Public Works Committee - Regular Meeting

All right, we'll go ahead and call the public works meeting for April 22nd, um, city hall here to an order. Um, we have one of our council members, our alderman that is running just a little bit late this evening and he'll be here in about five minutes. I just got in touch with him, so just to let the public know and as well as our committee know as well. Um it's good to see everybody. Um what we'll go ahead and do is um we'll go ahead and I'll ask for an acceptance of the agenda. If there's no objection, then we'll just go ahead and accept it. Is there any additions or deletions to the agenda that needs not hearing? None. We'll go ahead um and move uh look at the minutes right quick and um and I need a motion for seconds of the minutes. I've reviewed them and they they appear accurate. So I move approval. Okay. Thank you, sir. And u we have a motion and a proper second. Any further discussion uh dealing with the minutes hearing? None. Is everybody ready to vote? All in favor of February 25th uh minutes meeting signify by saying I. I. And uh motion carries for approval with um one uh absence right at this point, but he should be here. Okay. Now we've done that. Let's go with citizens comments this evening and Mr. Raver has uh from 113 West Harbor has signed up and so Mr. Rabber, I'm going to give the floor to you, sir, and you just let us know what uh Okay. We can help you with. Well, I've come for uh Harbortown subdivision. Uh that's where I live, and our we have a a serious speeding

uh issue in our neighborhood. Uh it's the uh the signage is listed at 25 miles an hour and there is just it's rampant. It's um you know people almost getting hit while they're backing out of their uh driveways or coming out of their driveways. Uh people walking. We have a high we've had in the last year we've had a high influx of a lot of families with with children and uh so people are walking their dogs walking with their families and uh we've had people that have to jump out of the road into yards because we have no sidewalks and uh we have walking trails but to get to the walking trails you have to walk through the agree. So, um we're looking for some type of traffic common uh solution like I mean I don't want to say speed bumps because those can be you know heck on your your vehicles but like speed humps where they split the road and people can split them and things like that just to get people to slow down. Um about four years ago, we've lived there for a little over five years. About four years ago, they did a survey and where they set up uh you know the strips and could determine how fast people were going through a certain section. And uh they ran that for about four weeks. And uh then when it was time to get the data for the study, it

somehow got misplaced. So that never came to fruition and uh so we never got the data on that and so basically they dropped it and they said that there was going to be more police presence and I've yet to hear of anybody getting a ticket or even getting just you know stopped and warned or so but we have I mean the last year we've we now we have people riding around on minibikes and uh ATVs and just I mean you know you can't always call the cops you know it's just like you know because there's things that they have to do and it's like but sometimes you need a presence and I was going to ask for if we could find some way to get some traffic calming solution in that neighborhood. I mean because it's like you know it goes around West Harbor runs to to the lake then it comes around and it turns into East Harbor and it's both sides of that area. I live on West Harbor and one of the issues is is that it dips down into a valley and where there's a runoff and like a common area and so people speed up and they just get hit the bottom of that hill and then go up and it's just I mean it's constant and so I'm just that's all I'm asking for and I know that you know money's always an issue and there's everything. But it's something's needed there because I'm I'm worried that somebody's going to get hurt and uh you know, and it's just not right that a family has to walk with their, you know, kids and

their dogs and they got to jump out of the road because they don't think somebody's going to stop. So, it's just not right. Is there anything else um that comes to mind? um besides all this and then we we'll we'll discuss this in just a second. Well, there there some of that issue too is that you know there's a lot of I don't know what it is that I mean and this is more of an HOA thing I think is that you know cars parking the street right and so that can cause a a you know distraction to people and you know and they're constantly swerving in and out and things like that. So, I mean, it's just uh I don't know if it's it's more I don't know if like signage like kids at play or anything like that. I don't think that's going to help, you know, you know, they call nowadays they call them pretty signs, you know. It's like, you know, our kids, you know, matter to us. You know, that thing. It's like I mean, if you're a speeder, you're a speeder, you know, you just you just drive fast. So, and then like I was talking to him and he's like, "I don't you don't understand why people got to be in such a hurry, especially when you're in your neighborhood and you know where you're going." Yeah. So, I think sometimes, and of course I'm guilty of it myself, sometimes we don't realize we're going as fast as we are because we're either jamming to the radio or we're talking not on our cell phone like this, but through the the intercom of your car. But yes, I understand. and I've been over there before when it's been like that. So, um, so I understand your needs. Is there anyone that any questions or anything that would like to to uh speak or to question Mr. Raver at all about this? I know normally we just take citizens comments and then

we go on with the agenda and then we have the city staff look at it. But, um, and that that's what we'll, if that's okay, that's what we'll continue to do. We'll just have you take a look, you know, and see what, you know, what is Yeah. If I can add one more thing, I went to the uh the board meeting last night for the HOA. Oh, yes. And just to make sure that the HOA doesn't have I mean, there's city city roads, so the HOA doesn't have to, you know, you know, pay for any part of it or anything like that. But I was asking I was like man can we pay for it? You know I'm sure I mean it's that that kind of thing and uh but unfortunately the board most of them all live towards towards the lake so of course they don't want speed humps in the road because they all live at the end and uh so they don't want to have to deal with speed humps. Yeah. So, chairman, would it be helpful to request additional contact information so that we can follow up? Yeah. And I want to follow up about the street parking. Sure. So, she's going to follow about the about one part of it and I'll follow you. Okay. So, hold on just a second. Let me get let us get some additional information information to uh from you like your um email address. Okay. Or something like that because our our staff here will will look into that. And um Mayor, did you have something to say? No, it's just that is it. So, well, okay. No, but now I'm going to talk looking over the problem of street parking, especially in neighborhoods where there are going to be a lot of kids. Um, we would love for the HOAs to enforce their restrictions, but we also have ordinances that we should be enforcing. Um, we need to rewrite our ordinances. We have literally been working on that for two years. What we don't want is more people park in their

yards, right? Yeah. Yeah. So, Yeah, most of the time it's it's like you were talking to the gentleman just had a child. It's usually large families and now they've got kids that are in driving age and that's usually the car that sits on on the side of on in the street is the uh the teenager's kid, you know, because that way they don't have to worry about getting in and out of the driveway. So, but yeah, that to me though is it it is becoming an issue in that particular neighborhood. Okay. Yeah. I've had uh another homeowners association um have called me about there's a gentleman on the road that keeps his boat parked out on on the road during the he only does it obviously in the spring and summer and so I'm just waiting for another call on that and to see what I don't even know if he's moved or not but we appreciate these and let us uh investigate it and see what we can we can do to to come and resolve that issue and um and then our staff will get back in touch with you pretty quickly because you know Sure. Yes, sir. And but of anything, you know, always feel free to come to our committee. We always enjoy our constituents uh coming to our committee because it's you're the pulse from Hendersonville and so you let us know you know what the reality is and not our reality but the real reality. Okay. And we appreciate that very much. Well, thank you for the listening too. Yes, sir. So, all right. And if you'll let your people know that you came by, you know, are you on the homeowners association there or um are you just was

you just were you just We're not on the board. Okay. We're just My wife used to be on the board. So Okay, I got you. Okay. All right. Well, thank you for coming and if anything else, always come to We'd love to have you here. Okay. Thanks again. Thanks. Have a good night. Nice to see you. Okay. Thanks everyone. We cannot be safe. Yeah. No, I think we are. We are on to on the two, but we've got up the draft the budget. It's just not what we can see. I hope. I don't know if it's not. You're You're right. Okay. Um, just to let everybody know, I uh I didn't want to waste everybody's time with that, but I attended the um homeowners homeowners association meeting last night uh briefly for about I was on for about 20 minutes or so. and uh I'll be getting in touch with her. They just had some issues. What homeowners associations? It's the same kind of issues that we've had. So, I didn't want to sit, you know, with that because we've got we although it's kind of a shortive agenda, we might have, you know, it may take some time. So anyway, um it was uh it was a good as as they all are very good uh words about the city to let you know, mayor, they had a a great deal. Uh they were although they had concerns about their own neighborhood, they were they were very uh happy about our traffic and then they

were really happy about Walton Ferry and Old Shackle Island Road because people, you know, believe it or not, I mean, people really notice our town. you know, that you live here, you should notice, you know, look. But then when they see them working or they see the pipes and the drainage and they know something's going on, so they're like, "Yeah, you know." So, um, you say they were happy with traffic. They know, not the Oh, the the traffic. Yes. Because I'm sorry, the traffic handling. Yes. Of the handling of of how we're doing it. So that makes me feel good as a committee and also as a representative of the board of mayor and alderman and as a just a basic represent of the city on on that because you know we're used to hearing the worst and so any compliment you know that I get I always take it you know makes me sleep better I'll tell you that much but they were pleased with that um was something else oh one guy did say about the part that he saw a plastic bottle out on the u the benches. Mhm. So they went You're going to go pick it up? Yeah. No, I just looked at him and I just looked at him and said, "Okay." You know, and I'm just teasing you. We were waiting on the clean team to come pick Yeah. So anyway, but no, that's that's not true. They they were very uh gracious about the parks and as most people are in town that um you guys do an excellent job on maintaining and I would just ask you to keep doing your thing, man. Okay, buddy. Um but other than that, then we got down to the brass tax of that. So um are there any other citizens that want to speak uh that were here this evening? Hearing none, we're going to go on to the ordinances and resolutions. And we have on a reading of a resolution

