City Council - workshop

I'll call this regular workshop meeting of Jackson City Council. We have a proposed agenda for tonight's meeting.

Mr. Mayor, I move that we approve the agenda with the following modifications. Let's pull consent items three and four honoring members of our community down to discussion and place them above item six. So they'll be 5A and 5B or 5B and 5C, whatever the number needs to be. Second.

Any discussion? All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. All opposed? Next we have the minutes from July 21st regular meeting.

Approval of the minutes. I meant adoption of them. And the consent items.

Second.

Any discussion? Hearing none, all in favor say goodbye by saying aye. Aye. All opposed? Aye. I do want to recognize former city council member James Smith, who is visiting with us tonight. And we will go ahead and start the meeting with five hands. And this is the items from three and four that we're pulling out. We'll go ahead and start with that. Okay, sir.

Okay. With regards to the resolution of designating the school zone on Henderson Drive adjacent to Northwoods Elementary School as Lieutenant James X. Wright Brown Commemorative Way, and the resolution designating Recreation Loop as Ken Hagen Commemorative Way. I wanna thank, first of all, our citizens. When you look around the room, Oftentimes, citizens rely 100% on government officials to always do what's right, what's fair, and what's just. They always expect that when they elect us to public office, that we will do exactly what we raised our hand and took the oath once we are elected to carry out with due diligence our role and responsibilities. This is one of those moments. If you take a look around this room, just look at The diversity that is in this room that supported the council when the initiative was brought up about renaming Henderson Drive after Lieutenant James XY Brown and renaming the recreation loop after Mr. Ken Hagan. Both of these men of extraordinary background, one that served in World War II, he served in the United States Army, and then just recently, in December of 2025, retired from the Jacksonville Police Department at the rightful age of 98. On November 2nd of this year, Lord willing, if the creek don't rise, he will see his 99th birthday. And his daughter Mary is coming right on in. And his son. All right. Family members. What a blessing it is.

What a blessing it is.

when citizens have an opportunity to be able to bear witness to the renaming of Henderson Drive after Mr. XY Brown because many of us, including myself, have had the opportunity to be protected by Mr., or shall I say, Lieutenant James X.Y. Brown. I can remember as a teenager at the Elks Hall after the football games on Friday nights, you know, you pay, what was it? 50 cents for entrance and Mr. XY was the police. He was law enforcement and not many things happened because first of all, he knew your mom and dad. And if anything got out of control... He was the law. And you would rather have him deal with you than for him to deal with you and then have to follow you home and then to tell your mama and daddy what you did. So it goes beyond that badge. The heart. that filial love for his community that many of us was able to be a part of those words of wisdoms, those guidance that a single talk diverted you from going in one way but you went the other in terms of being the model citizens that you are. Even down to the elementary students at Northwoods that he imparted so much in those children's lives that still today they remember him. His service to country, serving in the United States Army during World War II. Yes, this is a Marine Corps town, but Army Strong is ruling today, but just for a moment because For those who proudly wear the uniform, even on this city council, that swore their commitment to defend this country, we have many people in many different branches of services that we are coming on this occasion as one united community. to pay homage as to be able to see Mr. XY's name displayed on a portion of Hargett Street. Excuse me, on Henderson, the two end zones, that portion will be renamed for him. It says... I'm sorry.

Yes. I wanted to know if... I just wanted to ask something for Mr. Hagan. I know... Oh, I haven't got to him yet. Okay. But I know they're ready to move to the next.

Okay.

So... Mr. XY Brown is definitely one to be saluted for his dedication and his service. I got to know Mr. Ken Hagan, who is going to be our next gentleman, who served his country as well, reaching the rank of sergeant. And I came to know Mr. Hagan because of the fact that my brother played football from Jack and me at midget league football up into high school. And I know that Mr. Hagan was instrumental in my brother's life. There is just so much with these two men and renaming of our city streets and our state roads after them is to be commendable. So we couldn't have done it without the citizens. So today is a win for you. You get an opportunity to see how you stood up in council chambers and gave your support and gave your narrative. that now hopefully soon and very soon the North Carolina Department of Transportation is going to give us their blessings and be able to bring this into fruition for the city of Jacksonville. So I personally want to say thank you on behalf of his family that's here and thank you to each of you that's still behind us. Thank you. Thank you.

I just wanted to share, first of all, thank y'all so much for coming out. I know it's been a long evening, but I appreciate those of you who are coming out specifically for this moment. And just as Dr. Washington placed, this is a win. This is a major win. I just have one quick story. He waved that white glove at me too many times. They made me pull over once. That's when I found out his name and what he does, and I make sure I drive the other way. What I wanted to just add briefly, I'm grateful to also our second honoree, Mr. Ken Hagen. um in the ward 2 area for his services and my son i only have one child and my son is a product of the recreation and parks here in jacksonville from coaches pitch all the way through as far as he can go when it came to baseball but then he was able to play at north side north carolina a t and did a little minor with detroit so i say that because you know There's so much good here in Jacksonville. And to be able to recognize individuals who factored into that, I think we can do a lot more of it. But I'm so glad for Lieutenant X, Y, James and Mr. Ken Hayden. I'm just grateful for them both. So I just wanted to make that small comment. And I thank all of you guys for coming out as well.

Dear, dear, their contributions could not be overstated if we tried and if we sat here for hours. Both of these gentlemen made huge contributions across different parts of our city. Mr. Mayor, if you don't mind, I'd like Anthony to show everyone in the room what those signs look like. Can we do that?

Absolutely. Sergeant, would you mind helping me? Absolutely. I think you should see how pretty they look. Do you want to take Mr. Hagan? You might just step over there just a little bit.

Thank you.

There we go. Thank you, gentlemen. Those are beautiful.

We cannot wait to see them in place. And if I'm not mistaken, I believe Mr. Brown is going to have Lieutenant James.

These are just prototypes. Of course, of course. We've spent time with both of the families to make sure that the words go on here are the words that they want to see. So with Mr. X.Y. Brown's family, they would like to see Lieutenant James X.Y. Brown on the sign. And that's what this little post-it note is right here. And then speaking with Mr. Hagan's family, they liked Ken Hagan. Both of these are going to actually say Ken Hagan Way and then Lieutenant James X.Y. Brown Way. Beautiful.

Thank you.

Mr. Mayor, I'll make the motion.

Second.

One doing together or one at a time? Why don't you do one at a time? Okay. Designating the school zone on Henderson Drive adjacent to Northwoods Elementary School as Lieutenant Jane's XYZ commemorative way. Second.

Any further discussion? I'd just like to say a few words about actually both of them. When I came here 20 years ago, XY was heavily involved in the police department. And you know, it wasn't a 40-hour week. It was 80, 100 hours. I mean, he was everywhere. and doing everything. And I think about that and I think about Mr. Hagan who left here and would go and coach young people and mentor them. And that's really what public service is about. It's about sacrifice and it's about dedication. And both of those individuals have shown this city what dedication and sacrifice means. And I think about those young kids. They can learn a lot from both Mr. Hagan and XY and I thank them for their service. Because not only did they protect me when I was too young to realize it, but how many people they impacted in our community is phenomenal.

I had the opportunity to work with XY for over 30 years while I was at the police department, and I could tell you a book full of stories of XY. One that I talk about sometimes is how much pull XY had. You've got to remember, he worked Skate World. On weekends. All these kids grew up to love their Mr. Brown. Anyway, XY was very protective of the kids at the crosswalk over there on Henderson Drive. And there was a line on the road. Okay, you violate the line, you go into timeout, what we call timeout. He would stay there until school traffic was over. Then Lieutenant X.Y. Brown would go over there and he would lead everybody over to the sign that said you stop at the line and make them read it out loud. Well, we had a new police chief, not this one here, but the one before him, come to Jacksonville and he was only here about three or four weeks and evidently The chief's wife evidently encroached on the line and was put in time-out. And her husband, I was second in command on the police department at that time, he comes to me and says, everybody have to fire him. I said, I'll tell you what, here's the deal. You fire him today, they're going to fire you tomorrow. Like I said, I could write a book with XY stories, but he was a great guy. Y'all had a good father, and he was a lot of fun to work with. We had a good time with XY. Like Chief said, It wasn't a 40-hour week. He was available anytime we needed him. If it was to run a juvenile offender to a detention center out of town, he'd step right up and do it, no problem whatsoever. But he did a lot of work for the police department, and a lot of it wasn't paid. A lot of it was cost. He just wasn't doing it.

I will say, Mayor, that I told my wife not to pass that line. It wasn't as cheap. I told her, do not pass it. Do whatever else you want to do, but don't pass it.

All right, so that's our discussion. Everybody's okay?

Aye.

All opposed? I didn't think so.

All right, Mr. Williams.

I move that we adopt the resolution designating recreation loop as Ken Hagan, commemorative way.

Second.

I have a motion to second. Any further discussion? Mr. Hagin worked with the city since the early 1970s, and I think a bunch of other people have benefited from his two weeks as far as the recreation department is concerned, playing baseball, visiting football, all those things. Ken ran against me for mayor back in 2019. Ken and I were not enemies by any stretch of the imagination. We got along fine. Matter of fact, we played golf together. And even after the election, we still, up until the time he died, we played golf together three days a week. Don't tell anybody the mayor's out playing golf.

Three times.

Oh my, oh my, oh my. But I mean, you know, there was no animosity between us. He came to me when he filed and said, I just want to try to run. I said, hey, knock yourself out. And anyway, Ken was a good fellow. He really cared a lot about the youth in the community. He's missed, trust me. He's very missed in this community. He was also a city manager. He was a city manager part of it. Yes, he was. Thank you. So with that said, we have a motion and a second. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. All opposed, thank you very much. Now, we're going to go down. Those are nice, and we're going to get those fixed up, right? Those are the prototypes. Yes, sir. We're going to get them corrected. Do you have any idea when we get them hung up?

Any idea?

Well, the DOT process is going to take a little bit longer, but we're shooting for the November 2nd date to hopefully hang the one on Henderson Drive. Please don't hold me to that because I don't control it, but we're going to push for it. Okay.

All right, so let's move on down to the discussion items here. Number six, we just have some staff positions. Thank you, Mayor. If you were here just for that presentation and you don't feel like staying for the rest of the meeting, because there's no till now, it's going to be good. We won't be offended. We don't want to be offended. We don't want to be offended. All right. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you.

I'll see you at your new reunion. Go be there.

I'm looking at you.

Okay, so we can go here and resume talking about the staff position. Yeah, let's go shut the doors now.

