have public water. So can we, is this just a transmission line, like an electric?

I mean, it's going to be permitted as a distribution system, right? Yeah. But the intent is not to serve along those routes. I mean, it can be certainly for, you have to have a certain amount of water usage to keep the chlorine residual in the lines, correct? Right. Wouldn't that help? So in emergency situations, you certainly can, particularly if it's along the route. But the intent is not to spur development across that corridor at all. It's to have the ability to transfer water to the town limits. And that's what's shown on this map, of course, of the town limits of Waynesville, Clyde, and Canton. And so the intent is to transfer water primarily. If it can benefit somebody along the way that has a pressure, a severe pressure problem, then that's one thing. But it's not intended to be able to support a 200 lot subdivision along the route. That would defeat the purpose of getting water and emergency connection to both. I mean, from the extreme west of Waynesville to the east of Canton.

I just, I know some communities along that line that could probably benefit if they could get access to it. I would think most people would think that, too.

There's provisions in for the municipalities to approve that, and I can let Rob speak to that, but it's not intended for everyone to start buying property along this route and start a mass development flirt.

Well, there's not sewer, so there's not...

Exactly. So, I mean, that's the point, and a lot of people already have a well anyway, and so... Again, it's available, but it has to be agreed upon with all parties so that it doesn't create a sense of proposing development. It's to maintain what you have and to main water to all municipalities in a need.

Okay. I just know there was a moratorium in Clyde at one time because of water and everything.

Okay. Yeah, I think it's a setup for just emergency. That's what it is. And that's it, right.

When we had one of our many discussions, we talked about opening it up, essentially opens up seven miles of water distribution in the county. But we realized when we promise each other in the future up to two million gallons of water, And we have a catastrophic loss in Canton. Their water plant goes down. Then we say, well, you know, over the last 10 years, we've used a million of that two million, so we don't have it. That defeats the purpose. And to some extent, we borrowed this money and were granted this money as a water disconnect. But if they're small existing neighborhoods that have failures of pressure and they have two-inch lines, then I think there is a small amount of growth built into their estimate, but it is a small amount, like maybe 150,000 gallons a day. Again, this is something that you can look to the three cities over the years and ask them. The water agreement was really meant to be something that the managers 20 years from now would say, y'all did a good job in writing this because the county has gotten so large. Had you built a smaller line or not built it, we wouldn't be able to handle it. So that's why we only need about a million four to provide Canton's water. We only need 330,000 gallons a day for Clyde. 20 years from now, we're going to need a million for Clyde and two million for Canton. And we know that. So that's why this interconnect agreement has somewhat of a futuristic model to it.

How big is the line?

12 inches. I'm beginning to step on the engineer's toes. Oh, I'm sorry. You know how sensitive he is.

Any questions? Rob took care of it.

If I will, I'd like to introduce Rick Hale and Paige McCurry from Waynesville. I know y'all haven't met Rick yet. He hasn't, you know, they haven't let him out yet. So tonight's his first night. He is the former manager of Shelby and like me, a retiree. And Paige was our interim manager before Rick. So you see, they've already run through two managers since I left, and I've only been gone three weeks.

Very good. I didn't mean to steal your thunder, Mark, sorry.

Well, first of all, thank you, commissioners, for having me. And again, I think you understand the premise of the project. So I really, seriously, I don't want to take too much of your time. I know you've been here for a while. Can we go to the next map? Give you a little bit more detail here. Basically, real quick, if you start in Clyde, okay, on Carolina Boulevard, you go up Mulberry, and there will be a pump station somewhere along Mulberry, okay? And then you take Mulberry to a section a few thousand feet on Stamey Cove. And then you would turn on Ratcliffe Cove, and then Ratcliffe Cove takes you across Clyde Gap. And so the tank will be located along Clyde Gap at roughly an elevation of 3,000 feet, which is higher than both Waynesville's hydraulic grade line of the Reservoir Drive, as well as Carolina Boulevard and Watch Street. And then you would come down, continue to come down Ratcliffe Cove. There would be a pump station at that location somewhere along that route to pump water back up to Clyde Gap. And then that comes down to Raccoon Road, a short section on Raccoon Road, Sunnyside Street, and then a little... very, very short section on east over to Reservoir Drive. So that's the project. It's seven miles waterline, as Rob said, approximately. It's three pump stations. And that would basically, and of course the 250,000 gallon tank. Now the reason for the 250,000 gallon tank is it is an interconnect. It's not a distribution system. So You know, we don't want to have a too large of a tank, because if you have too large of a tank, you can't keep the chlorine residual. So we want to keep a chlorine residual in the line, like Rob said, so that any time you can transfer water from one side to the other in both directions. Okay, so water will be metered at each pump station, whether it's depending on which direction it is going, if it's being pumped or if it's It's being fed by gravity from the tank. So the municipalities will be able to keep up with all the, which way water's flowing and what volume. What else? How long will it take to build? That's a good question. I think it would probably take probably 15 months, 18 months. And of course, here on behalf of the town of Clyde, so I thank Joy for inviting me as well. But as far as the length of time, it depends on we've got to find the specific properties. topoed the entire route, okay, and then we've identified potential property locations. Of course, we've not gone any further than that yet. We want to make sure the funding is in place. And then once that's done, then you can finalize the rest of the modeling the finer points of the specifications and that kind of thing so we can present that model and we would have an idea of which properties that need to be acquired or an easement needs to be sought.