202516. It's a resolution adopting the traffic impact study guide to evaluate transportation impacts associated with the new development and land use changes. I need a motion. Motion. Motion in a proper second. Okay, there's been a proper motion, proper second. Discussion. I love it. I do too. I'll say nothing. Okay. Well, I've got some questions. Sure. Go ahead. Um, and I'm looking at the the uh the the rules uh or the plan uh beginning on page 13 of uh of the under that tab. No, page 13. Uh it says that uh a traffic impact study is deemed necessary by the city engineer or planning commission. That's G at the top. Okay. Uh would Bulma ever uh have input into whether a traffic study is deemed necessary? uh if it were a reszoning that had to go to Bulma, then yes, of course. Um but in that situation, they would, but typically when we're get receiving um submitts for site plans, things like that, it just goes to planning commission and is reviewed by by the city engineer. So, typically that's when that determination comes in. To Alderman Roverson's point, could we add a column to give Bulma an opportunity if they get feedback from the community want to do something? Yeah, I would I would suggest. Thank you. Yeah, no problem. I would suggest under G, or Bulma. Okay. The the second one uh

deals with the consultant, okay, that's going to be doing the study. Uh I've heard from some con constituents that think that when the developer picks a consultant that that may bias the evaluation because they're being paid, they're working for the developer. And I understand that the city engineer and your staff is going to review and can even hire a third party, but yeah, but have you thought about the possibility of us determining who's going to do the traffic study? They pay for it, but we're the we're the uh we're the decision maker of who gets the traffic study and who does it and how they do it. Of course, it it explains how to do it in here. Yeah. And that's really the purpose of this is to clarify exactly how they're going to do it. And with Chris's or the the traffic engineers review of that um for the most part, that really is that that's sufficient. That's that's really a lot of oversight. And um it's very clear what process they're following, what criteria they have to meet. And then in those cases where it is very contentious maybe um you know like some of the projects we've had in the past that are very contentious and maybe there are some questions about the traffic study then at that time we could use an you know as you stated a third party to further review which further delays the process though. It does. If we had if we had control of the process of determining who that contractor is that's going to do it, there would be no need for a third party, would there? That's true. Yeah. Um I just don't know that the I don't I don't know that there's actually a benefit to doing it that way. whenever

the city's managing the process um it can it can delay things um if it's running through the city and if they're a qualified traffic engineer and the criteria is very clear then there shouldn't be a conflict and really I mean even though they are being paid by a client they're responsible to the city to make sure that it meets our requirements I guess I'm just thinking of the the public perception Mhm. Well, that's the that's the developer's contractor. Yeah. So, uh I mean, in very contentious situations in the past, we have used an on call, which sometimes takes longer because of whatever their workload is. So, I mean, that could be an option, but I I would say that would not need to be our regular process process. Uh page 17, the the preparer, this is the contractor that works for the developer. Mhm. Doing the study is going to look at 24-hour count, vehicle count. Right. Right. Is that a long enough span of time to determine what what if they go out on a Wednesday when there's not a lot of activities? Uh uh I mean would would it be better to do uh a uh a whole week of counts and then do an average to get a better indication of what the actual traffic at that intersection uh is going to handle. I'm going to defer to our traffic engineer on this one. Okay. Um, typically one day on a typical day between Tuesday and Thursday is is is enough and 24 hours is actually

more than what most people do when they do traffic studies. Typically, they count just the peak hours in the morning and afternoon only. And this this way will see what the traffic pattern is throughout the whole day on on a typical day. Okay. So, you're you're looking to evaluate a typical day, not a peak day. Not a not a Monday or Friday or any weekend because you know Drakes Creek Road we've got two parks out on Drakes Creek Road and Saturday it's just gridlock you know it's so would that not be a valid way to determine are we going to dump more traffic on that road in that certain scenario Saturday would be an important day they would have to count as as well if they're going to do a development in that area if we know that's going on typically it's during the weekday day, but if we determine like a certain event like on a Saturday, we want them to count Saturday. Also, is it too is it is it unreasonable to ask I mean they put a machine up, don't they to do it, one of these counters with something that goes across the road? Um, is that how they do it? That's part of it. Um, nowadays they use cameras now that can actually record and they can classify the vehicles as well and they count pedestrians, bicyclists, the whole nine yards. I just want to get an accurate and I'm not sure that a Tuesday on Drakes Creek Road is reflective of an average day. Yeah. So, that's um Stephen may have something to add to this too, but that's also part of the reason why what's included in the back is a scoping agreement. And that's um something where they're we're going to have to agree on what the the criteria is for each individual study. And so I would say Indian Lake Boulevard would be another location. For example, we have heavy weekend traffic there with all the shopping. So those would be situations where city engineer traffic engineer

could say these areas are a concern during the weekends. You need to collect a typical day and you need to consider a Saturday as well. Yeah. Okay. That that was what I was going to point out was the scoping document at the back is intended to capture the the anomalies and it gives us the opportunity to have input into what they are actually going to study as opposed to just you're going to do the typical thing. Okay. So we have that discretion using that document to make sure that they're looking at the appropriate amount of data. We'll leave it in your good hands, I guess, is what? Yeah. You know, to because y'all understand that the traffic patterns on the roads where this new development, let's say, is coming in. Yeah. So, okay. All right. So, what is a Q study? Uh Q U. What is a Q study? Queeing. Queuing. What What is that? It's looking at the uh length of the vehicles and how long that queue is they're stacking. Okay. So, basic good example of that would be like a driveway, excuse me, a drive-thru restaurant that's high turnover, high traffic. And we're looking at can you keep all your queued traffic in the drive-through lanes on your site, not queue up on our roadway affect traffic safety overflow? Yes. So will this will these rules that we're promulgating good word promulgating? Will will they give the staff uh the ability if it fails to meet the minimum level of service standards to reject the the project to reject reject the development? Stephen question they would have to mitigate. Yeah. Yeah. To meet the minimum requirements. And if they couldn't then

they then it when it goes before the planning commission staff would say we don't support this development because it fails to meet the minimum level of service. Right. We have had to happen. Yeah. That would be part of the comments. Yeah. Okay. Or or it would be so cost prohibitive that they they walk away from the project, right? They'd have to do so many improvements to to an area that they'd be like, well, doesn't justify us putting this particular development here, which ultimately safeguards the city. Yes. I just want to make sure that we have that power. Yeah. You know, based on these regulations, it might not even be a no from us. They might come to that realization on their own through the study that it's just too cost prohibitive to make those improvements. Okay, that's all. Good question. That was a question that I not I don't I don't expect an answer, but I'm just talking out loud. That was one of the re uh thoughts that I had about the at the four-way there in W six about when they were building those homes, you know, on the side right there. I don't know if they I guess it was already zone that and they could just do, you know, do it because it was zoned that way. But the queuing was one of the things that I wondered about them, you know, lining up at the the stop sign with people's houses right there, you know, if that was going to be a problem. But I guess that it wasn't or it didn't or it wasn't anything that, you know, that was even looked at. and maybe it wasn't supposed to be looked at, but I thought about that at that time. So, but that is a good question. Well, if you'd make that one change about BMA. Yeah. So, we we could have if if we're flooded with constituent calls that we could have input in that, that would be good. Yeah. And that's on page 13. Yes. Okay. You got it. You put that on. I'm putting it on my list here. Okay. Great.