Thank you, Mayor. So we have three positions that I believe Mr. Yonero had asked us to bring back to council after the FY27 budget was adopted. We're going to have more discussion. So we brought these back on this agenda as was requested to review the three positions and the purpose for the reallocation of positions. What you're going to see here in this presentation is a reallocation of positions that council has already approved. The positions and the reallocation align with the city council goals. They respond to the changing business needs. Those needs would be how the community has needs that we need to meet. It improves organizational capacity and then it maximizes the efficiency of our resources and by that, Each of these positions have a mix of funding sources. So for example, when we look at the staff attorney position, that position would be funded equally between the departments where those functions lie. So the same as Lorna's position and my position were funded through multiple departments and funds. Same thing for the staff attorney position. It would be divided by percentage and reviewed annually for that and the other positions as well. So when we look at that, we're looking at the future needs of the city and then to know for the council. that we do this every year. We do this every day. We think about positions that are vacant. As of this morning, we had 23 full-time positions vacant in the city. So we feel pretty confident out of the 631 full-time positions, the 23 that are vacant, that we're working to fulfill those positions so that we can maximize potential for each position and the impact within the community. A couple council goals that I would draw attention to. Goal three is to further downtown redevelopment. Goal four is to assess and appropriately respond to the needs and quality of life of the community. So for that first position, Mayor, we have the downtown coordinator position. This position was assessed in terms of continuing the vision and the initiatives that the council's adopted for the last four years. do things to help downtown continue to revitalize. And this has been an intentional effort by the city council. This position would coordinate with businesses, property owners. A lot of times those are different in downtown. Downtown being the area that we see from the Freedom Fountain and the Memorial Gardens all the way to the river and then to the intersection of Chaney where Starbucks corner's at. downtown as defined by the city council and adopted by the city council staff we feel that it's very important for us to have someone that's going to lead that effort this person would report back to the manager's office be a person that would have a skill set that could interact with individuals there's another conversation with council this evening about social districts we have our second annual rock the block event coming up we have business owners that want to do We've seen some some of our regional neighbors some projects that they're doing like in Maysville and things that we've seen in New Bern and Wilmington that we want to continue to do and we need someone who will focus their attention entirely on Downtown in order to be effective. We believe this is the way that That we best analyze this position in terms of the funding economic impact fund, as well as the TDA had a discussion last week. Remember, TDA is separate from the city council. The TDA had a conversation last week about funding part of this program and doing a three-year commitment. The goal would be we would create a revenue source for the first three years, and then council can review other options year to year to determine how the position's working and then how the funding sources are working. So if TDA approves that, we'll give you an update and any kind of other comments that they would make in terms of what we're doing for downtown. So we believe this is the next step for downtown and we believe that it'll make our operations more effective. Questions on this or the document that we submitted?

I don't have any. Go ahead. I just said I didn't have any.

I have a couple questions. So the impact to the, if the TDA funds it and that economic impact fund, so there won't be as much impact to the general fund, will there?

Mayor, you're not going to see significant impact. The overall budget that we laid out for this position for the year was $86,000. That was the total. And so if TVA funds a portion of that, then the remainder of that position and the fund, whatever the supporting... resources need for that sort of department to function, that would come from economic impact fund. Now, however, if the economic impact fund does not generate additional revenues either this year or next year, then council would need to make the decision to put additional funds into the economic impact fund, which could be general fund or other funds. If council is effective in selling property, generating additional resources, those resources would be used for this position moving forward.

Have we explored the Main Street program?

We have, yes, sir. The grants that are available for that? Yes, sir, and we'll continue to do it. The challenge with the Main Street program is in terms of staffing and the things that the program, it fluctuates in the funding resources. It's just like a grant program where a lot of times they focus on some small business grants. They focus on a facade program. So we'll continue to focus there, but that would be one of the responsibilities of the coordinator position is to heavily jump into the Main Street, Nuclear Counter Main Street program. But I know that there's grant funds available for that, isn't there? There are some staff grant options available if we qualify for those. Have we looked into that? We have. And three years ago, we did not qualify for the parameters based on the population. It was more rural center looking at smaller communities. But it doesn't mean we're not going to work hand in hand to see. North Carolina Rural Center typically works with smaller communities within the state. And that's where the grant program comes out of.

Mr. Reid, I just had one quick question. Considering that our memorials to the military is less than maybe a quarter of a mile from Freedom Fountain and our Veterans Cemetery, is there a specific reason why that particular area wasn't included in the downtown?

When we market downtown and we talk about the events and all, the Memorial Gardens and the Carolina Museum of the Marine are definitely part of the downtown. Whole corridor. So when we took those corners, what we did is we created a triangle, Dr. Washington, and we presented that back to council to say, this is what we're calling the primary downtown corridor, but the Royal Gardens are an anchor, and then the museum now is maybe even a larger anchor into the downtown marketing strategy. So it would all be included. Yes, ma'am. Great point. And I imagine that they're going to have...

periodic meetings with the business owners

The goal of the position is to be able to establish that point of contact so that local businesses have someone that they're going to meet with regularly. Now, when I say regularly, I believe that the most effective way to start out is going to be monthly meetings, and then if they determine that we're going quarterly, just like for this year's Rock the Block, there would be a point of contact that would be a central staff person for the city who would bring all events and activities together. I would hope that we get a lot of interest from local business owners who want to be a part of the downtown committee. We have seven or eight now, and we have at least two sitting in here. And those are developers, right? Developers, business owners, multiple business owners, event organizers, downtown runners. We have a lot of energy in the corridor, so I think there's a lot of good activity. May I want to go to the project manager? Any other questions on that one? The project manager position is a position that we would reallocate into the city engineer's division that goes into public services, but the city engineer would oversee this project. We have over 82 projects currently in our capital improvement program that the council adopted for FY27 for the next 10 years. Excuse me, those projects have large and small scales. We have multiple housing development or redevelopment programs within neighborhood improvement services that are not included in our capital improvement program. This is part of this position. One of the things that we need is someone that can oversee the construction of new homes and the redevelopment of existing properties. If we're going to be effective, with six new builds or six sales a year that gets our citizens into home ownership, then we have to have someone to be able to manage the construction phases of the projects. The third aspect of this position is to manage the intergovernmental service agreements that we have with the United States Marine Corps, both at Camp Lejeune and Air Station New River. Roughly 20 minutes ago, the North Carolina General Assembly House just approved the annexation 105 to 5. So that's official. And so for our IGSAs, I feel very confident that the intergovernmental service agreements are going to continue to grow. It's a large part of why we requested this annexation that Senator Lazar carried it up and we were discussing it. So we want to have that opportunity to continue to serve much like our building inspectors and we've seen the growth and the demand over the last couple years. It's going to be the same thing. And the more aggressive we want to be in the IGSAs and our capital projects and with our residential home building and purchase home ownership program, we have to have someone that's going to be able to lead those and actively move it forward. Part of what Tracy's staff does now is excuse me, is managing the properties, both the acquisition and the sale of properties. So while they're moving through those tasks, which is daunting in itself, we have to make sure that we are moving the build programs through. It's the only really effective way that we can as a city ensure home ownership options that we don't have now. These are the only buildings that we'll own in the city. We believe this position will help us move through those and multiple functions within the city. Tell us the number of active projects going on right now. Yeah, over 82, Mayor. And that's just capital improvement program projects. Like I said, that doesn't include housing projects. That doesn't include things that we're doing internally that are still going to require members of the engineering team, the project management team. Those are just in the big book. The day-to-day book is a totally different body of work. So when we talk about this position, Mayor, you look at the same thing in terms of funding. Back to Mr. Unero's question, this is not a general fund carry the load type of position. It is a split position between multiple departments and functions and funds within the city. So if... NIS has funds that can be used for this position, great, but that's not the heavy load. If the water and wastewater fund has positions that will, that has funds that will be allocated for the position, that's part of the math there. So multiple funds to fund a position.

I think it's important to note that in the case of all three of these, particularly the project manager, this is not an expense. It's an investment that's going to pay us back, not only in cost savings across other things, but just starting with efficiency. There are so many moving parts to these kinds of construction projects and the agreements that we have to monitor and enforce. Having someone who's responsible for that and can track it all and keep it organized is going to save us mistakes, redos, undos, and a whole lot of time that could be, you know, things falling through the cracks because people are overworked and don't have the capacity to manage it all.

That's a good point. How does this position affect the director's position, Ms. Tracy and her team? How does that, I mean, does that take responsibilities from them or, I mean, does the director's seat impact?

So I would say indirectly for department directors. So if we're looking at just two main functions here, one being Ms. Jackson and Mr. Hanson, then it will not directly impact them, but it's going to indirectly impact them because this person, much like how we share positions in multiple departments, one example is the parks department. handle stormwater. So this is a great example of how you share employees, even though the direction comes from one place, but the function comes out of another fund. So the funding may come from an area. So for Tracy's team, what it's going to allow, I would say it would allow Ms. Trafton to not have to be on site trying to manage a project with a contractor, which is where Tracy's team is now. They have to manage a contractor. There may be multiple contractors based on a new build versus a revitalization project. So you see a need within the organization and at this point we're not able to prioritize some functions over others based on the number of staff that we have in project management now.

So, and I know this is getting in the weeds just a little bit, but Ms. Jackson needs something in her department. Is it by request? Because this person is not under that department. It's on separate entities, so it's by request. How does that work?

So, originally, what happened in the fiscal year budget request, we had two position requests. And so now, the opportunity for the position would be we would... finalize a job description, and we would clearly delineate the amount of time needed, and we would look at, for example, we would say for neighborhood improvement services, this position may allocate 30% of time. And then... She would schedule through either Mr. Hanson or Ms. Kimes being the city engineer. So it would be a scheduling kind of process. But that's something that, like I said, we do that in multiple departments now to make sure that there's a flow and that the communication is there to... satisfy the need. There could be times throughout the year where one project manager has to stay on this project and spend 90% of their time. During the heavy construction period, that is probably what's going to happen. On slower times of the year, they may not have as much to do there and they may have to go to the IGSAs or they would go to another project. Thank you. I just needed a little clarity on that. That's an excellent question.

The IGSAs, I mean, that's going to be a revenue source as well as we as we build that program and doing those services. So hopefully that will help pay for that to some extent, right?

They do. And the challenge for us is even if the IGSA gives us, which the IGSAs will give us a revenue source, just like you see for the Memorial Gardens. However, we have to analyze how those funds are utilized and how the staffing is utilized before we start dispersing. So, for example, the IGSA for the... memorial gardens would have designated and provided funds for approximately two full-time positions. So now we're reviewing how to utilize those funds and the positions and there may be the request that we add a position based on those funds If we determine we have that need, then that would be in the next fiscal year budget. However, this is not a request for the additional. This is a request based on that. So if there's another IGSA that says we can do this agreement and it comes with a revenue source, yes, sir, then you would say that's part of the revenue source that would fund this position. But you expect to have a...

quite a bit of revenue that's going to be generated by the work that's going to be done on the base? I do.

I think the management of that, right now when you talk about the IGSAs and the team that oversees our capital improvement program, this would pull that responsibility out of their day-to-day work and put it over into this individual. We would have centralized communication for IGSAs.

Because it's good for everybody, because it's going to reduce the cost for the Marine Corps. It's going to help us fund these kinds of projects and do other things.

This is a huge efficiency measure for both us and for the Marine Corps. What it'll do for the Marine Corps is... Effectively, it makes their process more efficient. It speeds up their process for procurement. We've seen that in multiple MOUs, MOAs, and IGSAs. What it also may do is reduce their overall cost while providing a revenue source to us to support a position or multiple positions, depending on what it is. So it's a win-win situation? I think there's multiple wins here.

Mr. Ray, out of curiosity, Under neighborhood improvement services, because there's a lot of money that comes from the federal government and usually HUD has a lot of rules and regulations in which we have to abide by. They sometimes even require maybe the department head or the manager to have certain type of HUD certification or trainees because the procurement of those federal dollars that's being implemented, we want to make sure that we're in compliance. So with this particular position, Will there be extra primary responsibilities in terms of having those certification as it relates to HUD to ensure that when that project manager is working on those specific projects that they already have that certification that allows them to be able to move that particular housing initiative forward?