When would it start, do you think? Is there a...

Well, I mean, the letter of intent to fund for these projects has already been submitted on some. And so, you know, those reports or most of those PERs are actually due two weeks ago, last week. So you have to get an extension on those anyway. So as quick as the project is approved, it can move.

Okay.

Okay, great. Yeah, particularly with the topographic survey in place.

Right.

Have to identify properties and get that part done, and then the design could start immediately.

Mark, how many properties are there? that we're going to have to contact? Do you know roughly?

Well, you have to have a place for the tank and you have to have a place for the three booster pump stations. And then outside of that, it would just be working with the DOT, of course, as to where they have a maintenance easement or grant you an easement or where they tell you they don't have one and you would have to go get easements from private property owners.

And then those private property owners, I know I heard I heard him say earlier that each town will be responsible for going to those folks. How will that be handled? Can you give more details as far as will they be somebody responsible for that?

Yes, each municipality will be responsible for that. But at the same time, we have relationships with people who do this for a living. They go and approach people to get easements, and they have a process for negotiating that, correct? And so that will certainly rear some challenges. But at the same time, you know, you have the funding for a project like this. It's everyone's, you know, feels like it's worth the effort.

Okay. Anybody else? Well, thank you all.

All right. Thanks a lot.

Okay. Looking forward to this. Okay, next order of business will be, or the next item is to update on Helene debris removal in North Carolina Department of Emergency Management Smart Operations Section Chief Matt LaVanche. Is that right? If I didn't pronounce it right, correct me.

Yes, sir. Although I'm not Matt LaVanche. I'm Bob Barker. I'm the interim assistant director and recovery chief for North Carolina. Matt is my spearhead out in the field as operations chief. So just to give an update on the SMART program as it pertains to debris here in Haywood County. For private property debris removal, we had 71 properties assigned. Those have been completed. For waterway points, we had 226 assigned points. 220 have been completed. We're waiting on six more to be pre-approved from FEMA. Once those get pre-approved, we're looking at three weeks to finish that project up, and then we should be finishing up operations here in Haywood County.

OK. And this would be the state side of it? Yes, sir. OK. What would be the next round of funding on that?

We should be complete with the debris operations for Helene on the SMART program in Haywood County at that point.

So the SMART program had to do with picking up debris around bridges and culverts?

Around infrastructure, yes, sir. Along the waterway. We also did private property debris removal, and in some counties we had to finish up right away debris removal for Army Corps when they left out. Okay. Okay.

I didn't know if you asked Brian something.

Did you have anything?

You were talking about the next phase. That's sort of the EWP, Emergency Watershed Protection Program, that we'll probably be talking about in August. This program is really just that emergency stream debris that we handled during FRED and we transitioned over to the SMART program because the figures got so big we couldn't shoulder the financial liability.

So you had how many sites again you had? When we took over in Smart, we had 226 water point sites that we had to pick up. Right. And we've completed 200, or excuse me, I said 226. We've picked up 220. We're waiting on the last six sites to finish up from FEMA.

Okay. So once you get done, you guys will be done with that part of it? Yes, sir. And then the next part will be EWP, is that right, Brian? Okay.

I know that those six sites that you're talking about, are they spread out through the county?

I believe they're in one last section a watt away, yes.

And those sites, correct me if I'm wrong, but should be 1,000 foot from like structures or bridges, is that correct?

Yes, sir.

I know just driving around the county, I see a lot of debris that's still in the waterways. I ain't went out there to take measure to see if it's 1,000 foot, but I know myself and Commissioner Long, I live out in the Bethel area, and just driving down Old Asheville Highway, I still see there's an old metal truck still sitting in the creek there that's fairly close to a private bridge. So does that... Does that include the private bridges as well? Yes, sir. Yes, sir.

Any type of infrastructure. And the 1,000-foot rule is kind of a rule of thumb. It's not set in, like, to the T. So we can go beyond that. It's just depending on the sites and the amount of debris that's in those areas.

Well, I know, like I said, there is areas that I see on a daily basis that it looks like there's still debris, and they may be in those six sites you're talking about. I don't know where those are at. But just a little concern, you know, in talking to constituents and the area that I live in and work in of some of these sites and some of these sites that we may have missed. So I don't know if it would be good maybe to get together later on maybe with the county manager, or I don't even mind to share with you the sites that I'm talking with. Sure. Because I do have a concern. I guess I've had questions in the past of whether we're getting funding for that, which brings up another question. How do you guys feel that the funding... has been coming down from the federal government. Is it coming like it should, supposed to? I know I've made several trips to Washington myself. I met with the FEMA director, met with a lot of folks up there with the flood and in general, especially the debris. And of course you always get to run around, but everybody tells you the funding's coming. And then when I get down to these guys' level, the guys that's actually out there in the waterways picking it up don't seem like it's flowing like it should. So I don't know if you got any comment.

I really don't because what I say doesn't always align.

Well, I may have put you on the spot a little bit.

Yeah, it definitely has been slow rolling to get the funding moving.