So, I love this because the developer bears the cost of it. Um, I think people are going to be excited about it and I think we jump right into the questions and didn't give like a broad explanation to maybe people watching on YouTube or at home what what this is, what this uh program is. Can somebody kind of give a broad brush of what we're doing here? Sure. So this is um a traffic impact study guide and um scoping document which provides um clarifies the requirements and criteria for traffic impact studies within the city of Hendersonville. So there are a lot of areas where maybe there's some um judgment things like that. Well, this clarifies a lot of that and and gives guidance on how to make um decisions and for growth rates, things like that. um as well as how long to collect counts and and how to approach traffic impact studies for the city of Hendersonville. So, it makes the process very clear for um developers and their engineers, but it also gives um the board and staff um a lot to go off of for requirements. Okay. And it's part of a requirement before you go to the planning commission to have um any mitigation uh lane widening whatever it is to accommodate the traffic that the development would create and prevent any kind of problems after it opens up. Perfect. Great. All right. Um, I know that I was pleased when I saw this, mayor, that this that you'd or produce this document and and I think it I think I hope that it will be it will be passed unanimously on the board when it gets to the board, which in two weeks I think and we'll have that uh amendment ready proposed. I would think that the technical language in this would prove that I had very little to do with it. Well, just I got you. Well, I just

appreciate the staff, you guys doing this cuz this when I read this, I was like, well, I'm not going to say what I said because I'm not that mad to use that kind of verbiage, but I was that's it was a happy way. I was like, yeah, that's that's that's what I'm talking about. All right. Is there any further discussion on on uh resolution 2516's a resolution adopting the traffic impact study? Recommend approval. Okay. And there's been a proper motion and a proper second. Um, everybody ready to vote? Okay. Hearing no discussion on that. All in favor of reading resolution 202516. The resolution adopting the traffic impact study guide to evaluate transportation impacts associated with new development and land use issues. Signify by saying I. I. All oppose. passes unanimously and recommended to the board of alderman for um further review and vote. Okay. Number two, item number two, which is a reading of resolution 20 2515, a resolution authorizing the handmade market to renew its use of the grounds of the city hall for um its market activities. So moved. Second. Okay. There's been a proper motion and second discussion on this one. Can we get an explanation on Yeah, I was going to I think we've done this before, has this is her third or fourth year. Okay. Um always lets us know cleans up the place looks better when she left than when she got here. She always does a great job. Um it's mostly local folks. A lot of folks that don't have stores that are, you know, coming out of their garages or their houses and they have a boot there. Um I do need to take it to the board tonight. um she didn't really let us know her dates until we saw them advert until Casey saw them advertised. Okay. So, we need to move it along and it's not the ideal situation to be in.

Uh but we could hurt a lot of small small businesses if you don't move. Now, obviously the board might have some concerns. Um but we really need to consider it tonight at the board level. Sure. I have no Does anybody in the committee have object objection for that? Um the only I have no objection about that. Do you have the Do you know what the dates are? Her first date was in April. Um, but luckily it got cancelled for rain. Okay. She's already advertising her date, which is the first weekend in May. I think it's got to be quite a big event with I mean dozens and dozens of vendors. Is this the only vendor that uses the city hall property for the market for business? to my to my knowledge when I saw it, I was asking questions. I remember we did the resolution in years past and so I was just curious because it was advertised that there was going to be food trucks and things like that here. I think it's been treated a little differently than our other facility rentals and Andy might have more to weigh in on that. I don't know that it's the same as like our parks and things like that and I don't know and I didn't need a chance to read through the resolution. I don't know. I don't know of any other one that's using city hall. Yeah, I don't know any others using city hall. So, we have we have a church that has done sort of a a sort of bounce houses just because they needed a space. We had a church that did Easter egg hunt out here last weekend. Um, and it categ uh but this is this is Yeah, this is the official one. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Um, does anybody need any further discussion on this one? Um, do you do we have someone already or do you want someone from this committee to make a motion we add it to the agenda or are you just going to do your thing on that? It's on there. Oh, it is on there. It's on there. But if somebody could speak up and say at some point that the public works committee considered it tonight and Oh, yes. Okay. I will do that. That'd be wonderful.

Thank you. All right. Yes, sir. Thank you, Mayor. First weekend in May is was that and that was what we got for a date. Okay. I think it's like May 3rd. You better hurry. Yeah, it's closed. Recommend approval. Okay, there's been a motion, a proper motion, and a proper second. Any further discussion? Hearing none, is everyone ready to vote? All in favor of reading resolution 202515 is a resolution authorizing the Handmade Market to renew its use of the grounds of city hall for its market activities. All in favor say I. I. All oppose. It passes unanimously. Okay, now we've done the work, the new work that we had under ordinances and resolutions. Let's go to other agenda items and let's go for trash collection update. Um thankfully this one's uh not too eventful. Um the misses have been below an acceptable threshold and um not a whole lot a lot to report. I do have one thing. Um, and they went on ahead and picked it up. A skunk got into one garbage can and uh but he the holes were not as big as normal like a raccoon or a possum or something like that. Yeah. And so they but I watched them and they took it and it was a neighbor's it was a neighbor's house so I had to when I heard them coming I was like gosh mom I'll be back in a second so just stay right there and watch TV. She goes, "I'm a going anywhere." And so I went out there and watched them and and they did. And I wasn't expecting them to do it because I mean, you know, when you got holes, you know, you're going to have stuff falling out. But it

they the guys were excellent and they, you know, just kind of watched it like that and took it up there. But it was definitely a skunk because they have uh the cameras and so they really looked at it and it was pretty little skunk. little cute little thing really, but I didn't want I haven't smelled it yet. So, I don't know. Living down by the lake. Okay, let's go on. Enough of that. Let's go on to the um pathled conversion. So, yes. So, this is um this is a proposed LED conversion for uh the street lights in Hendersonville. Um, and I believe that the board as a whole maybe heard from PATH a few years ago, um, when this discussion initiated. Um, and so, um, William Han is here with PATH. He's here to answer any questions anyone might have. Um there's some information provided in the agenda um regarding the uh impacts and benefits to the system and um opportunities for savings with uh converting LED lights. Um so I'll hand it over to William if there are any um questions you have for him specifically. Sure. He's the one to answer. So, has the uh projections on savings uh come to fruition in Goodletsville? Yeah. And what Brentwood and Nashville? Brentwood, Nashville, Lever. Yes, sir. They have. Yep. And we in fact exceeded those expectations, which is always the desire of our projects. Um there's a couple things that have kind of gone in the right direction on those. One, the savings have come back higher than what we originally expected. Um, two, because of frankly the project and the scale of the project in Nashville, a lot of the costs of these projects have kind of

come down. Um, particularly the the development costs because of the data that we've now received. You guys have recently had a recent um audit of your system whether you knew it or not. There NES was auditing your system here recently. And so, frankly, the integrity of a lot of the numbers that we have listed there in front of you has improved over the years. So, that way you guys have benefited from it. So, the cost is what 4.8 million. No sir. What's the cost to burn? The cost would be $2.3 million. I believe it's listed in there. I don't know which page it's listed on. I'd love to 41 agenda. There you go. Another uh likely material component for this for you guys. There's a couple. Um one, TDA has recently increase their incentives related to these projects and so it does make it a bit more beneficial for you. Now, it's not overly material. If you look at that capex cost of $2.3 million, again, the the true cost of the project, TVA incentives recently increased to be roughly around $150,000 for the city of Hendersonville. Um, again, it's not going to offset all of your costs, but that's money that we previously weren't necessarily counting on. So, that's a benefit. 150,000. 150,000. It's 1489 something, but I predict it'll probably come in closer to 150. So, can I ask a quick question? Yes, sir. Go ahead. Um, a lot of the lights are on NES poles, which they had jurisdiction over, but some of our lights are not on NES poles, and that was a problem for us in the past. Um, is that still a problem or It's not a problem. No, at all. We just need to make sure that we we accurately audit and scope the project that way. So, you basically got three subsets of poles. You're going to have your NES owned and operated poles, which lights, you know, they then operate off of. You got your CMC polls. Generally speaking, that's

about a 8515 breakdown. 85% of them being NES, 15% of them being CDMC. And then you likely are going to have some city own polls, right? And so us accurately auditing that and scoping the project is going to be critically important. Um, but luckily again because of that audit data that was recently collected by NES, we can expedite that process for you. Whereas pre that we would send our own auditors out into the field and it would take you know call it four to six months for us to actually collect that data but we have the data a bit more recently because of that NES data audit. Does that help answer your question? Yeah. Yeah. You on city own polls obviously you have every right possible to to do what you want with it. On the NES own polls we basically have to operate inside of their standards. Luckily, because of our project in Nashville and and the other projects we previously conducted, we've been integral in the development of those standards. And so, it does offer you still a tremendous amount of flexibility and we think um maximizes and optimizes the benefits to the city. But we do need to keep that in mind as we think about what needs to go where. So, is the 2.3 um does that include your costs? It does. That's a turnkey price. If you look at that 2.3, you can see that the top number is an NES buyout or upfront payment to NES. I can explain to you all the intricacies of why that payment is needed, but basically there's a a a cost they originally incurred to install the lights and we would need to the city would need to write them a check and as you can see that that amount is included in that total project cost. Is that negotiable? I wish it was. Unfortunately, it's not. It's actually not even an NES derived cost. It's a TVA derived cost. TVA mandates that they recover that cost and they audit their records to make sure that's an accurate number and that's something that we're paying a percentage of every month. It's it's our plan. That's correct. Um yeah, you're paying that every single month