Yeah, one of the things you've seen year over year is when Tracy's team does an annual review of all HUD funds, including CDBG, they review how we expend the funds and they review the authority given to us to utilize those funds. That's part of the annual report to make sure it's or the audit that you would see that we do internally. So with this position and any other person that would lead a federally funded program, we check that through not only would it be NIS, but it would also be through our finance department to ensure that we're not doing something that there would be, what do you want to call it, a clawback later on to say we didn't do something correctly, and they would come back in and say we need some funds. Or even the state auditor would show up and say we need to review this because we're concerned about the way you utilize those funds. I'm very confident that Tracy's team will make sure we're doing things the way we should. The other side of that is, if we weren't moving forward with this position, one of the things that Tracy's reviewed is being able to look at those HUD funds to determine if you could hire an outside consultant. And so that's something that we review. That person wouldn't give us the hours. I don't know now, as of today, what funds would be available in terms of the overall allocation to achieve that goal. But I can tell you if we have this person, this person will be on the team 40 hours a week and we know they would be here. So if a home inspection comes up, if a property comes up that needs that set of eyes, potentially someone that's got a contracting background, she'd be able to say, hey, Susie, can we go and check this out? And Tracy and Susie would magically go check it out. So I think there's a lot of value in terms of the staffing availability.

The department director ultimately approves the spending of the money. And that works in all the departments. Some of the transportation funding has the same restrictions, and the project manager identifies the need to make a payment, but then the department director that's responsible for those funds has oversight and has to approve the expenditure. So there are checks and balances, and we do this in other departments. as far as we have the technical expertise on the construction and contract management under engineering. And the program management is the responsibility of the particular department director. So they don't lose control of their program. But what they gain is some more expertise and somebody that's supervising that technical expert. It has, you know, like our engineers, he's a professional engineer experiencing contracting and construction management. So, I mean, that's the benefit that we gain as a city by having this crossed assignment kind of thing. Of all the departments.

So this wouldn't necessarily cause neighborhood improvement services, that department, to be completely eliminated and coming under another department because we're gaining a project manager.

No, ma'am. Totally, totally separate. So this is basically this is cross-pollination where as with other staff has to come over and support another department, especially in public services. Public services is our catch-all. Amy's team is responsible for assisting in all projects. And so not only do they have project management engineering, they go over multiple aspects of the project. So this Has nothing to do with any departments merging with another department and changing their overall function. This will be a support role for neighborhood improvement services.

That was one of the reasons, great point, because I thought about when I asked a question about the director's seat and those who work in those different areas in the department, they're going to be affected. But we don't have to, this is something that's going to affect the department as a whole.

Sorry. Yeah, you will not see a change in the organizational chart or functions based on disposition.

And free up some of their time to do other things that they haven't been able to get to in the department.

And some of the funding is... going to be coming from an enterprise fund, right? The water and sewer.

Right. So back to Ms. Smith's question, the percentage of, at the first part, you'll just basically guess and you'll divide funding for the position. After the first year, the person will go back and they'll do an analysis of their time spent and they'll project out next year. So they'll fill out a form that we have internally that says X percentage of time was for this function, this function, this function, and this function, then it's broken down into funds. So the revenue sources are broken down based on the amount of work, and you're basically reporting for the year, the past year, for the next year.

Yes, sir?

So you'll be able to give us an update How much IGSA?

Correct, the funding from each source. And then how much is coming from water and sewer? Yeah, and by the time we get to next year's budget, we would like to look at some of those. If we move forward, the challenge is going to be how long it takes us to hire. And so once we finish this discussion, if council says, all right, go ahead, remember, we're going to complete job descriptions, then we're going to start the recruitment process, and then that's going to take us a while to get to that point. I wouldn't foresee us having anyone on board until, unfortunately, until the October, November deadline. It could be even later, depending on the talent pool that we have and in the interview process. So there's some work to do, even if we move forward effectively tomorrow morning. You're talking about fiscal year this year or next year, October? This fiscal year. This fiscal year. Yes, ma'am. Okay. So you would get preliminary information back to Mr. Nero for next year, but you're only going to get preliminary until we have someone on. That's right. But yes, sir, we will provide update on anything we move forward on. Let me go to the next one, Mayor. So the third position is the staff attorney position. This is more of a hybrid position. So the downtown coordinator focuses on that region. The project manager serves multiple functions within the city. The staff attorney position is It's a composite of multiple needs within the city. And so there's a couple things that I just want to point out. First part is it basically serves five functions. So when you think about all positions within the city, this person, this one individual would serve five different functions. The first being city attorney support. The goal there is to handle the day-to-day review items, whether that's departmental, whether that's contract reviews or that's individual departmental conversations about policy procedures to free up the city attorney for bigger picture items and to work on legal strategy and any lawsuits that may be active. That's the first goal. Second is risk management. Right now, we operate risk management services in multiple departments, and so what we would like to do is bring risk management together in one centralized focal point. The problem has been we can't ask the city attorney to do that because, unfortunately, she does not have that time. in a standard work week to be able to manage this. So now what we have is human resources, finance, and the city manager's office work together to try and keep the risk management pulled together. One of the things that we put inside of the agenda packet is the concept that a risk management coordinator, per se, will hopefully allow us to reduce our annual cost for our insurance for a lot of claims. And so we put in there that the league has given us an estimate that with a coordinator on board, you could save anywhere from $140,000 a year to $200,000 a year based on reducing our mod rate. That's a big deal. That means we would have fewer claims, fewer injuries, and then we would pay less for our annual premium. So if we're paying $700,000 a year now, maybe we get that down to $560,000, $550,000. So that's a direct revenue stream when we're talking about funding. You won't see that immediately, but hopefully you'll see that when we give a report because that's cutting down on our day-to-day costs and expenses. The third part of this position is a court liaison. Instantaneously, a lot of people think that the court liaison is just for the police department, but you may be aware there are other municipal functions that end up going to court and operating services. We have city attorneys going tomorrow for something, and that doesn't involve police or planning. And so we're going to go tomorrow, we're going to be present, and we're going to do what we have to do. A lot of the challenges is... working through the DA's office, working with our prosecutors, working with our police department, working with all other departments to make sure we are a consistent liaison with the court system. The worst thing to happen for any of our people that are sending cases to court is we don't show up, we're not prepared, the prosecutors don't have the information that they need from us. This position would function as the court liaison. General Assembly liaison is very important. I think from this year and the last couple years we've seen, we have to be more invested in what goes on in not only in Raleigh, but around the state. A lot of these actions as this General Assembly is tapering down now, that means that the long session's starting now. So there's no clear line between the end and the beginning, even though it says it'll be January 2nd through August of next year. I feel kind of confident that it's gonna be the same plan as last year and they're gonna start up now. There may be a caucus, there may be some type of two or three individuals that are having dialogue. And so I say for this position, we would like to look for someone that has experience, whether it's lobbying or as in having a direct connection with our North Carolina General Assembly representatives from any parts of the state, we would like to have that be a part of this position as well. And then the last, the fifth element of this position is department legal counsel. The city attorney is, the main responsibility for the city attorney is to protect the council and the city and to look over the things that, the policies and the actions of the council. position would effectively work with departments to ensure that our departments are reducing the risk to make sure that these issues do not make it to the city attorney's level. That's a goal. If we can do things on the front end, then we don't have to deal with them on the back end. The staff attorney would be a licensed North Carolina attorney. If we hire somebody, they would provide in-house legal support. The whole purpose is to look at legal compliance and risk reduction. Hopefully all of our departments are looking at risk reduction factors day to day, whether we're talking about safety or we're talking about our online support. These policies that we have matter. They'll do a lot of the research. What we have here inside of the agenda, I didn't make a slide out of it, but the way that we've proposed the position is that the position is supervised by the city attorney. And the reason being is The city attorney provides all legal advice. And this is like in every other department that we have. The city attorney is the expert in legal. So this person would need to be supervised by the city attorney. Any employee evaluation would need to be completed by the city attorney. The day-to-day operations would be directed by the city attorney, just like the day-to-day operations of our detective division. That's handled by the police chief. However, all other employees other than the city manager and the city attorney are overseen by the city manager. So the way that we have it here is a solid line from the manager over to the attorney and a dotted line down from the attorney to the staff attorney just in terms of overall the way that our charter is written now. I'm not saying the council can't change the way that you would do this, but this is the way we have it committed to council now.

Mr. Ray, quick question. I don't know if you know the answer to this, but if other cities or municipalities across North Carolina have a staff attorney, since the North Carolina general statutes outline the city attorney's responsibility in a city manager, council-style government, Would it not be feasible to have the staff attorney to come to completely be not only supervised but reported to the city attorney in regards to an addendum? I don't know if there is an addendum. to the North Carolina general statute to keep that within that line of authority, as opposed to having the individual being supervised by the city attorney, but then reports to you, as opposed to having that person report and being supervised by the city attorney and then the city attorney. a city attorney, excuse me, then basically die laws in conversation with you.

Yes, ma'am. So what we presented in this white paper to the council, we gave you our defined market, cities within our market, and we listed out the information we could receive, and I think we have 10, 11, 12, the total number of attorneys on staff for a city. So that's in the agenda. If someone wants to pull it up, they can look at it. Out of that group, I believe after conversation with Lorna, I believe all but two are managed, hired and fired by the city attorney. So the answer to your question is yes, ma'am. There may be some, if council says do it this way, there may be some changes that you said, Dr. Washington, that we would need to present to council in terms of whether it's the charter. But if seven or eight or nine other municipalities of our size in North Carolina do it, it's very easily that we could do the same thing, whether it requires a policy, a procedure, or a charter revisit by the council. If that's what council tells us to do, we can easily go back and bring that back to council in the same timeline as getting this accomplished.

Yeah, I did actually very quickly this afternoon call all the folks on this list. And it looks like Gastonia has actually four attorneys on staff, so that was a little outdated. I did not hear back from Apex. But every other municipality except Leland said that that line was not dotted. It was solid between the attorney and the staff attorney. And then that line, the city manager was more dotted. So essentially- I think almost everyone I spoke with said, our city attorney actually does handle the hiring and the firing. But they also cooperate with the city manager, of course, because there's going to be personnel policies that are in effect that say things like, if you're grieving a disciplinary action, it goes through the city manager's office or things of that nature. And of course, you'd stop to comply with those requirements.

We looked at a lot of information from surrounding municipalities as well as the market to make sure that we're looking at a best practice. Consistently, we want to go with best practice. What people have tried and tested and works out the best. Asheville, we've learned that Asheville, although the city attorney hires and fires three others, that they have a staff, one person that's outside of that office. We know that Fayetteville operates in a different vein as well. We learned that Concord operates a little differently, but if the majority here and the majority on the list that we provided the council, you didn't ask for these, 8 out of 10, 9 out of 11, they operate one way, I'm very confident we can operate in any way that the council says to set it up.

We had a lot of discussion about legal fees being made throughout the department and that cost. Did we determine what that cost would be that we're spending now?