I guess that was the professional answer. Hey, it's okay. I know I've tried to be professional and nice about it, you know, but it gets frustrating because I know that we're right now coming up on hurricane season again, and thank goodness we got the rivers cleaned up like we did. after Fred hit or we would have been in a whole lot worse case scenario or worse scenario with damage and possibly deaths or whatever and I have a concern now that It's been so slow rolled that the funding hadn't come down like it should and we've not been as fast acting as we should. You know, I'm the type of guy when somebody pulls in my shop, has a flat tire, I fix it then. I don't wait three months and then fix their flat tire. If a house is on fire, let's put it out. Let's not wait, you know, let it burn down. It frustrates me that everything has been slow rolled. to the point that it's gonna hurt our folks here in Haywood County because we ain't cleaned the rivers up like we should for whatever reason. And the EWP part of it, who knows if we'll even get funding for some of that. And if we do, we're not gonna be able to do what we should be able to do. There's places in that river I know of right now that the center of the river is higher than the banks. And so the next flood, guess what's going to happen? That water's going to be pushed out and it's going to cause more damage. So maybe I'm letting some of my frustration out on you and I apologize for that. It's just frustrating to be in my position and be promised things and things not happen and the rivers still are not cleaned up like I feel like they should be. So anyway, I appreciate your professional answer, but I don't mind the

uh go overboard a little bit bob let me kind of change up just a little bit uh i think you're probably responsible for getting the stump removed uh where i live i can't tell you how many phone calls i got over a year and a half about people cleaning the river up and they come right up to the bridge around 276 and there was literally a stump whole root ball from a huge tree that reached from down to the riverbed all the way up to the pickets on the on the fence uh the picket fence on the bridge and it literally watered the hydraulics underneath that stump it had knurled out a huge hole of water out there under that middle bridge support i don't know if the dot or states inspected that bridge but you know it it done a lot of damage to I mean, it could potentially have, in another event, maybe caught some more debris and took that bridge out. It's not beyond scope of your imagination. But, you know, I got call after call. It was like we were beating our head. And I see Roger back there. I see Roger. He's been sitting here the whole meeting with SDR. And I don't know who all was involved. I came by. Somebody called me and said, you need to get over here. He said, they're finally getting this stump out of the river. And I actually had some business, so I went out, and I don't know who I was involved with. You know, that one stump kind of became the poster child of maybe not getting the job done, because that was a very key piece of infrastructure on a very key highway, and it literally could have took that bridge out on another flood event came along, but it was a big job. I mean, I'm sure the stump had dried out considerably. It was a whole lot lighter, but just seemed like people were dodging doing that job because it was a big job i mean it just seemed that way to me and other people other people were commenting about it well they got all the easy like you know low hanging fruit and they left that i know i don't know all the details about any of that other than maybe the way the pickup was Drawn on the map, maybe up to the bridge, not above the bridge. But that stump was a big deal. I know Commissioner Rogers got calls on it. I got calls on it. But I will say thank you if you had a hand. You did have a hand in getting that stump removed. Is that correct? Yes, sir.

Mr. Moorhead gave me a call, sent me a picture via text. Yeah.

Yeah. So thank you. The gentleman actually went out there and got it. So thank you for that. Yes, sir.

I'm like Brandon about that. I was wondering about the funding coming down like that, because I had a few people call me about some stuff like, you know, when they had people overseeing the cleanup and stuff like that, and a lot of the tickets getting thrown out, and it seemed like they're having a hard time getting their money on some of them on some of that stuff. And, you know, they've got somebody looking over it. You wouldn't think later that they'd come back know and say well we're not gonna pay for that or pay for that when these people already put their people out there you know to do the job and everybody's it was fine at the time and then you know people having issues and i just wonder if there's anything we do to check into that and step up that a little bit

Yeah, once the closeouts happen for the projects, we will go through the on that from every invoice and everything like that and close it out with FEMA. If there's any discrepancies or any issues, we will fight for that on our end.

It just concerns me a little bit that these people, you know, have already paid their help out and paid and stuff like this. You can get pretty deep in the hole.

Yes, sir. Yes, sir.

Real quick.

Yeah. And that's the reason why the SMART program kind of came into existence, just to help alleviate that financial burden.

Thank you. Yeah, outside of everything I said, we do appreciate the SMART program. I mean, it did help us out tremendously, you know, because we was going to have to borrow those costs. And it's money that you plan on rainy day, but not a rain like that necessarily. So I do want to thank you for that program. I mean, it has definitely helped us out.

Yes, sir.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, and I guess EWP, you think we're going to get funding for that, Brian?

I'M HOPEFUL THAT WE'LL GET THE MONEY, AND I'VE SHARED WITH YOU, THE EWP INCLUDES FUNDS FOR PICKING UP THE DEBRIS BUT NOT THE DISPOSAL. SO WE'RE STILL TRYING TO WORK THROUGH THE STATE CHANNELS TO SEE IF THERE'S SOME UNMET NEED MONEY, BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT WE USE STATE UNMET NEED MONEY FOR EWP FOR T.S. Fred. And so, you know, that's the approach we like. I've had the conversations with Representative Pless about see if there was additional state funding for that.

How much would we need for that, do you think?

I could see that the total cost of picking up is somewhere in that $8 million to $10 million range. It could be $2 million, $3 million, $4 million in disposal costs. I really don't know exactly until we start seeing some volumes, some estimates.

Okay.