and we could go into how your bill is broken down, but basically into perpetuity, you'll be paying a certain percentage of that amount if you do not retire it. So right now it's frankly an opportunity to retire it and get out of that cycle of paying an ongoing investment charge or something quantify that. Mr. Chairman, can I say something about that? Yes, sir. Correct. That cycle is a mess right now. Correct. Um it's uh it's it's tough. We need to get out of that cycle that we that we have going on right now. Um we're talking about polls that were we own the property. The HOA owns the pole. Nos owns the fixture and sends us a bill for that as well as a uh a maintenance fee on that. Um we have some that HOAs own the whole thing and they pay NES or CBMC. It's uh we need to get out of that maintenance situation. And the ROI of this project is what? I forget exactly how the math works out on this one. Let me real [Applause] quick. It's listed there. If you look at your true, call it annual savings of 152 grand. What page? I'm sorry, sir. That is on page 41. Okay. If you look at that and you just want to just straight line that. So what should we save a year? Where is that on here? How much do we save a year? Sure. In in cost. If you go to page 40, you'll see the breakdown of a pre-RO current annual street light expense and a post project annual street light expense. Left to right. That's how we have it set up. You look at the top set of pies, you'll see for right now you're spending on any slights alone $294,000 a year. We have plenty of reason and again we've done this plenty of times and we're also fairly conservative in these estimates to expect that that bill drops to $141,000 a year where you would gross

savings of $152,596 per year beginning immediately in year one. Say that again. Sure. How much? 152596. Okay. That's that's what we would save annually. Correct. So on a $2 million investment, that's a long time for ROI, roughly 15 years. Now, that amount increases because of the way that we know annual street light expenses increase. And so again, if you look down at the very bottom set of pies, you'll see it referenced over a 20-year timeline where you can see the the net impact of that over a longer period. It's fairly significant. in and the way we almost always see these projects financed. So take lever and Brentwood as two examples. So both tend to pair debt with these because of the unique nature of the generation of savings every single year that would offset any sort of debt payment. Right? More times than not what we see and this would be my advice to you guys. If you can't net 10 to 20% savings inclusive of your debt payment, project's likely not worth tackling. The whole idea behind these projects was, can we generate free cash flow from your existing street light plan? And we believe that we can. We've done it before. I think we can do it here as well if you wanted to to pay for via debt. Just to be very clear, we see other cities pay cash all the time. 20 years, I'd say Skidmore be the only one here. That's funny. That's funny. So, something that's not in your report is that uh there's a safety component. Uh LED lights are are white. They have good beam spread. Um high pressure sodium is yellow and they're just not very good. Um so,

wherever you install the LED, you get a benefit on safety. We had a committee a couple of years ago. Um what was the result of that report? We we looked at several different options and I think we landed that using PATH was the best or Well, ultimately the recommendation was just to let NES do it. Um but we've had conversations with NES and that was actually that segus into what I was going to add is that um we're going to be forced to pay for this project one way or the other. So, if we decide to go ahead and do it now and start our savings earlier, then then that's one way to approach it. If we let NES do it, we're still going to be paying for all of this because they're going to put those equipment costs in our plant and we'll end up paying that back over the long term. Um, and so that's what NES has communicated to us. And you have to, if we do it on our own, we have to use an approved contractor, which PATH is. Um and so they recommended that we use PATH and so that's why they're here to speak to us. So one way or the other ultimately over the next five years we will be absorbing this cost whether it is through our regular invoicing from NES or whether it's through a project with PATH. Um and that's from NES. They have a five-year conversion plan for this for this area. So we would have to bid PAL though, wouldn't we? I mean they're they're not a single s source supplier are they? So there are um limited um companies that do this type of work and there are only certain ones that are approved with NES. Um and so I think there's some justification probably we would have to communicate with procurement to see how we satisfy that. Um whether we put out an RFP and and specify there an approved contract or how we approach that. We'd have to work that out. And I would add also this is always a conversation because procurement is an issue neither

you nor I want to get caught up in any sort of issues. Um there's a state code statute 124110 and I can send that out. It may actually in that presentation I don't remember. I think it is on the last page. Um 124110 was designed to allow public entities cities of course being one to direct procure services if they're procured on the basis of energy savings. Of course, this project is the complex nature of these prevents you from being able to frankly accurately bid it out because you an an electrical subcontractor may say that's fine. It cost me x amount to hang that light. However, all the data integrity that has to go back and forth with NES would make that complex and the state figured out it would lead to a higher cost when people price that in. So, there's qualified there's a a pre-qualified list of escos which were one and you can in theory direct procure that way. You're on a government GIS. Correct. So you can get that bro. Correct. So what is our next um are or I mean what do we need to do tonight on this issue or what before we do that? Mayor is there anything you want to add to this or I want your conversation. I want your input. I want your guidance. Okay. Um then the expenditures seem almost parallel if we were to get a loan with the finance service cost. Is that fair? That's correct. And to be clear, PATH generally does not play any party to that transaction, the financing. I'm an ex bank director to be happy to do it. Frankly, my cost of borrowing money be significantly higher. Um we always advise if that's the direction you guys want to go, you have established financing partners, please have those conversations. You can see on that slide we made some assumptions about potential borrowing rates, but you're right. Yes, they do. One frankly just kind of offsets the other. Yeah. 169,000 and I

think you said 150 something thousand in savings. Correct. Pretty. That's just for that first year. The first couple years you're actually a little bit behind annually and then you catch up pretty quick and the savings start to pile back up. Yeah. Yeah. That's is that conventional financing? Conventional. So, does the city have can they get better than conventional financing for a project like this? Don't know. You don't have Goodwill funded theirs? Oh, man. That was four or five years ago. Okay. I I don't No, sir. I can get you the details and pass along to you. So, here here's a question. I have you have you all to help me answer this question. Do we want the people who are going to benefit from this over the next 20 years to pay for it? Or do we want to that would mean taking out some sort of some sort of loan or do we want to consider what we have in our infrastructure fund or from our PIP fund ongoing? If we do that, it means the people are here right now are paying for it. If we go sell bonds or take out a loan, it means the people who are benefiting from this will be paying for it. Well, this is a worthy project to consider, but I don't know from my perspective if it bumps some roads, some building or widening some roads, you know, and improving some changes to help traffic. I I don't I don't I don't know how to I mean, to me, roads, if we're looking at infrastructure dollars, aren't there state and federal grants? used to be more than there are now. Believe me, it make my life a lot easier. Uh, unfortunately, there's not a huge number of them. We'll gladly go explore them. Um, the TBA incentives are frankly the most meaningful incentives. There used to be a grant program that just went away over time for these types of projects. Not to say that you couldn't find other ways to craft the

project to fit inside of one, but we're not seeing those widely used right now. I'd like to I'd like for the staff to examine some uh non-conventional loan options like through uh when we do bonds and stuff. Where do we get that from? Raymond James. Raymond James is the company we use. Yeah. I mean, I I don't know if his assumptions if if his assumptions on the the the financing cost if we could beat that or not, but I I I'd like a little more information on the financing u option. So, so let me ask you is 15 years from the staff perspective, y'all are smart people. Is that is that a wise investment? a 15-year ROI on this. I think it's a wise investment. I wish we're shorter. What I have been telling you off for a long time is I've been hearing four to six. Um, and I don't know why they're saying 15. Maybe my four to six was wrong. Maybe 15 is wrong. Maybe somewhere in the middle. Now, he's giving you some numbers that I didn't have. Um, totally totally understand that. Um, but I've made no commitments to any company and that's part of the reasons I want to see what different companies offer with different ROIs. Seems like a cash flow perspective, maybe more what we're looking at here anyway because if the cash flow is better or worse, that's maybe more important than the ROI. And it's probably important for us to also look at what would it cost for NES if they're going to do it anyway, then any company we choose would need to be better than NES and maybe substantially because it's more work for us to get into a contract to just have NES do it. So is the staff coming to us with a recommendation on this? I think at this time we have some I