Yeah, so it's a little nuanced because, right, so the number that I put in there was just things that did not include side agreements we may have had with the League of Municipalities. So in some instances, for example, we have some pending litigation right now where the League has said, we will cover one-third of your attorney's fees, you will have to cover two-thirds. I have since done away with that agreement because it obviously didn't lead to good things for the city. I would say it led to a bit of overpayment of legal fees. I didn't include any of that in there. All I included in that estimate was these are just things I have found after the fact that were being essentially charged out of separate legal departments. So taking all of that into account, that number that we would essentially save would be a lot higher. Now, almost every municipality, even the ones that have very robust, like Charlotte, 30 attorneys on their staff, right? The ones that have very robust in-house attorney's offices, even they have to go outside on numerous occasions to get specialists. I can't think of any in-house city attorney, for example, that's a specialist in bonds or things of that nature. They usually go outside for conflicts or things of that nature. But what I did do is I did an informal analysis. I took a list of the top 100 municipalities by population in North Carolina, and I kind of divided it up between Marissa in the city manager's office and and our new front desk clerk, Denise, and myself. And I just went through and I asked, hey, how many attorneys do you have on your staff? Are they in-house? Are they out of house? How is it structured? And then I asked for salaries as well. Some folks were happy to give that information over the phone because it is public record. Some folks made you make a public records request through their portal. And those sort of slowly trickled in. So we didn't have, unfortunately, a comprehensive list of those 100, which is why we only gave you some of them. But it was very interesting because of those 100, I'd say maybe 50 got back to us with information about contract and salaried attorneys with salaries. The contract attorneys, it was harder to parse out what those salaries were. But for the ones that did get back to us with the public records requests, I could not find one that spent less than $319,000 last year on a regular contract attorney. And the way they would structure that was usually not, we agree this attorney is going to be given $319,000. It was usually, okay, we have an attorney that we contract with. And that attorney is guaranteed a minimum of $20,000 every month just to keep that attorney on retainer. Then anything above the first 100 hours they put in that month, they're going to have to then bill at this hourly rate. And that's how they would come up with the 319. So a lot of municipalities that are very close to us, like New Bern, for example, they have a contract attorney that they go out to. But New Bern was trying to explain to me, because I asked for multiple years, and they said, hey, look, this year, this is what we spent. This year, this is what we spent. This year, this is what we spent. And what I did notice was that almost every municipality was spending more and more over time. And that's, I have to say, it's not just because lawyers have the reputation we do for being a little greedy. It's actually because the world that we live in, unfortunately, is just so much more litigious. That's exactly the word. And we have additional public records requests coming in that require more and more oversight by an attorney. We have very, very... very excited legislators to put new laws in place. And every time new laws are put in place, there's gonna be new litigation for some of those laws, especially the ones that affect municipalities. So we're seeing those trends going up. And it looked to me, in my own opinion, to be very cost effective to do this in house as opposed to on a contract basis.

The little best practice matter that I would say back to Dr. Washington's comment is other cities in North Carolina have utilized attorneys in different departments for a period, and we've seen them bring them back into the attorney's office so that it's centralized. Whether they put an attorney over into planning, into housing, into police, they brought them back in. So I would say if counsel says it doesn't matter who the person reports to, we want to keep them centralized. That's the goal is because in a legal department, we want the attorneys to work inside of that department. Just like how Human Resources operates now. They go, they spend time in those departments, they communicate with them consistently throughout the day. However, the supervision is centralized and that's the way we do it. We do it with with IT as well. We don't put an IT specialist in every department. We bring that centralized. So human resources, IT, legal, these are all internal type functions. Mr. Rowley, have you had some?

Yeah. I'm a proponent of having the staff attorney fully under the supervision and the hiring and firing the city attorney. That's the best way to maintain the independence that we're structured to maintain. I have in the city county, the city attorney report directly to the city council.

This dotted line, I've seen it in operation in the Department of War. It does not work very well.

And I'm sure, I'd like to be optimistic about any potential employee, but you have to consider all the possibilities.

If an employee is being supervised by the city manager,

I mean the city attorney, but can't be fired by that city attorney. They're not that concerned about that evaluation as they are about who can hire and fire them. That's just kind of common sense. It also can produce a conflict it can produce undermining of the city attorney You know every attorney that you want to hire is going to have aspirations and if that attorney knows that the hiring environment is done by the city manager, confidentiality may be hard to maintain within the department, within the legal department. So I just think it's going to be problematic to even try to do it that way. And as has been reported, only Leland, I believe, on that list is attempting to do that. That's a small town. It... And, you know, I like to brag about being kind of initiating the position of having that full-time attorney and seeing the benefits of that. But the independence of that attorney to report directly to counsel, I think, can possibly be undermined with this structure of this bifurcation.

So I'm opposed to that. And the other positions I'm fine with, if...

We're gonna take a motion, I would do it separately if that's what we're gonna do.

I completely agree with what Jerome is saying and agree that I'd like to know what we need to do legally to make that happen. As you said, we can do it, we just need to find out what the steps are to make sure we are compliant. But I agree with everything that Mr. Willingham just said. It would be better for the attorney to report to the city attorney.

Well, I think the city attorney and the city manager I mean, the two positions have worked well, like with Dr. Woodruff and John Carter. You know, they were a big, big, I mean, they were the management team, basically, you know, that made decisions. And I think the same situation exists between Lorna and Josh now. I don't think it's any different. But like you say, I think it may be a very good idea for the staff attorney to report. Does that require a charter change?

So we're going to look into that. I actually do not know the answer. I have not scrutinized the charters of the other municipalities, but I'm sure there's a framework for it. There's...

I wouldn't think that you'd have to change the charter to hire somebody.

We just have to clarify and make sure. The one thing I would, I do want to clarify one point. There's not a director in this city that hires and fires an employee and they do all their evals. So just to clarify, it doesn't matter how we do this position. But no director in this room sitting here outside gets to hire and fire their employees. It's all done by the manager, and that's the way that the charter delineates that. So no matter how you lay it out. But you can't hire and fire. That's right. The city attorney is directly to the council. And if the council does it that way for legal, that's completely different because you don't have any other city attorneys. So it's different than the other employees. So if there's 631 of us and Lorna's one and I'm one, there's 629 other positions. None of those are attorneys. So it doesn't matter how you direct it. We will figure out exactly what you tell us and we'll bring it back if we have to bring something to the council or do it administratively, do it administratively.

So I needed some clarification here right here from the attorney. I've seen how this is already in the budget now. Is there a... Motion necessary.

Well, and there's not necessarily. So I think there's not really a motion required on any of this. I think we just are hoping to have the board just by resolution give us some direction. Exactly. But the city manager is responsible fiscally for allocating funds. Council can direct, of course, in certain ways how to spend funds pursuant to all the laws we're all very familiar with. And it would be, I'm sure, easy for the manager and I to work together to say, this money that's going to be allocated over here because council would like it to go under the supervision of the attorney will be done this way.

And we'll put a report together and send that back to council while we're working on finalizing the position and send that back to council as soon as we get a draft about figuring out what we have to do if we have to do anything. We'll send that by email, follow up with you, see what has to happen. Obviously, we would need an action by council before, if a change is required, before we hire somebody because we don't want to bring them under one and then come out the other. So we'll work on that if we get the consensus, Mayor, to... To work on those, we'll put all together, move forward on the other two positions, work on the information on what has to happen to make this happen for the attorney to report directly to the city attorney and bring that back to you as we're working on the positions.

So a consensus direction would be all you need on this? At this moment. Sounds good. Do we have a consensus? Consistence. We'll make it happen, ma'am. Thanks for the discussion. All right, you got street resurfacing discussions.

Every year at this time we start talking about streets. I think you'll find that we did it last August as well. And the purpose is to give you an update on what we've done over the past year with our street resurfacing program along with our maintenance and to give you an idea of where we're headed in the current budget year. So with that, just a little bit of history. I know you've seen this a couple of times, but we pay for the repaving and maintenance of our streets using Powell funds. Powell is a reallocation of the gas tax. We get it from the state and the way the state works is They set aside an appropriation that will be given back to municipalities that are eligible. This year's appropriation was $185 million and it was distributed by 75% population and then 25% based on street mileage. And if you want to know the numbers, it basically works out to roughly $25 per person per capita. And then on the road mileage, it's about $2,000 a road mile. So our allocation is just under $2.2 million for the fiscal year. That money that we receive is broken up. Part of it goes into the street division's budget for preventative maintenance, and then part of it goes into capital projects. The preventative maintenance has to be used on pow bill eligible expenses. A quick explanation of something that is not pow bill eligible is if we have a water main break, and utilities maintenance goes out, repairs the water main, Kelly's crew will come behind them, repair the asphalt or the sidewalk or the curb and gutter, or all in some cases. But those are not PALBO eligible funds. Those have to be paid for by the utility. So PALBO eligible funds have to be used for road maintenance, sidewalk maintenance, curb and gutter maintenance, and preventative maintenance along with repaving. But again, it's how well eligible. And then the capital projects, we break up in the capital improvement plan. We put roughly $800,000 or so toward paving each year. And then we break up the rest in pedestrian improvements, which is roughly $100,000 or so. And then we have ADA improvements, which I think is about $50,000. And the ADA improvements, we have tried to pair with other funds like we can get from NCDOT to extend those. And in some cases, they roll back into a paving project because if you pave a street that has sidewalks, If there's handicap ramps at the intersections, they have to be accessible. So if we pave a street, we have to come back and evaluate the sidewalk at the intersections to make sure they meet ADA requirements. And those, again, are all in the capital improvement plan and that's part of that funding. The one thing I will say is, like I said, the way we do, well, the state law is Powellville has to be used on Powellville eligible expenses. Whatever is not used or is remaining out of the street budget then rolls into and is available for repaving. So we don't lose the money if we don't spend it on preventative maintenance. It just rolls into capital projects. The city has roughly 166 and a half miles of streets that we maintain, just under 50 miles of NCDOT streets. And I know we've talked about this before, but Henderson Drive, Country Club Road, Western Boulevard, Gum Branch Road, Belfork Road, all NCDOT streets. So the major thoroughfares are DOT streets. But we do have some larger streets like Carolina Forest Boulevard, Huff Drive, Williamsburg Plantation, Northwoods Drive. Those are collector streets, Yop Road, all that are city maintained streets. So we do have some larger both residential and commercial collectors, but the major thoroughfares are DOT maintained streets. And then we have roughly just under 20 miles of private streets. An example of that is Williams Farm gated community. So the city cannot maintain streets in a gated community. Another example is Laguna Bay. We do have a couple of Commercial developments like Shilsky Office Park that was put in, that is private street. It looks like a city street, but it's a private street. And another is the one behind Chick-fil-A. Looks like a street, but it's a city street. It's really no different than the other side that's in front of Target. One just looks more like a street than a parking lot. So that's where our private streets come from.

Mr. Hanson, quick question. on Western Boulevard that is DOT? Yes, ma'am. Okay, question. So, the fence that would be behind Brenmar but aligns the walkway that's on Western Boulevard, the fence belongs to DOT. I don't know who.

Because a portion- That belongs to- It's not in the right of way. It's not DOT.

Just to let you know, a big portion of that fence looks like it's been kicked in or something.

We'll look at it. It got hit by a car. We'll go look at it, but I think it's actually on private property, and I think it's... I believe that fence was put there when they developed Brentmore.

Okay. So it's right near Westminster, so we'll go look at it.

Kind of like across from Catacornie to Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Okay. So I know you've seen this chart a couple of times.

Basically what we do is we grade each segment of our streets. The streets are broken up by segment, intersection to intersection. And it is possible to have an A section in one area and an F section in another. A street just doesn't deteriorate at the same rate. Of course, if you have a major water main break or a sewer failure, that speeds up the deterioration process. If you have an area that doesn't have utilities underneath of it, it may last longer. So it is common for a street to have multiple grades along that same road. And when we look at streets, we talk about repaving a street, but many times what we're doing is repaving segments of streets, not a street end-to-end. And a great example of that is it would probably cost us two or three years of allocation to pave Northwoods Drive from Plantation all the way down to Williams Farm. just because of the street width, all the intersections, and the traffic that's on that street. So we try to take our funds as far as they'll go, and we address the sections or segments that we're able to. Yes, ma'am. Holiday City. Private. Private. Yes, ma'am.

Part of the problem, though, in some of these neighborhoods, the lack of... a lack of developers doing their prep work. I know there's a lot of sinkholes and a lot of, again, where the payment is actually...