And that process is lengthy. Remember, we did that for Fred. We brought in a consultant. It was actually McGill that did that because a lot of the sites for Fred required some engineering. I don't think we'll have those commitments where everything has to have an engineer seal on it for this. A lot of it's just clearing and snagging. We'll have to have a project manager help us divide up the DSRs, all of the sites, so we can put those in bid packages and get those going. But we're waiting to hear if we did get awarded the funds.

Awarded the funds for removal?

There's funds for removal.

We've got funds in place for the removal, but... We have not...

received formal approval of the removal funds. Okay. But we feel confident we'll get that. But we do not have disposal funds. So money, it will pick up the debris, but we need funds to get rid of it.

Okay. And that is something that you're working on now? Yes. Okay. So really, the next round of debris pickup will be We don't know when that's going to start, I don't guess. Hurricane season is upon us, and usually August and September is when we get one. So I guess that's why I'm wondering.

There's a lot of moving parts. If we get the official award, we'll come back to the board as soon as we can, probably in August if we get that. But it may take us 60 or 90 days to bring in a consultant, divide up all of those sites into bid packages and get those on the street. The EWP process puts a, we don't have the smart program for it. We have to manage it unless Bob is looking for a little additional work. All of that administrative falls back to us to set up to get those funds.

Okay.

Bob, while you're here, I know Commissioner Rogers mentioned some areas of the river that actually the water's running level with the pavement and before this event, river channel is actually probably six to eight feet below the white line on the road and it's filled up with so much cobble i know that's a separate thing besides woody debris but is there any any role that the state can play and uh you know i've harped on this for quite a while you know we're just spinning our wheels here by uh ignoring that uh you've got infrastructures at risk i'm just wondering if the state could help us with the permitting process to get maybe some of our local contractors that uh would like to get in there and possibly you know If we got the landowner's permit to go ahead and remove all that cobble and that rocky field and get the river channel back down where it needs to be so that we can go through a normal flood event without having... You know, the water out in the highway and the damage in that kind of infrastructure. Is there a process that your department can help us with that? Because I know we've all been concentrating on this woody debris and that hasn't been really addressed. Is there something that your department can do to help us with that?

Other than putting a word, there's not much emergency management can do about permitting. That's beyond our scope. Most of the time it comes through DEQ or DOT, depending on where the area is. But yeah, we normally don't handle permitting.

So the DEQ would be the people that would permit a project like that? It just depends on the totality of it all, but yes. Has there been any conversation about funds or that process being associated with Hurricane Helene?

Under the HMGP brick program, I believe so. But those are at $20 million cap. So depending on how big the project is, I'm not sure.

I know there was a grace period right after the event, you know, where folks could get in there and clean it out. But that grace period has long been gone. But I guess, you know, kudos to the people that went ahead and got that done. But there are certain areas that didn't get done.

And I can definitely look into it.

Okay, well, if you don't mind, contact our county manager and kind of give us a pathway forward to getting some of those areas done. I know right off the top of my head, I can think of several places that would really benefit from getting that river channel and all that cobble out. It could be put to good use. And I said this before, back in the 40s, we had a big flood here. My grandfather talked about it up on Finsley Street. The Pisgah Creek area was inundated when Helene hit. All that road was gone right there where Chinky Pin Road and Pisgah Creek came together. There was actually a portable rock crusher set up. And all that cobblet washed out. It was removed and crushed and used to put the road bed back in place. They didn't haul it from Allens Creek over here and wire trucks out and have to spend all that money buying rock. It was already there. Common sense approach. And, you know, I think we need to get back to that. You know, we've kind of went a long way the wrong way on common sense stuff. There's plenty of cobble there if it could be utilized to, you know, put to good use and clean the river. Actually, you've killed two birds with one stone.

Yes, sir.

It's just common sense, but, you know, it seems like it's left us, but I'd like to get back to that. So, I mean, if you could show us a path forward, maybe contact the county manager because that's on a lot of people's mind.

Yes, sir.

Yeah, I'll look into that. Thank you. See if we can repurpose some cobble.

Thank you for coming. I think your boss probably pushed it down to you since he didn't want to, since he didn't come, so. Sir, thank you all. Okay, thank you. Okay, next order, or the next item is Haywood County Revolving Loan Fund and information regarding request for proposals community and economic development manager, Hannah White. Welcome, Hannah, again, welcome back.

So, if you remember back in 22, I believe, Dogwood and the county partnered together to create a revolving loan fund to help with some of the affordable housing stuff we heard earlier today. So the purpose of the program is to create, preserve, and rehab affordable and workforce housing, such as increasing our housing supplies, preserving our natural occurring affordable housing is what NOAA stands for, or leveraging additional investment. For this program we pushed our income limits to that 120% AMI area median income as we've seen with many of our HUD programs they fall in that 80% and below and that sometimes struggles to hit that truly that like beginning workforce. This just lists some of the few eligible activities. The only thing that's really not eligible with this program is your soft costs, such as your environmental, engineering, that kind of work, but almost everything else is allowable. Just listing some existing project types, you know, with the low-income housing tax credits coming out of the state probably in the next month or two, it might be a good use to pair those funds. So the loan is minimum of $100,000 up to $500,000, 36-month standard, but we will allow up to 60 months. You know, what we've seen with those LIHTC properties, they take a long time to actually get off the ground and start. So just giving some flexibility with that. And the rate is a 3% interest. This just goes into the evaluation criteria, looking at capacity, readiness to go, financial feasibility, alignment with the community goals as a whole, and innovation. So we will open the rfp tomorrow, the last day for questions is September 8 and the deadline for submissions is I did not change the other one for September 14 is going to be the submission deadline. And that just lists where the RP will be posted. And if anyone has any questions, feel free to reach out. Any questions I will share with our team and they will publish it on the website with the bed. So that way everyone will have access to any questions that they might have as well. Any questions for me?