think we have some work to do. Okay. Yeah. Why is this helpful? Yeah. I think I think we're all in support of it. I mean, I don't know. Tell me if you if you're wrong. Any committee member and I think the way to sell it at the board is to it's going to be a numbers thing for them. I think as a as a rule as a whole, I I mean, tell me if you think I'm if I'm wrong, you know, tell me say Skidmore. I look at it different than it doesn't bother me. Um, but I I think as far as the total board, um, I think it's going to be a numbers thing. Um, and I think we need to get our our stuff in line. Um, because you've done excellent work, I got to tell you. Thank you. Very very u impressed with what you you brought forward. Um, your answers were quick to us and very concise. and tell your boss who you need to raise. Well, thank you the report. Okay, I'm on TV. Perfect. Did that. So, is that uh what about the parks? Uh LED lighting in the parks. Do you do you ever do that as well? Almost every time. So, could you give us This does not include the parks, does it? Could you could you do us up a an add-on? Sure. You know I tell you when I say almost every time I mean that truly what we see happen almost always it's always a cash flow thing and I remember Kirk Bedar I don't know how many of you are familiar with him from Brentwood recently retired city manager he had this discussion we'll call it with his board about is it a ROI project or a cash flow project what we almost see almost happen every single time is there's net savings generated and everybody says can we just make that equal cash flow neutral and add in the parks because because sports lighting

and park lighting frankly don't have the payback that a street lighting project does. They don't run for the same amount of hours. However, when you combine them, you can build a project out that's pretty compelling on paper. We can absolutely look at it. What What brand sports lighting do you pick the brand? Absolutely. Yep. Now, we have established relationships, working relationship. We do not rep anything. We do not manufacture anything, but Musco's frankly one of the more common ones we use. I've got probably a dozen projects right now with them in development. Um, Ephesus, Cooper, Ephesus is another one that's fairly prominent. Whatever your choices, they will work within that frame. Would uh the revenues if the board adopted impact these? Could that pay? I mean, with more people living, we need better street lights. These provide better street lights. Is Is there a possible way that that could be stretched into helping finance use use impact fees for that? That's that's Well, I I'll I'll withdraw the question. I like the question. Yeah, stretch might have been the best word. Yeah, I'll withdraw the question. Okay, couple more things if I might just mention these. In my experience, we do a lot of other things other than street light projects. I frankly love presenting on street lights because one, everybody sees them and everybody kind of has a base level understanding. Two, they benefit everybody equally and equitably, which is pretty rare when it comes to decisions you guys are making, right? And so in that regard, it's sometimes a bit easier to talk about publicly than some of the other projects. The third thing that I want to mention and and I think Sarah can maybe hopefully speak to this. This is not my style and this is not a pressure thing, but this is something at least for all of us to be aware of. We're currently conducting the project in Nashville. Our layown yard is right on the border of Hendersonville. That's a benefit to you guys. Two, the tariff situation is becoming fairly real for us. Um, and I do not think that is a reason alone to jump at this thing, but I at least want

to bring it to your attention. Um, we're seeing other cities that are juggling this with other projects say, "Okay, we can't risk that project being 20% more expensive next month." You guys know how this is not my thing. Um, so just keep those things in mind as we continue to to Are the lights coming from China? The components are coming from China. China. The LED. Correct. So that's fair. I appreciate that. Yeah. And again, like please do not hear me say that as you need to jump at this because of it, but I would be remissed if I didn't say that. Well, I'm glad you said something about that. Sure. Because that is it seems like I agree with you. It seems like that that's in on in our horizon as a country. Look, and the prices go up 20% tomorrow and then the next day they're removed and they come back down. You guys know the news as well as I do. Yeah. Uh so it does not make my projects any better. I promise you to sell if they become more expensive. you know and not report. So I think the tariff issue will be take will take care of itself down the road. Yeah. Um which we need time to kind of vet your numbers anyway with our staff. Two years ago we were one of the last jurisdictions to move on LED lighting is all the other ones are moving ahead and we're not. Basically NES it's and I know this is recorded. They were texting me asking me about this and I have meetings there tomorrow. They're very curious as to what direction is Hendersonville going to go because to Sarah's point, they're going to have to start putting plans in place to convert these lights on their own. How are they going to fund the project? Again, you guys will pay for it one way or the other through your bill or through this project, but they're very eager to get their system converted. Okay. Yeah. All right. I'd like to determine our own destiny. Yeah. Amen. Yep. All right. So, um, before before we make what we want to request this our city staff to do, uh, Jesse, did you have any other thing to say

about it? I I know the mayor did or you or any other thoughts? No, sir. I don't. Any of you guys or any anybody? Andy, how about you? You think it, you know, putting an ad on on there about the parks would be a good idea? If that would be a fit, it'd be tremendous. I know the mayor has made that a priority and that could be done at any time. We also had a fire on one of the Yeah. I mean, my my biggest concern in the park is the age of our H hallogen lighting and the long-term ability to even get the lights and ballasts, okay, within the next 5 to 10 years. I'm not even sure they're still producing them. I think whatever is in stock is what people have at this point. the price has shot up on. Yeah, they're more expensive than LEDs. Everybody knows that if you have it, they're price. All right. So, uh I'll need a a a recommendation uh from the committee. Do um any anything specifically we need to attack on this? And because we'll have to bring it back here one more time before it goes to the board. So, how long does staff need 30 days or 60 days? Um, I think we might be able to get some high level costs from NES. In the past, it's it's been difficult for them because what they're going to do is they're not going to use their own staff. They're going to have a contractor. You don't have to go to T DOT. No. Thank you. No. Yeah. So, 30 days I think we should get be able to get my high level numbers. We put it on the next agenda. Y'all think be ready? I think we can satisfy that. Mayor, is that cool? Sounds great. Does that work for you all? Yeah, absolutely. And I can tell you to Sarah's point, they're they're going to turn around and just ask us what the price is. We're we're their contractor performing their systemwide conversion. And so if you guys said, "Hey, NES, what does it cost?" They're going to turn around and say, "Hey, Pat, what would you guys charge us to convert the lights at Hendersonville?" And they would pass it

along direct to you. There's there's not some Can you get the add-on for parks in 30 days? I can if I can work with you maybe and understand what scope you'd like priced. Well, I already h I have already in my filing cabinet a schedule that Musco has done for us of every field that we have not already converted because we've converted some. Sure. So, I can send you what we have left. Perfect. And it's they have like a three-year price range on it. I'm sure if you watch Musco, you know, Greg really well. Yep. Good. That's easy. I can take care of that. No problem. Okay. So, we'll ask you to y'all two to get together, have your people contact his people, our vice versa. Um, and and talk about this or something. That'd be good. That would be good. We'll do um and do that. So, we're going to ask we have it back on our agenda next month and we'll have that done. All right. Is there any further discussion on that? Yeah. Did we want to include a request for um governmental funding options that are available to us? Yeah, I want you to shop around. Yeah. So, let me ask you a question. Do you want do you want us to go out and do more replacement and keep the payments at you the same level they're at now, or do you want us to look for ways to save money immediately? Well, if if we had plenty of money and not a lot of people asking for it, okay, I'd say do it and get it done. Okay. But, you know, we've we got a lot on our plate, you know, and I don't I don't I want to be conservative. So, I mean, I

would look more at the what do you call it? A cash flow analysis. That's what it sounds like. A cash flow. Yeah. Uh, so you won't really know which one is going to weigh better until you start digging into it. So why don't we just rely on you guys when you kind of start looking at it to come back with a recommendation. Yeah. Yeah. Good. I agree. All right. Do you need anything else from us this evening? We'll see you next month. Thank you very much. I appreciate the time and the questions. Thank you. See you for having me back. Thank you. Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. Sounds good, guys. All right. Well, that's great. Now, we're moving right along. Budget. Budget time. Uh, looks like we got it squared away up there. And Sarah, I'm giving the floor to you on that one. Excellent. So, Jesse or Jesse? Yeah, I think you're gonna defer to Jesse. Okay. Uh, I'm sorry. Uh, Sarah, sorry this Jesse, I'm leaving it to you, my friend. As I said, so so my question earlier this week to Jesse was we're going to have another workshop, correct? Yes, sir. And so for this meeting, I it would it be more appropriate for us to focus on public works and parks because those are the two departments. And then our other questions for the workshop. Would that be the most efficient use of our time? I believe so. And this is just the operating budget. So this is exactly what was uh already given to two of the committees. So it's going to the other two committees tonight be going to finance and obviously it's here tonight. Uh I'm going to pinch hit for Tamara. So, I'm going to, you know, we're already past time, but I want to plan on maybe five, 10 minutes, go over this and then keep