That does happen a lot and one of the things that we see is the standards were not the same in the 70s and 80s and 90s as they are today. I will say there's legislation that has changed that says that a city cannot require above what NCDOT requires. However, if you read the NCDOT manual, it says that basically you have to build to the subgrade. So while a lot of people look at it and say a subdivision road is six inches and two inches, 6 inches and an inch and a half. If you have poor soils, they may actually have to come through and do 12 and 4 or more. So it's not, you know, while it's easy to look at a straight line, it's not just a straight line. The city's basic requirement is 8 inches and 1 and a half. And that's typically what you see across most of our city and that's been in place since 2006. We've had some cases where we have really poor soils where we've had to do more because a developer does have to pass a proof roll before they pave. So if they can't pass a proof roll that means that they have to build up the subgrade. So now as we take streets in, they're built to a much better standard than they were in the 60s, 70s, and 80s. And as we resurface those, we see a lot of that as well. In 2023, we did a pavement condition assessment along with a report, and it basically found that the average PCI for the city was of 58, which is right at the top of poor. They did that assessment as we were doing one of our pavement projects that just happened to work out that way. While we would like to be higher, I think that if you think about driving around our city, Fair range is probably about right. All right. So the low end of fair, the top end of poor is just as you're driving around is probably pretty close because it averages all of the streets together. And I know I've said this a couple of times. The worst street in Jacksonville is DeWitt. Absolutely. Can't hide that one. We are working on getting that one permitted. Stop even contacting me anymore. So that project is in permitting, so we're working on it. Actually, I think we just got the permit back last week. Is that the Smithfields or is that like a...

No, the worst portion is actually on the Smithfield side near Forest Grove, Red Oak Street.

Where Red Oak and Forest Grove come in, that's the worst section. And the sewers completely failed in that area.

And that has to be replaced also. Yes, sir.

That's where we're on. You're about to see that project get going now. So will that get sidewalked since there's not current sidewalks there now? Or will it just go back the way it is? No, it'll go back the way it is.

So some of our ongoing challenges is, again, underground infrastructure has a major impact on the street. Most of our streets are residential. Most of them have both water and sewer underneath of them. So sometimes a street starts failing simply because of that. We also see Condition changes, wet years to drought significantly impact us because of high water tables. So we see changes in our streets, our subgrades because of that. And then sometimes you just have pavement fire. The real problem with the street is keeping water out of the base of the street, the subgrade. If we can keep the water out, our streets typically fare better. So we talked about pow bill funds. Pow bill funding is limited. So combining some of the problems we see with limited funding, utility infrastructure, and programming those streets, we do see continued street deterioration.

So as we improve streets, the rest of the streets are starting to deteriorate.

So that brings us to our shift in modes that we've talked to you over the last couple of years. We're trying to build a toolbox. The gray that you see is historically what we've done. I like this graphic. I won't say look at the years because that might not be accurate, but the graphic is important. The gray is exactly what we've done through the years. We build a street. It's in great shape. and then we just let it deteriorate. And when it fails and we can afford to replace it or rebuild it, we do that so it comes back up and it's a great street again. So you have this constant cycle of great starting to fail. The problem is it doesn't fail the way you see it on the screen. What happens is it may stay as an A for the first 10 years. But when it starts to fail, it fails fast. So it's more of, instead of this nice linear curve that I show, that I found from Road Resource, it's really more of it kind of fails and then it kind of drops straight off. Because once it gets to about a 40, it's pretty much going to fail very quickly. So the idea behind our toolbox is to use methods that are not as costly and try to prevent that streak from failing in the first place. So one of the things that we did recently, last year actually, that I'm going to talk to you a little bit about is the Cape Seal process. And this just gives you an idea of throwing that tool in the toolbox. So traditionally, it's very expensive to reconstruct streets. And I would question whether that $3.5 million a mile is actually accurate if you had to rebuild a street, but it was an estimate that we got in 2025. The mill and overlay came from one of our projects, so we know that that's accurate in 2025. But if you just compare the cost of milling the asphalt and repaving, it's just under $500,000 a mile. Compared to our cost that we got for cape sealing, it was just over $150,000 a mile. Now it's not a be all process. I'll show that to you in a minute. And there are some things that we have to accept. But I think it shows the importance of having various tools because we have to rebuild DeWitt Street. You know, the Cape Seal is not going to do anything to help solve the DeWitt Street problem. That's right. So with that, we did have multiple initiatives. And I put 25, 26 on there because we did a combined project. We did a larger project. We did five and a half miles on the last project. And it was roughly two and a half million dollars. So we're talking over two years of funding. And along with that, we cape sealed 1.6 miles. And then we did an in-house, the last couple of years we've done an in-house initiative, which Kelly funds through his maintenance budget. And his staff manages to help keep the cost down. but we resurfaced seven cul-de-sacs. Admittedly, when we're looking at street paving, cul-de-sacs do not rate well when they're competing because if we have to take something like a Doris or a DeWitt or even a Carolina Forest Boulevard or Williamsburg Parkway that carries traffic into a neighborhood, a cul-de-sac that only has five or six houses on it just doesn't compete well in our model. So we don't want to completely ignore those, so we do set aside funds and we, Kelly has an initiative that they do, and that one strictly, we take the worst. So he picks the worst cul-de-sacs each year and he tries to do those. Again, seven isn't setting the world on fire but at least we're not ignoring those and we are getting those done and again they're important. The other thing is the other reason they don't compete well is the bulk part is larger so you're spending more money to resurface shorter amount of street. So we do have that initiative. And then we talked about the utility patching. Although not PAL bill eligible, it is an important piece to our street maintenance. If we cut into that street and make a repair, we need to get it sealed up very well quickly. And then we do have, we are able to crack seal in-house. So anytime we get cracks develop, if you ever drive down a road and it looks like somebody drew a bunch of black squiggly lines all over the road, that's crack seal. And the importance there is keeping water out of those cracks so that we don't have larger problems in the future. So our Cape Seal pilot project went very well. We placed it, it's almost been in place for about a year now, so we did it in October of last year. The total cost was 250,000 for 1.6 miles. One of the things we did, because this was a pilot project, is we actually selected a wide range of streets with varying PCIs. And I put the streets there that we did and the PCI and you'll see that our PCIs ranged from a 28, which was Commerce Road, up to an 80. And I can tell you that the contractor was very leery of everything on this list below a 60. But the reason we selected those was not to see it was to see how well it would perform in certain situations. So one of the ones we selected was Ellis Boulevard. This one falls right at the bottom of what they would call their range of where they would typically apply. You can see the left picture is before the cape seal. The right picture is a week ago or so. But you can see that the important thing is those cracks that you can see on the left side are sealed. They start to reflect through so you can see that their cracks were there. But the important thing is that they're sealed and you have a much better surface. The one that was failed was Commerce Road between, basically from the Home Depot driveway back to Country Club Road. And that road was in bad shape. It's in slightly better shape, but it's still not in great shape. Our challenge with Commerce, or the reason we selected, I can tell you the contractor was not a huge fan of this road, but the reason we selected it is This is a good example of a road where we would like to push off our investment as long as possible. The reason is there's good traffic on it. It's used as a cut through and away from Country Club Road to Western Boulevard and actually all the way out to Piney Green Road now. The challenge is if we went in and rebuilt it today, As soon as those lots start to develop a long commerce road, they're just going to end up destroying the street. So as those develop, that road is going to fail. So if we invest today and two years from now, businesses go into and start developing a long commerce road, we'll be talking about resurfacing that road. road very soon after that. So our hope was to look at this road and see if this could potentially be something that buys us a few years. And I was pleasantly surprised at how well this came out. Again, it was a failed street when we put it down. Some of the cracks have shown back up. I think if we would do some Intermediate repairs such as like mill patch some of the worst areas, which is where we take the asphalt out and put back a patch and then have done this, I think it would have lasted or shown better. But again, we're using it as a bridge. And the question would be, when we went to Durham, we saw a street that had been cape sealed three times. and it looked very good. The question is, if we could cape seal this street multiple times, does that stretch us further or at least closer to when this lots would develop?

Mr. Hanson, I have a question. So what's the difference between this side of Commerce Road looking the way that it's looking and then looking at the extension of Commerce Road Is it once you pass by, yes, the housing developments, apartments on the right-hand side going behind the First Pentecostal Church, because that's like driving on cotton without any deviation marks whatsoever. So what's the difference between the way that that portion was paved and the way that this portion is not holding up?

I think that part of it is the... The portion that DOT did was part of a DOT project. This was done as part of a development. So I think that part of it is the road structure that was actually built underneath. And I don't remember how this part of Commerce Drive was built originally. I was here, but it was... I wasn't in this job and I don't know that I was paying as close of attention to the street structure that went in, but that's probably what it was. We probably didn't recognize that it should have been as a commercial collector and it probably was not built that way. It probably wasn't built as a residential subdivision street either, so that's probably why it lasted, but this road gets truck traffic, it gets everything. And the other piece is newer than this piece. This piece has been down a number of years now.

And probably even with the truck traffic, those axle weights, that probably shouldn't be driving. It's driving because there's no axle weight restriction posted for that road.

That's correct. And Home Depot gets deliveries, Food Lane gets deliveries down that road all the time.

Are you sure that's not a DOT rent?

Commerce is ours. This part is ours. That's coming off of Country Club.

But on the other side is a DOT. No, it was paid by Devo.

Why did they pay it?

No, they connected.

They made that connection. They made that connection. They built a new portion and there was an old portion that they connected to that they paved up. And that's, that old portion was ours. Yes. Yeah. Because it dead ended there before you got to the VW. Pot of grain. That's right. And so that's why DOT constructed that because that was part of a tip project that we, where we basically were trying to divert some of the traffic out of the intersection. down there at Western and Marine Boulevard. And so those were like the parallel routes. So we were able to get DOT to build that part of it, and it's properly constructed. But unfortunately, just like we said, our streets have been constructed over many years with different standards. Some of them weren't in the city when they were constructed. That Commerce Road was done in pieces.

Yes. So many of them were that way. Now what about the section that crosses Piney Green? That's ours.

That was built by the development there. And that was built under what standards we had in effect at that time.

Yes.

And they will go all the way out to Wolf's Swamp.

I have driven this section, this cut-through section of Commerce, and after it was chip sealed, and it's a huge difference.

It rides a whole lot better than it did. It's better than it was, that's for sure. But it was worth a pilot. Yes.

I'm not saying it's perfect or going to last forever, but it's way better than it was. My shocks and suspension system, thank you.

So some of the things that we saw from the pilot project we did have some complaints because you know as I explained to you the there's about a week period where they put down the chip seal and looks like a gravel road and then we would come back and put a micro seal on top of that so there is time period there. We did end up with you know those chips come loose and get pushed to the edges of the road so those are really We received, when I say complaints, I mean few, like less than five or six and some of those we went looking for because we do want to know how our citizens react. So I think even on the lower PCI streets where they wouldn't have recommended, I still think it came out very good. We'll continue to monitor those, but overall it was effective. And we plan to use it in the future. We just will have to be selective on which streets we use it on. For FY27, we have, this is kind of our plan for this year. We're currently evaluating the streets that have been identified for FY27. When I say evaluating, that means that we're going through and looking at all the infrastructure, Cameron, all the sewer lines, all the stormwater lines, to make sure that we're not paving something that we know is a problem. We have a, it's time, we try to do our pavement condition every three to four years. It's time to do that again. As I said, it was done in 2023. So we have the RFQ. That has been advertised, gone out. We had responders do that. We've selected the firm that we would like to work with and requested them to provide us a proposal based on our RFQ. Once we have that, we'll probably come back to you for a budget amendment to ask for money to do that assessment. The one good thing, or the one thing that we're trying to do this year that's slightly different is with our assessment we asked for a program to be provided that we can actually utilize to help make decisions on when we should crack seal, when we should cape seal, and look at when we make improvements to a road what does that do to our overall PCI as the rest of the roads start to age or keep aging. I mentioned DeWitch Street already. The permits have come in, so we're pulling that all together to get it out for bid so that we can move forward with that project. That will be a challenging project to construct, and we will be working closely with the neighborhood as we start moving forward with that project because some of that sewer is over 10 feet deep. And then crack seal and mill patch and the cul-de-sac program we will continue in-house. With that Mayor, that's all I have.