Have any applications?

I'm not sure yet. We have enough if every single applicant asked for the max amount we have enough for three applications, but obviously there's some flexibility in there as well. But I believe we'll at least have three probably apply. And then, as a reminder, we partner with the Sequoia foundation to handle the loan management of this project.

Well, it sounds like it'll go maybe hand-in-hand with what Habitat's doing also, so.

Yeah.

Yeah, okay.

All right, thank you, Hannah. Thank you for Stanley. I'll have to tell the other guys that, too. The next is the 2027 reappraisal update. Tax accessory Judy Hickman.

Not as fast as I used to be.

I probably shouldn't say this, but congratulations on your weight loss.

Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you. Just wanted to go over some information as far as our reappraisal. We want to try to get as much information out as we can. I have Levi here with us. He is our lead appraiser, and he's going to go over some information on some things that we have started this year that are helping our citizens. So a lot of people ask what a reappraisal is. Well, it's the valuing of all real estate at full market value. Each year, our registered motor vehicles, which is your tagged vehicles, every time you renew your tag, you get a value placed on your vehicle. Your personal property has to be listed each year, so you get valued on that each year. Your business personal property, your assets have to be listed. They're valued each year as well as your public utilities, which is like your railroad systems, your power stations. cell towers things like that as far as real property goes you only get appraised we do a reval every eight years as we're required to by law haywood county does it every four years to try to cushion it and help with our taxpayers so it's not as hard if you know if we've got a booming economy um

And you have to do a reval if it's more than 20% out of balance, too. Yes. Which we were. Yes. After four years, we were, and we put it off two years, so now it's really out.

Yes. You know, the goal is to ensure that all properties are treated equitably. And, of course, following the statutes as we're required. Everything we do is required by statute. So, you know, this is not something... that we choose to do or the county chooses to do, this is something that the state mandates us to do. North Carolina is a market value state, which means at a reappraisal date, which ours is January 1st, 2027, we have to be at 100% market value. So what you can expect, the same value can be expected if your property is exposed to the market for purchase. Property values can increase or decrease after a reappraisal, but this change alone does not determine whether or not your tax bill will increase or decrease. Our office is only responsible for the valuation part of a reappraisal. Once those notices go out and the commissioners have to go over the budget, that's when you have to determine what the tax rate is based on the needs of the county and our services. So market value is set by buyers and sellers. So it's basically property owners and taxpayers. So when we sell our property, we look at those sales and that goes into part of our market value. The reappraisal only interprets what the market data of sold properties is. Then it develops models which will imitate or reproduce true value of unsold properties. Just some important information that's good takeaways. A value increase or decrease at a reappraisal does not represent a one-year change. Going back to what I said is we do a reappraisal every four years. So unless you've actually made any kind of improvements to the property, your value remains the same until the next reappraisal. Our last reappraisal was in 2021, which means the sales that were reviewed during the last reappraisal were for 2019 and 2020. Our 2025 sales ratio study revealed that the current assessed property values in Haywood County are on average 44% below actual market value. That doesn't mean that everybody's property values will go up 44%. That's just saying the county overall is 44% below. This discrepancy is a direct result of extended periods since the last comprehensive property reappraisal. As many folks remember, we were set to do our reappraisal January 1st, 2025, and when the floods hit, we had to push it back to 2027. It's important to understand that the longer a jurisdiction goes without reappraising property values, the more inequities grow among taxpayers. And reappraisal does not create those inequities. It only reveals them and provides the necessary mechanism for correcting them. So Levi's going to go over some of the information on how taxpayers can go ahead and take a look at their property record card and review it to make sure that we have good data. Because we don't go on the inside of homes, you know, we may have the number of beds or baths incorrect. So it's important that people look over that and contact our office if we do not have the correct information. So he's going to go over that.

So like Judy said, we encourage anyone that wants to get on the GIS website and look at their property record card, check over that. Check interior, exterior, anything like that, and let us know if there's something that's wrong. That'll be very helpful to us, and it gives folks a chance to make sure that they know that their card is right. They can see it themselves. They can go to the county website and then find the GIS from there. That's usually the easiest way to go. We're also doing something a little different this go-round. We've been set up at different places throughout the county. at libraries and town halls and different places. These are some dates. A couple of them have already passed, but we've got, I think, maybe six more to go. But we've been successful so far with these. This is a chance for folks to stop by and take a look at their property record card. We'll print them a copy they can take home with them, and we go over it with them while they're there. We can talk about anything if they have any questions, and also if there's corrections that need to be made can let us know and we'll make those corrections or if we need to visit the property we'll set up an appointment right then so so this has been a good program so far for us and we hope to continue to be successful in it also uh there's an opportunity to meet with someone here in the courthouse right when you come in the front door down there the first office Over on the right, these dates here are options. Folks can stop in and do the exact same thing we're doing at the town hall. They can check their property record card, speak to someone with any questions, make sure the data is correct, helps us and helps them. Or, you know, our office is open 8 to 5, Monday through Friday. So anytime someone wants to stop by with a question or a correction or anything like that, they're welcome to do so. And then here's some contact information for us if anyone does have any questions. And do you all have any questions of Judy or I?