it open for questions from you. Is that Does that sound fair? Sure. Let's do it. I'm just going to go on the PowerPoint. Here's a slide deck in front of you if you wanted to. Uh, but before we start, just to give you the history, we started this budget about a couple million in the red. And so, we went through several iterations to get it down where we're at right now. Again, this is the operating budget. at the point that it's proposed right now, it's about $830,000 in the red. Uh so we still have work that we need to do on it. Uh but this is what we kicked out a few weeks ago. U we ask each department to keep their increase to 1% unless there's justification. So if there's justification as to why to go above, we just look at it. If it's justified, we go above. If not, we'd ask everyone to keep it to 1%. Uh for salaries and benefits, there's 2% in here for cola increase for all employees. And that's based on CPI. That's based on what the mayor asked to put in. CPI is 2 and a half% this year, but uh Mayor Clary asked for a 2% to be put in. And then health benefits, uh we anticipate a 15% increase. We've looked at switching to the state plan. So that's that's all included in here. Okay. Um so that's just kind of a high level. So we started in the red. But the step raises are included. Yes, sir. 2.5%. Yeah. Yes, sir. All right. So, uh the revenues um that we talked about at budget workshop one are relatively exactly the same. So, remember at workshop one we went over revenues and assumptions. So, we've made some very minor changes as are outlined here, but really nothing significant to speak of. Uh so from fiscal year 25 to 26 there's about a million and a half increase or 2.28%. So we're not seeing the revenue growth that we've seen previous years. Still really strong revenue but previous years you know our

sales tax just exploded. Uh we're not seeing that trend continue. And so we're very similar to the state. We're budgeting pretty flat this year only increasing about 2 and a quarter. Uh this is just a pie chart of where we get our revenues from. So as we've talked about, we really have two major levers that we can pull here. Sales tax, which is at the max, except for groceries, which is reduced. Uh and then property tax. So between those two, it's about 80% of what we collect and the rest of the revenues are just, you know, it's a fraction of of what we collect. Here's a look at operating expenditures by department. So, we're up almost 4%, a little less than 4%. Uh, given the colas and the health insurance and everything that's all baked in here and the um increases we've seen, I think coming in at, you know, three and three/4ers is is I think we've done a good job becoming at three and three/4ers uh from last year. So for you know the things that will affect this committee public works that's going to be on row seven. Disposal on row 11. Those are the two major ones. Disposal has that's our trash service. It has um increases per our contract. So those are things we just can't avoid. And then we have the number of homes that is increasing as well too. So we'll see some increase of disposal. we'll see a small uptick in in public works, but really for public works, very minimal uptick. And that's where we house all of our paving is within well, not all of it, but all of our general fund paving is within the public works department budget. This is and that's 2.8, right, in the operating budget for paving, I think. So, 2.8. I think so. That's right.

This is just a pie chart of the budgeted expenditures by department. Uh police and fire are over half of the budget. Uh you will see public works at 10%. They're on the right here and that includes the paving. So public works is a substantial portion of the budget. Uh parks is at 6% right above it. Uh but police and fire again are the the bulk of the priority uh when it comes to expenditures by department. And then this is a breakdown of salaries and benefits amount by department. So of all the salaries and benefits uh you can see the majority of it is consumed by fire and police at about 74% and then if you look at parks it's around 6% and then public works is 5% for salaries and benefits. And I believe that parks is including the part-time staff too because they have a lot more part-time where public works doesn't have the part-time staff. So that's why you'll see that be a little bit higher for parks than it would be for public works. Jesse, during the workshop that you provide us by department, the number of employees per department. Yeah. So what will be in your uh in the Bulma resolution will be uh an organizational chart that shows every position in the department plus their pay grade and how many are in that position. We will also have it itemized on a list as well. Okay. So you'll see exactly how many positions. Okay. And that's going to be in our workshop, right? Uh we we can probably have it by the workshop, but it is in the ordinance. So we we'll absolutely have it in the ordinance. It's part of what we put in the budget book. We we for staff, we'll get to that in a second. We'll see what we're doing with staff. So, this is total operating budget by type. So, you can see twothirds of salaries and benefits. Again, we saw that the majority of that was public safety, police, and fire.

Operations 31%. And then we have a small amount with debt services. Assets and community contributions. They round to zero because they're less than a half of a percent. There's small small slice but the bulk of budget is salaries and benefits at twothirds and operations at a third. This is what we discussed early on in the budget process. We talked about priorities. So low property taxes. This budget does not include a property tax increase. So it is staying at proposed the mayor's proposed it at the current rate it's at. Uh a balanced operating budget. uh that is where your your budget uh what you bring in in revenue on a recurring basis can pay for your recurring expenses. We're not at a place right now where this is balanced. We are 833,000 in the red. So that's something we're still working on. Um we we do have debt reduction this year. There's 2.1 million of debt reduction when we compare to last year. Very good thing. And we're bringing no new debt on and next budget cycle we'll have a million dollars of debt payment roll off. So continue to make that reduction a priority. Here's an overview of debt. Uh you can see we pay a very small amount in interest shown on the pie chart on the right at 7% and you can see the interest dropping from fiscal year 25 to 26. And and an interesting note is that we are paying 537,000 in interest while we are collecting over a million in interest from our from our policy. So, we are collecting more interest and we're paying an interest, which is a good position to be in, but very low debt and low interest on the debt. Uh, paving was another budget priority. So, in the general fund, you'll see 2.7 million. I think that's all that's all in public works, too. In that department, state street aid has a million of paving and then the pit fund has 3.7 million in paving. So, total 7.5 million in paving. That's a small reduction when we consider this

current year. This current year we threw some parking lots in in the parks as well. So that to that number I think was 7.7 for the total amount that we spent on paving this year. So small reduction but still So will all this go to streets? All of that go to streets. Uh I believe it's all for streets. Okay. So very very healthy pigy budget like last Have you come up with a list, a plan for what this money's going to do? We're we've driven the streets. We've itemized it. So, we have a really good idea. We haven't finalized it yet, but we have we have a a list that we're working on. So, do you think your preliminary uh evaluation justifies 7.5? 7.5 puts us in a really good position. It allows us to hit the streets that are really needing um the streets that are the worst. 7.5 will cover it. When will we see the the plan? Uh by the second workshop, we should have the which is May 5th, we should have a a um a list of the streets. Yeah. You want to get into questions or you still you still going? Well, I'm done. If we want to get into questions, that's up to you guys. Well, we don't have a lot of time. We're past time. Um, so, uh, on the PIP, uh, and I've talked to you about this, Jesse. I've talked to the mayor about it. We went, we went to citizens and promised them that we were going to spend the money in four areas: paving, parks, public safety, and infrastructure. And, uh, the mayor's budget has zero for infrastructure in the PIP. Last year, I think we had $250,000, something like. So, we're we're not fulfilling, in my view, what we promised the residents that we were going to spend some of this money on

infrastructure. That's widening roads, that's improving intersections, something that has an impact on traffic. Uh, so I'm going to raise this Mark at the workshop. I I I just I'm concerned that we're not we're not we're not I don't think we're operating in good faith to to the citizens of what we promised or what I promised them and what the ordinance says that we're going to spend the money in these four areas. So that's a concern I have. One of the concerns I have with this budget is the PIP. Uh let's look at hotel [Applause] motel. We What page will that be on here? 75. Thank you, sir. And I have a terror motion for this. So Jesse, in the blue box, you tell us what the budgeted ending fund balance is going to be for the hotel motel tax. Correct. Yes, sir. And what you had 113,000. Correct. Yes, sir. Are are you do you feel pretty confident of that number? I mean, I know we need some I know we need some some uh flexibility in case the hotels don't and I know we're not going to have a big tournament like we had in the past, right? Uh crossing. Yeah. Yeah. So, are you how how confident are you that the fund balance in this category will be about over $100,000?

Fairly confident. Okay. Uh guys, uh I'm on the golf commission and the country hills our city owned golf course and we're doing great. The the the course is making money and we're spending money and infrastructure on the course. The public works comes out once a year. Andy, make sure I don't misspe. Um twice a year. twice a year and highlight stuff that needs to be done mainly on the the building, the city building, the clubhouse, and the the the with the help of parks, uh they have done a lot of the work, but we're still about $45,000 away from doing what public works evaluation said needs to be done on the building. Is that right, sir? And so the parks commission made a motion and I'm to bring that motion that if at all possible, they tried to get it in the mid-year budget. There wasn't room, but if at all possible to try to allocate $40,000 to the golf course so they can finish the work on the city building that the city has told us needs to be done. Now, we could have done it if it hadn't have been for the sledding damage. You know, the the the trouble with people sledding and we had to spend was it 80 or 90,000 on sod close to 60 60,000. So, I'm I'm wondering, Jesse, could we out of the hotel motel? And I think that I think you could make an argument that that it would be appropriate to spend that out of here instead of 113,000 projected minus 40,000 of that. They wanted 45, but let's let's go with 40. And and so that the that the parks and and the the management company can do the work on the building that needs to be done to renovate it.