I just have a couple of questions, or a comment and question. One is have we engaged our legislatures to look at something like Charlotte did with the half cent sales tax to help fund roads?

We've gone a couple of times with a quarter cent and have not had any traction. And I think that's one of the issues that come Thursday when we're talking about our legislative plan. I think if council wants to get more aggressive with this, I think we should put that on our menu of items that we may go actively against this year, whether it's just asking them to pass it or to put it on the ballot. I think it's a good option.

I've tried a couple of times to push forward a quarter cent sales tax dedicate. We did do something a couple of years ago where we, after the audit, we dedicated a million dollars in fund balance to go in addition to that, but that's something you just can't sustain that. We could try the core set again. I'm not sure it'll fly, but... I mean, the problem is everybody else is putting in a quarter cent also. You know, that kind of messes that up, that plan up.

But it's a more fair way instead of taking it from... Sure is. You know, people that come into the city and use their city services, they're paying...

in our streets.

The other comment was, you know, I appreciate all the hard work that you've been doing with this because it does, you know, when we talk about efficiency, this is one of the things that I think that in the long run is going to save our taxpayers money and I think I commend your staff for putting that together. Thank you.

I'm sorry, did you have something? Mr. Hanson, I had a question about the chip scale. It just popped into my brain. Remember when you initially presented this to us, you said that one of the challenges would be on a street that had driveways where people back out on and turn, and if they turn their wheel and don't move, their car kind of grinds up those spots. Did you have a chance to observe any of that?

We did. And the place that that showed up the worst was on cul-de-sacs. And one of the things that the staff and I talked about is we probably would not use this on cul-de-sacs because of that in the future. It's tearing it up too fast. It does. And you can actually see where it slides the chips, the aggregate, and it rubs through that cape seal. It's almost like cars get into the cul-de-sac, especially smaller ones, and just turn their well all the way and try to work their way around the cul-de-sac. Or trash trucks with a weight in the turn. I actually asked them to go out and look at that, and it turns out we don't think it's our trash trucks. because of the size of the tires. And the way our trash trucks do it is they're pretty good about doing three point turns and not turning their wheels as they're stopped. But it was a conscious effort. But I did ask that question. We think it's patched under vehicles.

It's a behavior you can't change, so maybe just choosing the locations is the best route. Yes, ma'am. I have, I'm sorry. When we get to the end of this, I have one thing to share from the TAC committee related to streets and stuff. You said it was done, right?

Well, I had a question. Mr. Hanson, is there any traction or movement from the General Assembly about looking at taxes on electric vehicles contributing to the power bill source and looking at how additional fundings can come to municipalities as opposed to just power bill funding per se and not taking into account electric car charges that are within municipalities and generating funding and supplying monies back to cities for EV vehicles.

So I can tell you what we have right now. I'll give credit to Kelly because he remembered this question from last year. Oh, did I ask it last year? Oh, Lord. But I didn't have a good answer for you then. So I appreciate you answering that. The EV registration is $214 a year for straight EV. And then the plug-in hybrid is $107 a year. So they're paying... a higher registration fee on top of their property tax for plug-in and EV. We're looking at implementing a vehicle-models travel plan.

Yes, they have it. Which I think that kind of died on the vine. It did. The 21st century transportation plan. It would have been an administrative nightmare for one thing. I believe what their plan was that each year when you had your vehicle inspected, that's what your tax bill would be.

But that's what they have right now is you pay a higher registration fee.

I guess you get some sales tax from the electric that's used to charge the vehicles.

The legislature's also been exploring other options for taxing certain products from auto repair stores and things like that and some of that sales tax into street. So they're trying to overcome the fact that cars are more efficient and not everybody's using gas to try to help bridge the gap a little.

The challenge is some of those, what they found is some of those EV cars don't use all the same parts. It's different.

I won't ask next year. Quarter cent sales tax would be probably the best option that's out there. This might be the time. I mean, we can try it again. Try to push it through again.

Thank you. Yeah, Mayor, I was going to say, if any council members want to look at the plan when we get the updates, just let us know when you're coming in. Let's schedule time with either Wally or Wally and Kelly to go over what the street plan looks like, what the scores look like. You get a lot of questions, just like Mr. Sosa is driving on DeWitt all the time. You get questions about these roads, we can give you updates on it and the plan. We've been asked about DeWitt for at least the last four years, and we've gone through this process. It's going to be an updated project, so just let us know what questions you have, and we'd love to sit down and do a little review with those you want to review.

We do have one other one that's starting to fail pretty quickly that the manager's asking about a couple of times now, which is Doris. And Doris was not paved all that long ago. The challenge is the water lines under Doris are causing problems. We didn't replace the water line. That's right. And the water in that area, for whatever reason, is two feet deep. So there's... If you remember when we had the ice storm, we had, I think, three breaks along Doris. So that's the challenge. Well, we did pave...

Doris Avenue last time, I think it was about two weeks after it was paved, there was a geyser. Yes.

I mean, a line broke.

Yes.

And we didn't, when we paved it, we didn't roll it with a vibratory roller because of that. We still had problems.

If there's nothing else on this item, I'd like to share. Councilwoman Smith and I got an update today by email that, and this is streets related, that Gum Branch, which is a DOT street, is finally getting the sidewalk and pedestrian project upgrades that we've been waiting on. For those who track these kinds of projects, it's been a long time coming. We have goat trails and we have sidewalks that don't have the ADA ramps. I have personally seen folks in wheelchairs on the street because they can't use their motorized wheelchair on the sidewalk and get on and off. And we've had fatalities on this street with pedestrians and bike riders and others. So it's very important that this is finally coming. It will include push button activated pedestrian signals at Nottingham, And at DeWitt and at Doris intersection. So those three locations will have a push button for safety and crossing. And ADA compliant sidewalks being added instead of those lovely goat trails we've had for a couple decades. That we'll have to ask Mr. Prince. Is it both sides? It's both sides.

In most cases, it's both sides. Primarily, I would say the east side, but there is some infill on the west side as well.

Beautiful. And the project is almost done. Design is almost completion and they expect it to be advertised for construction later this year. So we should see some things happening shortly thereafter.

Well, if that's what the existing sidewalks are, we'll leave those alone.

Some of them will have to be replaced because they don't meet ADA requirements. So that's one of the primary things is not only getting the infill, but also making it ADA compliant. We're going to be looking at Henderson Drive next as well. So all those sidewalks that were put in who knows how long ago, they're going to get replaced soon. That's funded with DOT money? Yes. That is 100% funded by DOT, but we are managing the project in-house, and we're actually going to end up hiring a contractor to do the work. DOT is going to help with some of the traffic control.

I drive that street every day, so I'm glad to see the sidewalks coming in the 80s.

Mr. Prince, was it about five years ago Henderson was repaid?

It's hard to believe, but it's been more than five years, yes. And it's actually holding up pretty well considering what all was done to it at the time.

And DOT didn't think about the sidewalks then. They just did the repayment.

Part of the challenge is they see the sidewalks as our assets. Gotcha. DOT does not maintain sidewalks. Gotcha. Oh, yeah. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, of course. Okay, good. He's made some rights of entry and all that kind of stuff. Thank you, Juan. Thank you, sir.

Thank you.

Let's talk about some trees on the street.

Street trees.

Street trees.

Let's mess up those roads that we just talked about with some tree trees.

Great segue into this discussion. So good evening to Mayor and Council. Thank you for having me. I think we've put this off a couple months. So finally glad to sit here. So I'll try not to take up much of your time tonight. The Unified Development Ordinance, which is our development regulations, requires street trees along all streets. Every one. It doesn't matter the category, type, etc. Just all trees. This is an example, this is Williamsburg, this is developer installed street trees on both sides, this is a larger roadway facility. That matters, as I'll show you here in a second. More right of way, more room to plant them, less room for conflicts. As I mentioned, all roadways, the UDO also requires yard trees for all residential lots. That's important based on, I think, the strategy that we're gonna propose to council. With street rights-of-way, if you're gonna have trees, you gotta go to a wider right-of-way width. And with wider right-of-way widths comes more driveways, more impervious surface, more development cost, more stormwater treatment. So that's a negative component of having wider rights-of-ways, especially on these internal residential roadways. That's key to kind of one of the things that we wanna ask council about as far as strategy goes.

There's benefits to trees.

I like trees personally. They add shade, beautification. They help with noise reduction. They give us air to produce oxygen that we breathe. They help with storm water management. so on and so forth. There's also some negative components to trees. Damage to those sidewalks that we were just talking about, the curbs, the streets. And we have a lot of existing development where you do have overhead power, so there's conflicts there, although the UDO does require with new developments that it be underground. That still creates problems with that underground infrastructure, whether it be fiber, a lot more fiber today than we had before, water, sewer. Gas lines now, I'm probably forgetting one, additional tasking You know, we do have occasional hurricanes that creates additional cleanup items, safety hazards. You know, if a car, similar to the fence, if a car hits a tree, you know, that could be safety concerns. That's why I think you've seen DOT, they've gone away from these larger trees within the medians because of the safety component. There's development costs associated with that, the wider right-of-ways, the additional costs with planting them. There's also costs with the city, because if they're in the right-of-way, we've got to maintain them. That's why when we've been talking about this amongst staff, this has been a multi-departmental discussion even though it's housed in the UDO. Recreation, public services, planning, we've all been involved with talking about where do we go from here now that we're seeing an uptick in these residential developments that we hadn't really seen in the last decade and a half since we adopted the UDO in 2014. We know that the city of Wilmington has been spending lots and lots of money on the maintenance of trees. Hundreds of thousands of dollars. But this is some example. I mean, while this is a beautiful oak tree, they do create challenges with our infrastructure. Curving gutter, asphalt trails, sidewalks, driveways. So what staff would like to have city council consider is we've got street trees on the top, you got Carolina Forest Boulevard on the left, Williamsburg Plantation on the right. And then we have canopy trees or what we require the developer to install when a new house is constructed. So if you look on the bottom pictures, they're not street trees technically cuz they're on private property, but it gives you a similar aesthetic feel to the community. So the ones on the top, city's maintaining, if it's in the right of way, although there may be an exception in the Carolina Forest, so I don't know that we're maintaining those. But down on the bottom side, that's a homeowner maintenance. It's further away from our sidewalks. It's further away from our curb, doesn't require that wider right-of-way. So what staff is proposing would be to bring back city council, if you give us the direction, would be to modify the UDO to identify strategic street types. What I mean by that is like a collector street, major thoroughfare, those types of streets would have the requirement, but your internal residential streets would not have them. We would basically have that installed with the house. And then that helps with the infrastructure, that helps with the maintenance component, but achieves a similar feel.

Does that eliminate the street trees?

Technically, it would eliminate the street trees in those residential streets, but you're going to push them off onto the private lot. So when a home builder builds a house, before they get their certificate of occupancy, they have to plant a large canopy tree in the front yard.

Okay, can you go back to that? I will.

Oh, I don't think that that would do that, but there we go.

Okay. No, those streets don't have homes on it. Well, the one going down Carolina Forest. I mean, they don't have homes on. I'm just trying to figure that out. So if we had another neighborhood built and they had those islands, they would have no trees.

No, no. In the upper left category, we would because that's a collector street. I get it. We would keep the requirement there for that street type. Got it. But down below for the residential street. we would not have it, we would have it put on where the houses are. So we would, instead of saying all streets have to have street trees, we would come up with the different street categories that have to have the street trees, and then which streets, the classifications that don't have to have it. That's our proposal that we would bring forth to council for consideration. We certainly can.