I've got one. As far as those dates that you posted, where can constituents go to see those dates to where they can come to one of the meeting places? Are they published online somewhere?

I believe they are published online, and we also put it out on the Haywood Alerts.

Okay. It is on Haywood Alerts. Good. And the two meetings that you've had already, did you have a good attendance? Yes. Okay.

Yeah, I think the last one we had was at the Waynesville Library, and we had almost 40 people during that day. So we were busy that day.

All right, good. How are you getting the word out to do that for so people know? Was that in the paper?

Well, we've got it on the website, and we're also putting it out on the Haywood Alerts website. I think there's quite a few people that are signed up on that, and I think a lot of people have commented that that's where they've seen it was on the alerts as well.

Okay. I know you've probably had a lot of people ask this. Have you projected the possible revenue neutral rate after the reval, if it's a 44%? We're 44% under. Do you have any idea what the revenue neutral millage rate would be? Have you even thought about it? uh judy judy deals in assessed value she she doesn't do a lot of tax rate and calculations i'm sure she's probably got a good mind for it it's it's a little it's a little early commissioner long for such a wild guess well you know what's interesting i have run some numbers and i think we could you know we have been six you know the first several years i was on the board we started out when i came 58 and we went to 53.5 after the revalve, 53, 50. But anyway, we consistently were 16th lowest in the state on millage rate. And there's 84 counties that had a higher tax rate than we did. I've been throwing some numbers around. I don't want to chum the waters too much, but we could possibly fall back in the lower 15% in the whole state if we're on a revenue neutral rate. And I... Well, you... Well... We've seen what happened to our neighbors next door. You know, we skipped the reval because we knew it was the right thing to do after Hurricane Helene hit. We had so many properties washed into Lake Douglas and Lake Waterville, you couldn't, we kicked it down the road. Of course, we went ahead and had to reval, was it over 900 properties that got inundated? I mean, we had a big job to do anyway, but... Yeah, you know that kicked us down the road. We had the public safety situation with ambulances, a jail. And we had that when I passed the budget, but. The neighbor neighbors next door. I mean, I guess you saw if you saw the news last week, but they increased their tax their millage rate by 18 cents. Over 18 cents, they went up on their tax rate. when the General Assembly did what they did, they had to revert back to where we are now, our old revalued values. And you know, it's amazing to me, you know, I can understand why there's public outcry. They get, for one penny in Buncombe County, they get $7.75 million. They increased it by 18 pennies. I mean, holy mackerel. You know, we get around 1.1 million, right? So it's amazing to me that situations like that occur. But I think this board's done a very outstanding job. We've consistently been the lowest in the state, the lower 15%, 20% in the state. And when we do a reval, our millage rate will be back down. I feel certain. I ain't going to throw any numbers out. And again, the reval scares some people to death. But in actuality, it protects our elderly folks. It protects, you know, we predominantly always tried to go on the lower end of the scale with our elderly folks and to our credit. But you have these predators and these opportunists that get up in the morning and read the obituary section and they're predators. and they'll call the orphaned out widow or they'll call out the orphaned out children or the widow and they'll just get on the phone and leave money and say, hey, I'll give you the appraisal value for your property. And it's amazing to me some of the stories I hear about how people are really just getting taken advantage of because we haven't done our eval. Especially some of these people who are poor and down on their luck and there are people out there who are really good con artists. that are really wreaking havoc on some very elderly citizens and some of these people that have been lost loved ones. It's a deep topic, but some of the people that are complaining the worst are those type of people. They don't want to revile because they're enriching theirself on people's ignorance. They're going off the old tax evaluation. They don't get an appraisal. They won't call and get a paid appraisal, and they're just getting taken advantage of. And it sickens me that these people are out here taking advantage of people like that. And so the revile will protect some of our elderly folks and our orphans and our widows that are being taken advantage by these people, these shysters. And it'll also... You'll get our millage rate back down, and some people's taxes will go down after this. Some will go up, but it does give us a level playing field on that. Getting out ahead of this, getting it out in the public, getting it talked is going to help. It's something the state mandates us to do. It's not like we're heavy-handed on it, but I appreciate us getting the word out and getting ahead of it.

Any other questions? Okay, well, thank y'all. I appreciate y'all staying late. Okay, so the next order of business is discussion or adjustment to the agenda.

Yeah, Mr. Chairman, I think we need to adjust the agenda down on item four. We had posted the...

Item four of appointments.

Item four of the appointments, we had put it in the paper and put it out on our website that we're filling at large in a farmer vacancy. So we could amend this on item four to fill in an at-large vacancy and a farmer vacancy on the Haywood County Planning Board. That's something we need to correct on that agenda. I'd make a motion to adjust that agenda to include that on item four of the appointments.

I'll second.

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Anyone opposed?