So that would reduce the 113,000 down $40,000. That would still leave you $70,000. Approximately $70,000. So uh what does staff think about that? Well, as far as a an ending balance, I think 70,000 would is fine. I don't think we need to have more than 70,000 in there. Um, you know, as far as the golf golf course being applicable, and check with the state to see if that's a appropriate use of tourism dollars. I think it would be. Then after that, it's just whether the mayor would want to include it in his proposed budget. What do y'all think? I mean, guys, well, my only my only thing would be is if I think that the I don't have a problem with it. Um, but I would say that I think the board needs to know what, you know, we what our projection was as a city was at 113 and we're going and we want to take 40 out. Well, why do you don't you just don't arbitrarily do that? I mean, any alderman that has that seat in there would say, "What what's going on? Where's the where's the $40,000 going?" you know, um, and then we then we would have to tell them, you know, I don't mind telling them, but that I think that's important that they that they know that and I would ask Andy to explain. Sure. He he knows exactly what it is. We can provide a list with estimates. Yeah. I mean, our golf course is making good money and uh we're just trying to keep the building up to standard, you know, so it don't deteriorate. It's it's a city-owned building. We own it. So, uh, yeah, I don't know that the mayor would probably have an issue with it, but he, you're right, he does need to know what, you know, what we want to do with that

money. Um, does anybody object to that? I mean, we all are in agreement. It's just, you know, how it is. We're all in agreement. We just have different ways of getting to that point. Um, okay. Hearing none, we'll just put this as an acknowledgement, I guess, and have Can I have a question? Yeah, sure. Can you talk a little bit more about the debt reduction? Looks like you had a million dollars from this year. So, every year we pay down our debt a little bit at a time. Is that mandatory? It comes up with a million. Yeah, we have a we have a debt schedule. So, um those are typically by annual payments and when you finance a project, the schedule is um at that time it's established and so you pay typically twice a year until you retire the debt. So that would be like if we went with Ray and James and got financing just like if we did on this path um they come up with a schedule with how the principal and interest rolls off and schedule. Yeah. But it's not always an even burn. So what's different about this it doesn't like you know home mortgage it will burn evenly and your principal you know stacks over time and your interest reduces over time. uh it doesn't typically work that way uh on the debt that the city issues. So at times there will be a big principal payoff and other times there won't be. Okay. So certain years you see a a reduction that you don't see in other years. It's page 71, right? In your book for the schedule. Yeah. So the schedules um

are on page 71. The top left it it groups them all together. um top right gives you debt by year and then the bottom of the page and on the next page gives you the current notes that are out there. So if you look at the bottom of page 71 on the right side, you'll see a payment uh fiscal year 26 for 1.3 million in the far right column on page 71. Okay. And then uh for fiscal year 27 again on page 20 on page 71 you'll see the total payment goes from 1.3 million26 to 500,027. Okay. So that's where it's not always an even burn. And if you look at the other schedules, it doesn't always burn evenly how that rolls off. All right. I was just hoping we had a pot to pull from. Um because I think we're about to have another coup like we have with the police. Do we have If you have money in capital projects and you cancel a project, can you pull it out and move it into something else? Well, capital projects is a nonoperating budget. Um so you you don't transfer that into your operating budget. I mean Bowman can make an amendment any time to do whatever they want with money but um from a staff level we don't pull we don't even pull money between departments it gets appropriated by department and by group and department so there's three groups in each department salaries operations and assets we don't even mix between the three there's line items in each one where yeah if you know FICA was a little less and TCRS was a little more within

salaries we don't go back and do a budget amendment for that as long as the total of that group is not spending more. But we don't even switch between departments and the operating budget. So I mean it's as simple as doing a you know a budget amendment takes two months by the time you go to committee and two readings by ordinance but that's at bless discretion. We as staff do not have the ability to do that. So what is in for fire and city staff salaries or what was it 2% you said it? Yeah, it's 2%. Um, so staffing considerations, there's a there's built in a 2% cost of living adjustment for all staff. So all full-time staff, there's 2% that's baked into the budget. It's 300 approximately $350,000 for each 1% of COLA for all staff. So just that's the terms that you can think of it. So if you did like a 3% COLA, you're talking a little over a million dollars to do that. Um, as far as staff numbers go, um, Greg figured out a way to actually make his department more efficient with one less person but ranking the positions that are there at a higher level and then that increase of the that reduction of the position roll over to park. So, um, so Jesse, if we wanted to give more than 2%, it wouldn't be wise to claw back, use a federal term now, claw back a capital projects because a capital projects budget is a one-time expenditure, a a salary increase is a recurring expense. So you you shouldn't take a capital projects a million dollars and put it in in a a recurring expenditure. That's just budgeting, is it? Yeah, it would fund it for the one year. But then yeah, that the the recurring issue with with salaries and benefits is their year-over-year where capital. That's why we put it in the non-operating because we can we can

cancel a project. we don't need to do it, but we need to pay staff every, you know, every two weeks. So, that's those are those recurring expenses. Why you want to balance your operating budget, but your nonoperating your capital project budget, that'll never be balanced. It'll always be in the red because you don't have revenue to match it. So, yeah, you need to be cognizant of it's year over year over year for those increases. Well, we're gonna have to do something, I think. Talk about it some more, I guess. I mean, I got an idea. Let's hear it. I've talked to Jesse about it. Uh, give everybody the cola, the 2% and the step. What percentage of employees get a step? If you could come up with that number, isn't it a high number? It's probably 90%. 90% are going to get are going to get two and a half and 2% which is four and a half%. But on top of that, what do you think about because we've already dealt with the police department. We dealt with them at the meteor budget, right? So, let's have kind of a catchup provision and give every employee other than police in addition to the cola and the step $2,000. Now, that's not a one-time bonus. that is added to their salary. So their their salary actually will go up $2,000. And about what would that cost, Jesse? Uh there's 387 employees. About 130 of them are going to be the police officers who were given the increase earlier. So you'd have um 380 minus 130. be about 250. So it' be about a half of a million dollars every year

for the for the if you were to do a $2,000 plus the cola is $350,000. Now the the beauty of the of the given and Gallatin did this didn't something similar. Gallatin I think did a thousand. Maybe it was two years ago but they did a thousand. But the beauty of this is that giving everyone $2,000 doesn't create compression because everybody gets it. So it doesn't give it get us into that problem of compression. But give every employee 2,000 in addition to to what we're already going to do except the police department. Now the police department might be upset with us guys, but I mean I'm looking at the rest of the employees. Well, I think the police are happy with what we did. I do, too. And they'll still get the COA. Yes. And the retirement package, right? Well, that's that's a good idea. Hopefully, we can come up with some more. I mean, yeah. I mean, I mean, that's a that's those are the kind of thoughts that I don't en that I don't mind having at night when I'm sitting there thinking about the city, you know? That's a that's a good thought really. I mean, I I'm just trying I just You're trying to do the right thing, honestly. Yeah. I mean, I think the other employees feel slight. I know the fire department does and and the I'm sure the park Well, their butts off, you know, they may not say it, but I'm sure they know. I mean, I've talked to some of them, you know, um, just off the, you know, just us talking because, you know, I'm on their committee and, you know, this committee and they do such fine work. I mean, I um, that's why I've never gone to any other committee because they do great work. We've got great staff. We got

great employees in public works and um so yeah and of course with the fire department you know where my heart is on that and I think that's a real good idea and one that we need would we talk about that at a um when would you want to even discuss that? I know it's really public safety, but Yeah. But I mean, it's at the workshop. I guess the work. That's what I would I would think that you would. And the reason I I don't want to do more Yeah. is because we're getting ready to look at the bridge program. Yeah. So, we got to hold a few cards in our hand, right? You know, we can't play them all out on the deck, right? We got a couple aces left, you know. So, all right. All right. That's that's a good good idea. We might have to have a talk about that some more, but that's good. When are we When is our meeting our workshop meeting? May 5th. May 5th. Write that down so I won't forget it. May 5th is shop. It's what I just call it. Shot top. Yeah, shut up. All right. Um, let's go on with any other discussion right now on the budget. We're moving right along or just on this area. We're talking about death on page 71. Is it true we went in not in 2025 we paid $776,000 in interest and we're reducing it in 2026 to $167,000. Is that correct? I'm looking at the No, we're we're reducing the we're reducing the amount by a by that 176. So it went from 776 to 537,000.