Well, because, like, you know, the top of the Carolina Forest 30 years from now, you know, those big oak trees, they're going to create, obviously, a problem, kind of like what Wilmington is dealing with, but they're just obviously a lot older. And then, like, Bradford pears, I mean, they fall apart easy, you know what I mean? And they create all sorts of problems. So I feel like there should be a type of tree that we put in certain areas. Crate and myrtle.

Crate and myrtle.

Those would be good for, like, the canopies. But, I mean, the problem is some of those with trash trucks and other vehicles passing by, then you have those types of issues because they don't grow tall enough.

But that's one reason, I mean, like I mentioned, this is a multi-department issue where, you know, we've got Jason Smith here with us tonight, you know, the horticulturist. We're going to basically, what are the acceptable street trees that we want to have to avoid those concerns?

I think the oak trees, like in the yards, would be great trees, but maybe not right in between the two streets of Terra. Palm trees.

Laughter

So I think what we will have is a list that's basically a native type species. I don't think palm trees is on the list.

Don't put trash trees like the magnolia right in the middle. That just creates a whole tree. They just draw stuff that and riverbushes, I mean...

And believe me, that feedback actually helps us to kind of help narrow, okay, well, we don't want to have certain trees, so that helps. That's feedback, even though you may not realize that that's feedback. I've got a lot of opinions on trees. I can tell. I like my yard stuff.

How will builders view a list of trees like that? We've got developers looking at land and they want to come in and they want to do that. Street trees versus canopy trees, not probably a huge difference. How will they view having additional restrictions if these are acceptable and these are not? Do you think that's a...

trees will definitely be an impact because if you're taking that out of what they have to put in in certain areas that are changing, you could reduce some of that cost.

Is there a size of tree too? Can you put a certain gallon tree versus a more mature tree? That's a big cost.

We do have general standards for landscaping, so that's applicable today. It's 8 to 10 feet, I believe, with a 2-inch caliper is the sizing for a large canopy tree. A large canopy tree is defined one that grows a certain height with a certain crown width. So that definition kind of already whittles down to these many types of trees. But we've got one developer that's had conversations with us about that right-of-way width. And then there's additional easements and conflicts with other providers. So now what do we do? So by having it in the yard, they already have that requirement. So now instead of having a yard and a street tree, they're cutting that potentially roughly in half. It's just going to be one in the yard that they already have to do. They won't be putting it in the right of way. So there's developer savings right there.

I like to see a lot of flexibility in a new standard, especially the type of tree and the number of trees that they have to plant.

I just want to make sure there's no grass there.

So the next steps will be we will draft an amendment. We've already taken this to Planning Board. We will draft an amendment using, like I said, multiple departments to come up with the verbiage. And then we will bring that back for Planning Board for consideration or recommendation. and then bring that forward to the city council with a public hearing for adoption.

North Carolina Extension did a study on Charlotte and they revised the study in February of 2025. And it talked about the millions that are saved in Charlotte based on trees and the heat saving because of the cooling. And it talked about the stormwater in terms of billions. And you're talking about damage to streets because of the water table. And you, it seems a little... contradictory to be removing trees from the streets that could help with that problem. So when we revisit this, I would like that everybody, that you include that study from North Carolina Extension and critique it if you can. That would be very helpful.

Stormwater impact of the change, basically. Environmental and stormwater impact of the change.

It talks about pollution. All of the toxins that trees take out of the air, particularly if you have any kind of business that is right on the street and you have automobile traffic.

The study was that again?

It's North Carolina Extension. You're familiar with.

I'll pull it up there and I'll send it out to council. So one thing I will point out that this proposal will not eliminate the city of Jackson street tree requirements that are found in the street lawns on your commercial developments. We're not proposing to make any changes to that at this time. That was a change that the Mayor and Council made, I want to say around 2011-12 timeframe where we went from no trees being required in the street lawn and perimeter lawns to a new standard. So we're not proposing to eliminate that with this proposal.

Thank you, Ryan. Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. Thank you for the opportunity to present. As Dr. Washington said earlier, we're going to keep this abstain short, right? But I also wanted to say thank you. You don't have a whole lot of confidence. But I also wanted to say thank you to Kevin and Haley for joining us this evening and sticking through the meeting because they are the impetus for this discussion. We're gonna talk about social districts and then also a pilot that they have proposed for an upcoming event on Court Street. So the social district, this is just a condensed version of the language from the general statute. You know, I tried a hundred different ways to put this in layman's terms, but of course I'm going to catch Lorna at the wrong time. But Lorna had a really great one-liner earlier, if you wouldn't mind sharing as to why these are good things or what they're trying to accomplish.

It's pretty simple. All it is is a suspension of open container laws. So every other law still remains in effect. A lot of times people are concerned. They're going to say, well, will this increase underage drinking? Will this increase disorderly conduct? Will this increase? No, all those things are still going to remain in effect. It's really just saying folks still have to be ABC permanent in order to distribute these things. But when they distribute them, they just don't have to be in a particular area.

So that was more than one line in about half of my presentation. But she's exactly right. Basically, the way I look at it is you can go into, with a social district in place, you can go into an establishment, purchase an alcoholic beverage, and actually leave that establishment as long as you stay in designated areas. You can go to street festivals, you can go to different shops, all of those kinds of things. And the general statute reference is there. Statute has some specific requirements. First of all, in order for it to occur, it has to have a local ordinance approved by the City Council, and that has to be filed with the ABC Commission. Now, it doesn't seem as though there's a lot of scrutiny involved with that. We just have to be able to file it in a timely fashion for it to be in effect. There are different types of social districts. Some are what I call permanent, meaning that they reoccur. Either, you know, same time of the week, same time of the month, same time of the year, or they are temporary and they're just associated with a specific event. It really just depends on what you're trying to accomplish with the social district itself. Clearly defined signs or designated areas with defined signage is required. And, of course, dates, times, all of that's very important. Sales only by, of course Lorna just mentioned this, only by ABC permit holders. But one of the requirements of a social district is that you can only serve beverages in specific containers. And they can only be 16 ounces max. And I think the reason is the specific container is to make sure that people are not bringing in outside alcohol. And then, of course, the 16 ounce is to help reduce the probability of over serving. For people that own property or businesses within a social district, participation is voluntary. Okay, so if we were to do this, there would be either signs or decals or whatnot on the various businesses or on the property saying, you know, social district participants welcome here or not here, that kind of thing. And Maysville, I think that was mentioned earlier about the things that they're doing. They just recently implemented their social district. The signage is very clear. This is basically for their entire downtown area. And I believe so far it's been successful. So the question is why? I think we all kind of intrinsically know why. We're trying to drive activity to downtown and build awareness. Also create opportunities for community engagement as well as to pair this possibly with different types of cultural events. Small business support is huge, particularly since we're focusing on the downtown area, enhancing tourism. And then from the council's perspective, I hope that you look at it as potential for increasing the return on our investment. We've spent a lot of money on New Bridge Street. We've spent a lot of money on Court Street. That's creating a lot of momentum. Continuing that wave of momentum is creating a return on our investment. So who else in North Carolina? This graphic right here is about a year old, but you can see it's anybody from, I don't know if y'all have been to North Wilkesboro before, but there's a whole lot going on there. A wonderful place, mind you. But Charlotte, Greenville, Greensboro, I mean, cities of all different sizes. And the last time that I checked on the ABC Commission's website, there are a total of 68 social districts currently permitted in the state of North Carolina. So they come at different scales and are out there for different purposes. The pilot that we would like for council to consider is to align with the downtown Oktoberfest. And if I remember correctly, this is the third annual Oktoberfest and it's grown year after year. The dates are September 25th and 26th, so if we're going to do this, time is of the essence in making the ordinance happen. The hours of operation are limited to what you see there on the screen. And of course, Clove Hitch is our lead partner. Oktoberfest is their event, but of course the city council would take the lead in actually establishing the social district if you so choose.

There wasn't another organization that was doing Oktoberfest?

Onslow Community Outreach. There's a long history with Oktoberfest, and it did go from Onslow Community Outreach, and there was two of them planned this year, but I think the one that Kevin and Haley is the only one that's actually moving forward. We spoke with the other folks not too long ago, and I don't think that they're going to proceed. Okay.

So with this... pilot here for Oktoberfest is then to say if it's successful that that would be automatically set as a social district for Court Street?

It certainly doesn't have to be. I've got a slide that talks about that. Okay. So, but the complexion of the event is it's a street festival with food trucks, vendors, of course all the local businesses around who want to participate can actually participate, brick and mortar. Brought some beer. Brought some beer, there you go. And so we do have a rain date because, of course, it is eastern North Carolina. So if we choose to move forward, we would have to consider that in the ordinance itself. Right there on the right-hand side, you can see that they've already done a prototype of what the cup would look like. On the flip side, it has the Clofish logo. But again, those standardized cups are required for social districts, period. Here's what it would look like graphically. So just a couple landmarks. Old Bridge Street, College Street, you can see there on the left-hand side. Basically, the purple line going north and south on the screen is Court Street. So primarily the event would occur between Old Bridge Street and Railroad Street. There would be street closers where the kind of red bars are shown at the end of the purple lines. Street vendors and other activities would be in the streets on those purple lines. And then the green area, those would be the businesses who are eligible to participate in the social district if they so choose. You see food trucks right there in the bottom left-hand side. If we move forward with this concept, then one of the things that we would talk to them about is whether or not that area could be used to stage all the food trucks that support the event. So there's going to be local food, but then there's also going to be food trucks. Yes, sir. So riverwalk crossing is not included in this? It doesn't go that far south, but one of the things that could be considered is if this is successful, we're already talking about what phase two might look like. And of course, the park, it does seem like a very logical opportunity. But then also north along Court Street, because there are some other restaurants and businesses there as well.

I ask because Oktoberfest has taken place in the park. It used to be there, right?

That's where it used to be.

Yeah, that was where community outreach would hold it. But they've stopped holding that event. So since they've stopped, then that was that one group that thought they were going to do something there at Riverwalk that decided not to, you know, And this one's been done in Court Street in previous years, a smaller scale.

We've got some good pictures of the mayor tapping the keg down there at Riverwalk Park.

So public safety is very important, right?

It's of the utmost importance because if it's not safe, then we can't have fun. So one of the things that our friends with Clove Hitch talked about is hiring private security to support the event, but also have close coordination with the police department and the fire department. not only for security purposes, but also event planning, making sure that there are evacuation routes and contingency plans if there's lightning and all that stuff that you and I don't think about that they do. There have to be clearly posted boundary signs, and then you can see on the left hand, or excuse me, the right hand side what Carrie has chose to do. It's a little bit different than Maysville, but it integrates a QR code to help people download things about the social district, whether it be the businesses that they can attend or a site map or the rules, things of that nature. All the ABC procedures actually remain in place, and there are a couple of others associated with the social district, namely things like underage serving, and then also about how it works and keeping people in place, things of that nature. And the road closers, of course, for this event are intended to keep people from interacting with vehicles. So the request is to consider an ordinance at the next meeting, not the next meeting, the following, but it's got to be soon because September is coming up. Consider an ordinance allowing this to occur on the 25th and the 26th. With that ordinance, basically what would happen is it's only for this event, the dates and the times. Once that event is over, then the social district goes away. If we want to repeat this for next year or some other event, then council would have to consider another ordinance. And that's why that third bullet is so important right now. because there are many steps involved in getting to the point where you can have a public event You have the zoning permit, you have two police permits, and then you also have potentially this ordinance that's required by council. Depending on our after action report, how our experience goes, we hope to collapse that process. So that, to your point, Ms. Smith, they're not automatic, but we can create a template. as to how to recreate this in the future, assuming that we're looking at a similar scope in the same place.