Okay. All right. Next order of business will be consent agenda. Sorry. We have 11 items on the consent agenda. I do want to point out item number eight was we had gotten this resolution is to thank and recognize Republic Services for their charitable foundations grant award to Habitat for Humanity, which I believe Jared from Habitat had spoken about earlier. I think they did a playground maybe there. But anyway, it was a grant, and we want to thank them for that and appreciate them giving back some to the community. And what they do is they operate our landfill. So they are, I guess, contracted to operate our landfill. So that's what they do for us. And so they are giving back to the community. We really appreciate that.

Mr. Chairman, I might add that Commissioner Rogers and I sat on that Solid Waste Committee and Republic Services have shown themselves to be great community partners here. That was a $250,000 grant. And we've got this in the consent agenda to recognize them. And the Habitat for Humanity gentleman has went on home, I guess, beat the rain. But it was a great community project for public services. And again, I would like to, again, recognize them like you did, Mr. Chairman, and thank them for their support on that project. OK, great. Also, I would like to point out item number seven, just for discussion before we vote on the consent agenda. And it is concerning collaborative health care in Western North Carolina. We also have a resolution on there for that and I'll read the, if you don't mind Mr. Chairman, let me read the last couple sentences of that resolution and it is, be it further resolved that Haywood County Board of Commissioners support continued dialogue and collaborative efforts focused on improving health care access, strengthening the health care workforce, enhancing patient care capacity, and maintaining high quality regional health care services for the residents of Western North Carolina. And this is a proclamatory resolution that's encouraging collaborative engagement across several counties, Macon, Jackson, Mitchell, McDowell, Transylvania, and Buncombe, and Mission Hospital in Buncombe County and other healthcare facilities. So the regional network of healthcare is critical. And we are putting this resolution out there to encourage these groups to continue to work together for the benefit of the health of our citizens and joining other counties in that effort. Yeah, thank you.

Yeah, it's mainly HCA needs to meet with local officials and get their input, and they've not been wanting to do that, and we don't want them to do that. Okay, anything else? Okay, so can I have a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented?

I'll make a motion we approve the consent agenda. Is there a second? Second.

Okay. Any discussion? Okay, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Okay, that's unanimous. Okay, item number one of the regular agenda is to request approval of a resolution honoring K-9 Bruno for 11 years of distinguished law enforcement service to Haywood County and our sheriff, Bill Wilkie and Chief Deputy Matthew Trantham is here for this. Welcome.

So it is my honor to offer this resolution honoring K-9 Bruno for 11 years of distinguished law enforcement service to Heywood County. Whereas K-9 Bruno faithfully served the citizens of Heywood County for 11 years as a dedicated law enforcement K-9, demonstrating unwavering loyalty, courage, and commitment to public safety. And whereas throughout his distinguished career, K-9 Bruno worked alongside his handler, Lieutenant Ryan Smith, and fellow law enforcement officers in the protection of life and property, contributing significantly to the safety and well-being of the residents and visitors of Haywood County through narcotics detection, And whereas K-9 Bruno assisted in numerous law enforcement operations, including criminal and narcotic investigations and community outreach efforts, exemplifying the highest standards of service and professionalism. And whereas K-9 Bruno's keen instincts, specialized training and steadfast dedication enhanced the effectiveness of law enforcement operations and helped safeguard the citizens he was sworn to protect. And whereas beyond his operational accomplishments, K-9 Bruno served as an ambassador for law enforcement, fostering positive relationships between public safety personnel and the community through public demonstrations, educational programs, and community events. And whereas after 11 years of honorable and exemplary service, K-9 Bruno has earned the gratitude, admiration, and respect of the Haywood County community and all those who had the privilege of serving alongside him. Now therefore, be it resolved, the Haywood County Board of Commissioners hereby expresses its sincere appreciation and gratitude to K-9 Bruno for his 11 years of faithful and distinguished law enforcement service to Haywood County. yet further resolved that the board recognizes K-9 Bruno's outstanding contributions to public safety and commends him for a career marked by dedication, bravery, and excellence adopted this 20th day of July, 2026. It has been my honor to work with Lieutenant Smith and K-9 Bruno for my time in office. You always knew he was there. Every time I would walk by the truck, he didn't like people near the truck and he didn't care if it was the sheriff or anybody else. He was known for being very protective of Lieutenant Smith and the rest of us. A lot can be said about his handler as well. A dog is only as good as his handler and there are, it takes a special person to be a canine handler and Lieutenant Smith has really stepped up to that role and there's no doubt when you watch them operate together that they were true partners. You could see the bond between those two and the things they got to accomplish over 11 years and when we knew that Bruno, his time was limited, Ryan knew that taking him off the street was going to affect that dog in a way that wasn't favorable. He didn't want to go out like that, and that dog went out working for the Haywood County Sheriff's Office, I think right up to the last week or month or so, which is very unusual. Normally we would retire the dogs, but Ryan knew that if that dog was retired, That wouldn't have been right just for him. It's very unusual, but it's also a credit mostly to Lieutenant Smith. So we're grateful to have him and he's here and prepared to give a 20 minute speech. Just 20 minutes. And we have something else for you, Matt.

The one thing I just want to say is that I've said on several occasions Being a canine handler, you spend more time with the dog than you do anybody else, your family, your wife, anything like that. Ron's done it twice. He's handled two different dogs. So... I've spent a lot of time with Ron in doing that because I supervised the canine unit until I handed it off to him. So... We usually get to retire those dogs before they pass away. Unfortunately, like the sheriff said, that Bruno worked the day before, two days before, and Ryan took him to the vet, and they told him, hey, you need to go ahead and let him go. So... With that said, I had some conversations with Ryan's wife that he didn't know about. And Ryan's been missing some items that he didn't know about for a few weeks. And they went to Deputy Stahls, who helped us do a little something that we're going to present Ryan with in memory of his dedication to Brunei. I just want to thank y'all for giving us a few minutes to present that to Ryan. Kind of set it right there if you would and then maybe a camera can get that.

I think they can, where everybody can see it. That's a great job. Do you do that for? That's great. I watch those, I watch those dogs, you know, on some of these police shows and it's just amazing what they can do and they are so protective. But man, they get the bad guy. That's what I love.

Very rewarding but aggravating job.

We appreciate you doing it because they they find things that we'd never find, you know, and there it is stuff. So we appreciate your service in doing that. Thank you. You're welcome. Great job, Mr. Stiles, on that. That's great. Okay, then the next item is to request approval of a budget amendment for the... Oh, I'm sorry. Okay, motion to approve the resolution.

I'm making a motion to approve the resolution as presented. Okay.

I'll say. All in favor say aye. Aye. Okay. Thank you, Amy, for keeping me straight.

Thank you.

Okay, now we can do it, Matt. This is approval of budget amendment for $30,000 to appropriate fund balance for prior year's collection of drug forfeiture funds which will be used for the purchase of a replacement canine, training, kennel construction, collars, supplies, and for the purchase of an investigative subscription. So we know that these guys, when they come to Haywood County and we seize their money, we're gonna buy a dog to put more of them in jail. That is correct. That's what this kind of boils down to.

It boils down to the drug dealers in Haywood County paying for our canines. That's right. I love it.

Okay. Has anybody got any questions on that? Or did you need to say anything? Okay. Okay. Motion to approve?

I'll make that motion.

Okay. Second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Okay. That's unanimous for item two of the regular agenda. Next will be appointments. Number one is to request approval of a reappointment of Kathy Lalonde to serve as an extraterritorial jurisdiction representative on the Town of Waynesville Planning Board. I have a motion for that. I'll make that motion.

Is there a second?

Okay. All in favor say aye. Aye. Okay. Number two is request approval for appointment of Judith Johnson to the HHSA board in the consumer member position and the reappointment of Wendy Jones to the HHSA board in the consumer member position. And you're on that board, right?

Yes, I'm on that board and I will make that motion.

Okay. Second. Okay. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Okay. All right. Next is the request approval of Jeff Phillips to the Smoky Mountain Event Center Board fulfilling an unexpired term through January 1st, 2027. That board has voted and selected him or and asked us to approve Jeff for this board. Can I have a motion for that?

I'll make a motion.

Is there a second? Second. Okay. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Okay. Okay, and then next is to, let's see, we need to request approval by vote of one appointment to fill an at-large vacancy on the Haywood County Planning Board. We had seven people apply.

Mr. Chairman, we need to do those separate, do you think? Yeah. We've done that adjustment to do the farmer and the at-large.

Yeah, well, I was going to do them separate. Is that okay? Okay. Yeah.

Oh, you want to do the, okay, you want to do the farmer first? doesn't matter we we made the agenda adjustment earlier because of the snafu there but okay we did interview these folks yeah so i would uh make a motion that we appoint this depends on how you want to vote how do we how do we do we need to split the vote do the at-large first and then i say go ahead and appoint the farmer because there was just the one person that Oh, okay.

Yeah, so if you guys want to go ahead and make a motion to approve Mark as the farmer position, because he was the only one that applied for that one, and we've posted it multiple times, and I've just not had... All right, so a motion to appoint Mark McDonough.

Mark McDonough. I make a motion to appoint Mark McDonough as the farmer on the board.

Seconded by Terry. Okay. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Okay. That's unanimous. Okay. Next is to appoint approval by NLB. We had seven folks apply. They can only pick one. And they were all pretty good. We can't hear it count. Frank can't hear it count.

They took that job away from Frank.

He messes it up every time.

He's messed the lights too.

So we all have talked to him so you probably know how to pronounce this last name better than I do but you all have Approve Jeffrey Pugliese, maybe, as your at-large member on the planning board.

Okay. All right. Thank you, Hayley. Okay. The next order of business is closed session, so we need to go into closed session per North Carolina General Statute 143.381.11 , which is an employment contract. So can I have that motion?

Make a motion to go into closed session, Mr. Chairman.

For item, for the first one. Is there a second? For that item as stated. Brandon second. I'll second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Okay, now we need to do a separate motion according to Amy.

I'll make that motion.

All right, to do North Carolina General Statute 143.318.11a3. Brandon makes the motion. Is there a second? Second. Okay, all in favor say aye. Aye. Okay. I need to name the case. Okay. I'm sorry. Okay. So item the second one that we just did, item 143.381.11.83 is the Attorney-Client Privilege regarding Adam Russell Melrose v. Haywood County. Is there a motion? to approve that. I guess I want to do that again. I'll make that motion. Second. Okay, okay. Terry second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Okay, is that good, Amy? Sorry about that. I read right, I looked right over that. Okay, we'll be in closed session when we enter the chambers in the back.