So if you look at the debt here in 25, we paid 776, which is what it shows on page 71. But then in fiscal year 26, the total of the uh interest the interest that we're going to pay is 537. Not according to 70 page 71. Look at the top gra. Look at the top debt outstanding as of 125. What does it say on interest payment? Which one are you looking at? Page 71. The top one on the left. What does it say for 2026? What does it say? The interest that we're paid. You don't see it? Yeah, I do. It says 167, but last year we paid seven. I mean, I I hope that's true because that means we've paid a lot of interest off. Uh that's maybe that's outstanding debt. I'm sorry. Maybe that is the total outstanding interest debt um in total and not what we paid. I might have misqued that. So that could be u and Tamara made this graph so I apologize. She is supposed to be in here doing this. Um so that could be total what's left. So 776 and total interest we had outstanding in 25 and 537 is total outstanding interest we have in fiscal year 26. Well, we just need to get this table corrected. It doesn't that doesn't I mean I was hoping that that was true, but your number 537 sounds a more realistic number interest payment dropping that much. Well, so this shows that 537 of interest is is outstanding um as of fiscal year 26. So what it's

saying up there is there's 537,000 of debt of interest debt with which is what this is showing as well too. So interest payment that we have to make [Applause] uh own [Applause] parks. I want to is this ride parks? Y'all had a lot of overtime, Andy. But but according to this, we're only estimating uh overtime for parks $2,000 for the whole fiscal year. Is that true? Is that right, Andrew? The original budget The original budget is 20,000, but the estimated year end is $2,000. Is that a typo? Uh, I would hope so. Typ typically how it's going to break. Typically, we're in the 15 to $20,000 range. I mean, we're lucky that all our guys take it as comp time to be honest. For the most part, very few of them actually cash it out. If they cashed it out, it would be in the hundreds of thousands because as a result of the 2,000, I think they're only giving you 5,000 in overtime. Yeah, that would be a problem. So she may have she may have that in there as because we're not they usually don't cash the people that do cash it out usually do not cash it out until June whenever the deadline is to use it or lose it. Yeah. So typically we're in the 15 to 20 range. Okay. Might need to check. Probably check on that myself. And then Mary's Magical Place, we're budgeting $70,000. That's correct. That's what's in the account currently. That's just money we've been able to save up from donations from the community and from hosting pigfest. So,

we're just continuing to save that up until we can hopefully there's a there's a newer type of wheelchair swing that does not require a key and doesn't require being locked up and didn't come from Australia. Okay. So, that's terrible. That's our goal to try to save up to do that. Some other things with rolling that over. That's all I had for parks, um, public works. See if I anything there. Oh, Jesse, on all of the departments, we have an insurance payment of claim. What is that? It's line 44 on public works. It's It's $15,000. What What is payment of claim? Yeah. So, if we if we pay something that gets reimbured through insurance, um that way we don't have to come back. We're basically anticipating that we're going to have some type of insurance reimbursement throughout the year. A car gets hit, we have to pay to fix that vehicle, we don't come back for a budget adjustment. Uh, that's that's fine. Uh, yeah. So, as much as I love paving, you know, the little plan I've got, the $500,000, I would propose it coming out of paving. And I would also propose putting some of the money in paving and uh and maybe we could use some paving onetime money out of the fund balance. So I think there's a lot of ways to skim a cat if if you know but uh we we may be in crisis mode. I don't know if you would consider dipping into

our reserves. Yeah. And we have how much do we have in reserves? We have um millions between all three, but we have about I think about 20 million in unassigned fund balance. So you could also use unassigned fund balance and not even dip into your technical reserves if you wanted to do a one-time paving project, but the comp controller requires a certain amount in the fund balance. Yes, sir. We're well above that. I don't Yeah. How much is that? Do you know right off hand? About 10 million. Yeah, I was going to say we Okay. I remember the old days. We are We can pay some of the paving out of that and take the money for doing this. Yeah. So the citizens still get their payment, right? Yes. Yeah. Could do that. I think there's a way. We'll figure out a way. We're government. There's always a way, right? And the reason we can find a way is because the staff has done such a good job. I'm telling you, in managing the money. I know. I mean, you know, I mean, they have. I mean, that's straight up truth right there. Sorry. Okay. I'm finished. Got two or three things left. Oh, yeah. Goodness. I just love public works so much. I just I can just do this all night. Um, okay. Anything else on the budget hearing? None. Uh, thank you all for kind of showing us showing us the ropes and we'll be talking about this again at our workshop uh on May 5th. I'm sure there'll be some more questions to be asked. Thank you. Uh, thank you very much, sir. Thanks, Andy. Be careful. See you in a little bit. Um on to traffic and parking committee agenda.

Um yes. So this is uh we met on March 28th and uh prepared some minutes and sent those to the mayor as we do. Yeah, I just read them. And um for number one, he advised staff to go ahead and move toward implementation. So that's the no parking signs on a bant. So those signs have been ordered and we've already prepared the map. um for staff to to perform that installation. We've done the one call. So that that's in progress. Um the rest of the items u mayor asked to come to public works committee for discussion and decision. Um so I'll just go through those. Uh item number two is a request for site distance evaluation at New Shackle Island and Creekwood Drive. and staff evaluated uh the uh required site distance and what is currently provided and found that um there were two options that current site distance was not currently met for the um the current traffic situation there. So, the two options would be to install a no right on red because that's the movement where sight distance is not meant for looking to the left if you're on Creekwood looking uh at the northbound New Shackle Island approach. And so, um we could install a no right or red, which of course would be a significant inconvenience to residents there. The other option is to provide appropriate sight distance. the obstruction is on private property and so uh or our ordinance does provide uh the city leverage to um require property owners to provide the appropriate site distance. So um that process would involve a property maintenance um moving forward with some uh enforcement there to provide the required clear sight. So that's a property maintenance issue really. Yes. Okay. Yeah. And so that would be our recommendation uh for

moving forward. Does the city ever remove it at our expense on private? Have we ever done that? If we do, we invoice the property owner for the time and resources associated with that work. Yeah, I've had complaints about that, but I know when we cut that lady's bushes down, she's going to be hot when she's sided. Yeah. Yes. And it she's in violation. You believe she that those plants are in violation of city ordinance? Yes. They are obstructing clear sight. Well, if they if they are then we don't really have a choice in the matter. I mean, if we do it, I mean, we do we notify her and and do all that or we just go in there? Yes, she would receive communications for property maintenance. Any questions on that one? Okay. Number three, request for Mustang Lane school operations, school traffic operations review. The mayor asked us to look at this. Um Christopher did Chris did a pretty extensive evaluation there. Um and so there were two options that were selected by traffic and parking as recommendations. Um one or the or the other. Um, option number three was construction of an 8ft shoulder, which is estimated to be around $250,000 preliminarily. Um, this could be more depending on quality of soils, things like that. Uh, andor option number four uh would be to um open the spear point gate for improved circulation to allow to relieve some of

the traffic on Mustang Lane. Um, if the gate if a full opening of the gate is not desirable, we would recommend considering the possibility of the school SRO opening and closing the gate for school traffic only with a coordinated circulation plan to alleviate the school traffic on Mustang Lane. So, those were the two the two options that were identified as I would like to I've talked to Mark Evans about this, but we would like to postpone action on that. We're going to meet with the residents out there, okay? Because this significantly changes the traffic on Spear Point and Arahead. Uh, you know, right now it's dead end. And so, uh, I would I would request that we postpone that. Okay. Until we have a chance to Sure. get in hooked. Okay. Try to sell it to them. All right. Okay. Uh, item number four, request for street lighting in Spearpoint neighborhood. Um the reason why we're bringing this is because we found that there's not really any street lighting in the neighborhood right now. There are existing above ground poles. So um the recommendation would be to install the lights, but um don't remember the quantity. Do you remember seven? I thought I counted eight seven or eight street lights. So it's it's still not a significant cost, but I'm it meets the policy. Okay. It's needed. They're They're not in compliance with city. That's correct. Policy. Okay. Okay. Okay. Um I see anything else on that on the traffic. Thank you for bringing that. Thank you. Um uh red light uh syn the light synchronization verbal update. That's our last one. Just be quick. Um

the T DOT reviews are still on hold. So we've received no correspondence from T dot on our construction documents or ability to move toward uh construction. Uh we did receive the phase 2 proposals for the construction engineering inspection uh consultant that we're required to have. And so um those are in review now and we anticipate making a conditional notice of award probably this week. Some progress but not much. I'm distracted. Say you're fine. Just brief. I'm sorry. I'm distracted. No, that's fine. Uh the T dot reviews are still on hold. So, we've received no correspondence uh regarding the construction documents or moving toward uh bidding, but uh we did receive the phase 2 proposals for the construction engineering inspector, which we're required to have uh under contract before we can bid for for construction. So, uh those are in review. Okay. Motion to adjurnn. Second. Hope we get another a Lincoln speech ready. You know what he called this?