What's different with this versus what they did last year?

The difference here is that you can actually go into the adjacent businesses and things like that.

Walk around with your drink.

You don't need to stay in the place you were served. With our commitment to downtown, why aren't we looking at this I know we have to get this ordinance so that they can do their event, but they have other events there. It seems to me that rather than it just be for this event, that there'd be some flexibility for them to do other events.

And that's exactly what streamlining the process is about. And you can see down there at the bottom, our friends have a couple of other events that they would like to pursue this for.

In that same area.

In that same area.

I think it'd be good for us to look at maps, or even draft maps available for Court Street, for New Bridge, for the Rupert Park. The places that we know these kinds of street festivals, because we've got Rock the Block coming, that's going to be all down New Bridge. It'd be great to have a social district as part of that. And then things that happen in the park. We've got lots of things that happen there, so having kind of a... pre-drawn, this is the area, this is how it usually looks, you can kind of template it like you said.

Exactly, so in my ideal world, what we would get to is a process where we just create a package, we put it on a, if we can, put it on the consent agenda for council to create the ordinance. we get it approved, and then it can go into effect. We don't have to go through such a multi-stage process of briefing every event and then going through multiple council meetings to get it approved.

Well, it seems to me, though, if you're going to do multiple events, that getting the ordinance so that it can be done without having to come back to council every single time would be more effective.

Part of the first stage, though, for staff is we don't have it now, so we need clear direction that comes from the body of the council that says this is something we're going to go with. The reason we run the pilots is what if we come up with an event and there are some challenges and we're trying to develop a protocol plan, you're faced with those challenges and then someone else challenges the council by us doing the event. We're just trying to get some some good runs through. They give us a good partner to present information back and then you can, if that strategy is what the council wants to go with, we can put that to you to adopt. It just has to be approved by the council.

We don't know what we don't know.

is the way that I would put it. And if we can get to that point, I think that's amazing. But what we're recommending, like Mr. Ray was saying, it's more of a baby step type of approach to get to this.

I have a question. Who is the lead partner on this again? Clove Hitch. Clove Hitch.

So will they remain the lead partner always or is... It depends if they're the event coordinator.

So they're doing Oktoberfest.

They're doing Oktoberfest. And they also proposed to do a Cider Fest, which is kind of later in the fall, which makes sense. And then Small Business Saturday, which would be a similar event just for one day, probably a different scale than what we're looking at. But say the city would like to do something similar for Rock the Block. There's nothing preventing us from doing a social district on New Bridge Street for that event. Or if some other business owner or some other nonprofit or whomever wants to come and do something and we want to support it, we can do that as well. The main thing is getting the experience on how this works before... we start rinse and repeating the process.

Okay, I have two more questions. All right, I'm just throwing this out. Has any food truck vendor ever applied for an ABC license? That when events are held, not only are they able to sell food, but they can also sell alcohol?

I'm not sure.

They have, but not necessarily here. I have been in other festivals and other locations where there was a liquor truck or a mobile bar. I've seen those things in action. I don't know if it's happened in North Carolina, and I don't think it's happened in Jacksonville.

We have a vendor in Jacksonville that goes to festivals that sells alcohol. So we do have that opportunity.

A vehicle parked outside of their...

That's true. My second question is going to be so let's just say this coming to fruition and my car is parked on the back of a downtown Court Street, and I decided to go to my car, but it's in the social district. So I'm just saying, I can take my alcoholic beverages and I can sit in my car.

You see, the way it's laid out, the street closures, would eliminate on-street parking and the parking lots themselves. You can see on the right-hand side where the city's parking lot. All of that is outside the social district, so you're not going to go camp out in your vehicle.

It's also on the list of rules. You can't take it in your vehicle and leave with it. Right, so it's only suspending, like I said, that very one specific open container law to say if these businesses are allowing it, if these public streets are allowing it, you can do it here. But there's a whole different set of laws that govern having these things in your vehicle. And those all still remain in effect, yeah?

So really we're not, I'm sorry.

If approved.

Mm-hmm.

Could another organization come in with a festival on Court Street without getting the approval of the businesses there?

Yeah, I mean, they could apply for a street closure. You're talking about a non-social district type thing?

It's a social district, but it's a different group come in to Court Street. and they wanna do an event, do they have to get the approval of those businesses in order to do it? No, they have to get the approval of council.

And each business has the ability to voluntarily say they're gonna participate in that event in that social district. So that's one of the questions that we talked with our partners from about is, if this is a longer term, more consistent, social district, then other businesses can do this, bring in a food truck, bring in whatever they want. They can open up there and have the same thing. We want to see that synergy, but it definitely does not give one entity the right to own a monopoly on 4th Street, New Bridge, wherever.

And usually the signage is pretty clear. If you've ever been downtown where something like this is going on, there's signs right on the door. Social District drinks welcome here and not participating. It's really clear where you can go in with a beverage.

I just was mainly concerned about making sure in the long run, whether it's Court Street, whether it's at the Riverwalk, or whether it's right here in New Bridge, right here across the block, that There isn't one business, one organization to strong on. And I'm not saying that Clover Hitch would do that. I'm just concerned making sure that no one does that. Because if I want to go in and I just wanted to have a Dress in Red Hills event on Court Street. That would be up to the council. That would be up to the council, but what if businesses have a problem with that? Because maybe I want red heels and you could be male and female. You see what I'm saying? Sure. So it could be those things that come outside the norm.

And that's why the after action, I think, is very important for not only this, but others.

Okay.

You know, because you always want to polish on your success.

Sure.

And so when there are tripwires out there, we want to avoid them because we want this to be a positive thing for everybody who participates.

And if this is approved for Oktoberfest, that doesn't automatically, even if it's successful, does not automatically mean it'll be approved for Cedar Fest and... Or Ciderfest? No.

Okay. Well, they have enough time to... That's what we would have. So if council approves this on the 18th, then we obviously get a policy statement from council that these are things that we're willing to support. So between the 18th and the next, we would be processing another package for council to consider for Ciderfest and the small business Saturday at the same time.

Got it. And there's a couple things that we want to do in the process is for short-term events, maybe we don't have permanent signage, but we have temporary signage. If we decide that this is going to be a social district, then we go into business placards. We have the Cary signage that you saw or the Maysville signage, and then we have barriers where we go into the bollards in some areas. We do things to invest in the downtown area to protect that perimeter so that it's easier for people to understand The zone.

Oh, I'm sorry. And it will also, there will be some, and if we approve this, there will also be some type of mechanism that's put into play where someone could monopolize, like, certain dates or an exponential amount of dates, and if someone... wanted to, you know, like if Ms. Smith wanted something but she found out I had it, then, you know, I try to do a prank called, oh, well, if you really want it. Because I'm bringing them real deals. Okay, so, but you understand because there's more than one ways of implementing a monopoly.

Well, and this This is what we do with all government business. We try something, and then we find there's a problem. We set a policy around it and a procedure. And that's where we need to get to, ultimately, where it says, if you had it last year, maybe you can't have it next year kind of thing. If somebody else, I don't know. It's just hypothetical. But again, all of the decisions are up to the council. If we do end up with conflict, then we could look at putting policy behind it and procedure to help eliminate some of that conflict.

I actually think it'd be similar to the events permit that we already have. There are so many events in the city, there are only so many places to hold them. So if somebody wants Riverwalk Park and they get it, that's where their event's going and somebody else would have to pick a different day.

Oh, I'm just saying, you wouldn't be able to just come in with your calendar and say, I want to block all the 14 weekends. Yes, yes, yes.

I mean, we do the same thing with recreation facilities. But race is no big deal. So that 18th day that gives them enough time. Well and actually our friends have rearranged their vacation to be here to make sure that we can meet the timeline if council is supportive.

I'm sorry. Let me make it clear, the ordinance would not be specific for a specific business. It would not be specific for a specific business. We have folks here, I really appreciate you guys being here, of course, but when ordinances are passed by the city, they're not gonna be in favor of or against a particular business, the same way we would issue permits in favor of a particular event or a particular business. This is just kind of an impetus to bring it to council to discuss it, cuz we do have an event coming up. But that doesn't mean the ordinance is going to specify any particular business has the authority to do that. The statute already says businesses can opt in or out. We don't have the authority to say this business opts in, this business opts out.

Your ordinance probably will not say Oktoberfest on it.

That's right.

It'll just say social district, this area, these dates, these times.

Makes sense. In my travels doing assessments... I've seen a number of social districts, and they all benefit the downtown elections. So I think this is a good thing. I just hope we have enough time to get Cedar Fest and Small Business Saturday, get that approved so that they can continue it. And part of that process, when I go out and I do those assessments, And I've found in my travels from Wisconsin to Florida to Texas that there's very few problems with those social districts. They're managed very responsibly. And I think that'll happen here.

They generally revolve around community events. Right.

Have we made an assessment regarding drug trafficking?

Well, that's where PD comes in to this. Right now, we're just talking about the policy side of it, the operational side. We just wanted to get a sense from council whether this is a thumbs up or thumbs down. And then we'll work with PD to evaluate all of that, just like our department with evacuation and stuff like that. Well, I'm good with October 5th for this year.

Just need consensus at this point, yes?

Everybody good with moving forward? Mm-hmm. Anybody not? Okay. You got it?

I will make one thing in jest, Mr. Riggs, that this kind of discussion almost begs for refreshment. I'm just saying.

Yeah, it really is. Thank you very much. We would need a special permit for that.

Oh, thank you. Mr. Riggs, you have some one-city moments. I do have one-city moments, Mayor, that I appreciate. I'd love to be able to pull it up, is today multiple members of the council and the community were present as Mayor Phillips recognized Major James Capers, Jr. for his Medal of Honor. You'll see here Major Capers is From the here and the then, a great picture, but for us to be here in City Council Chambers today was an amazing, really awesome event to see multiple... people that were celebrating him and his being awarded the National Medal of Honor. So on June 18th, he received the National Medal of Honor from President Trump for his heroic acts in the Vietnam War. The mayor gave a very good proclamation today that talked about these acts and it talked about everything that Major Capers has done throughout his career. On June 19th, which would be here, he was inducted into the Pentagon Hall of Heroes So it was a very active time for him. And then you're going to see here Secretary Millett with North Carolina Secretary Millett with Major Capers as well as Rick Long. And then today, here's our council and the mayor with Major Capers with the proclamation. It's great to bring him here as... part of our community, our history, our pride, and from the faces I saw in the room today, our joy. And I think that it's very impressive to see one person resonate throughout the chamber, throughout the community, and then throughout the nation, because hopefully you can... read the proclamation which we'll share so that people understand the life of Major Capers. I have a lot of information here, but you can be at the National Medal of Honor Museum. You can also go to the Carolina Museum of the Marine and you're gonna be able to see Major Capers here. You're going to see, this is also pretty cool on the right-hand side of the screen here, Mayor. Not only did Major Capers show up, but Colonel Pace and Sergeant Major Turner showed up. And they don't typically just come to our meetings, but they were here in City Hall today after being at the change of command for General Wirth. earlier on today, both these gentlemen. And so they were here present with us, which just shows the incredible relationship that they have with the city and the respect that they have for major capers. So I wouldn't want to add anything else to that, Mayor. Fantastic day. Thank you for everybody that were involved today and for making it happen. Very impressive event for us here in the city. One other update, Mayor. The Youth Summit has the Mayor's Youth Leadership Summit. That's Saturday, August 22nd. So for anybody that's available that day, Saturday, August 22nd, 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., the Youth Summit, and that's going to be at City Hall Saturday, August 22nd. That's all I have, man.

entertain a motion to close session to discuss personnel matters. So moved. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye.