Board of Commissioners - Regular Meeting

Second time, sorry for the technical glitch.

Yes. So I'm going to go ahead and call the meeting to order again just because we, I'd like to call the city commission meeting held on Thursday, June 11th at 7 a.m. to order held at the municipal and safety building 601 East Main Street.

Commissioners, once again, the first item of business is public comment for items on the agenda. And the first speaker we have is Randy Keebler.

All right, Mr. Keebler, if you don't care to come up and state your name. And we have three minutes for public comment.

All right.

Randy Keebler. And let's start about the tax part. I live out by a wing deer. 42-minute response time, please. That's verified. The car lot bugged me. Two seats and a dash stolen. Car parked right on the road. So we don't have any police protection. Second thing, on the Aquatic Center, the people over here cannot afford, but you're going to charge a ticket for the Aquatic Center. The people that can afford it won't go to the Aquatic Center. It's simple as that. You don't need to take out any more debt. If you go to Willow Springs, the driveways tore up. If you go to a kefauver farm, you've done nothing. You go out with a wing deer, you can see the condoms. You can see the beer cans. You can see the hypodermics. Nothing. So why would you increase taxes when you can't take care of what you got? That's it. Any response?

Well, this is to hear what you have to say, so we can't interact, but we for sure hear it and take it into consideration, and I appreciate you being here.

The next speaker is Mary Meese.

Good early morning to each of you. You're representing all of us in this complicated push and pull, and I appreciate the time and thought that you're giving to these budget issues. My husband and I have lived here in Johnson City for over two decades, and it's been terrific to see the change in the city since 2003 when we moved here. now actualized, a revitalized downtown, the Walnut Street linked to the university, Tannery Knob, the tapestry project, the public arts, and many other park upgrades. All these things cost money. And each decision requires some strategic planning and the weighing of costs. No one likes a tax increase. No one. But few are the residents who have the foresight to recognize the multifaceted return on investment that each of the above decisions already has brought to the quality of this city. I understand that the 28% tax increase being proposed incorporates an 8% allocation for the new pool facility, and I can speak to the value of improved pool access, which Johnson City sorely needs. I brought my grandkids to the Memorial Park pool a few years ago on a Saturday, and it was so crowded that it truly felt unsafe. Johnson City needs better pool facilities for the size of this town. Now I learned to swim as a kid in a public pool in my hometown and that led to lifesaving instruction and then certification to teach lifesaving and I swam competitively in college. The return on that investment for me brought not only valuable skills but confidence and discipline that fed into the whole rest of my life. um your website publicized that the four working goals of this city are economic vitality quality of place excellence in government and future ready infrastructure i urge you therefore to invest toward better facilities for this generation now and several generations in the decision you're about to make i was recently in greensboro north carolina for a swim meet They have an amazing aquatic facility there, such that 2,000 swimmers flew in from all over the country for a four-day meet, staying in hotels and eating in the new restaurants that were situated around that facility. The improved vitality there was evidence of that city's forward thinking. And please could I encourage you that in any public discussion of the proposed increase, that it is not labeled nor perceived to be only about a pool cost. This is multifaceted planning, as you well know. And I want to, and we as a public want to share the burden of the increase of city improvements yet coming. Thank you.

Thank you.

Commissioners, commissioners, commissioners, the next speaker is Hannah Pogue.

Ms. Pogue, if you don't care to come up and state your name.

Hi, my name is Hannah Pogue. Oh, it starts as soon as I start talking, doesn't it? Okay, this is going to go fast. Okay, I misspoke during the June 4th meeting. I have argued with Parks and Rec for over six years about what is fair. I have vast firsthand knowledge and experience of their inability to provide equitable access to any current and or future developments. Jenny Brock, you spoke to the ability of Parks and Rec to specifically host wildly successful club team tournaments in Johnson City. For anyone who doesn't know what club teams are, they are privatized teams coached for regional and national tournament competition. Most youth players in Parks and Rec do not have the financial means to afford the thousands of dollars necessary for these expenses. In order to lift up the Johnson City community that you serve and encourage organic growth, you must acknowledge your blind spots. The reality is that the youth in Johnson City need subsidized access to organized recreation. This panel wanted to talk numbers. So here are a few examples of mismanaged priorities. So there is an illusion of access here in Johnson City. For the new programs that Johnson City Parks and Rec will have, so golf, softball, lacrosse, tennis, the average investment for any of these, which I would call upper tier sports access, organized sports, whatever, the investment would run about, and this is bottom of the barrel, about $250 per student, per child. The reality of Johnson City is that we have an over 20% poverty rate. 85% of single parent homes are headed by women. Women in Johnson City make 77 cents per dollar as their male equivalents. The amount of money that you make is no longer associated to how hard you work. In comparison to the realistic economic picture of Johnson City, here are some startling numbers that might shed better light on why this committee and the Johnson City administrators vote yes to $30 million Johnson City Police Department payouts, and or $50 million pools and effectively sell out the public in favor of designing your own retirement communities. Johnson City managers paid over $240,000 a year. The average in the United States for bigger and better run areas, the average is 150 to 200,000 per year. Johnson City assistant managers, and we have two, At $155,000 and $180,000, the average nationally is $110,000. Parks and Rec Director, $115,000. National average, $85,000. Both the fire and the police chief average $145,000. The national average is $100,000. Johnson City Mayor, $65,000 a year for a 10-hour a week. Well, this is pulled from city... Okay, does my time stop?

I'll let you have some more.

Okay. Okay. So I could go on, but this is published data. Published data. Well, you can argue it, but it's published data. The national averages were calculated based, oh yeah, I said that. Okay. So, and then also Johnson City School administrator salaries since 2018, many, more than you want to know, have risen over 50%. While the teacher increases were about, hovered about 12%. So who was hiring and determining pay for these positions? I have some solutions. I have like five things. Quick.

Quick.

Okay. Nix the pool. As painful as that is, nix the pool and related building and development. Audit and cut the salaries and public positions to reflect demographic averages. Reduce the amount of unnecessary middle management. audit the vehicle and equipment expenditures, and implement an accountability income tax for Johnson City Police Department.

That's it. Thank you. And as you sit down, just because public comment can be, but the commissioners get $100 a month, and I think the mayor gets $150. So that's, it's $100 a month.

The next speaker.

It's $1,200 a year.

Commission, the next speaker is Felicia Losch.

Good morning. I'm Felicia Losh. Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today. My perspective comes from two important roles. I'm the parent of a swimmer and I've been a school teacher at Liberty Bell Middle School for the past 18 years. Through both experiences, I have seen firsthand the positive impact that aquatics programs have on young people and families. As a parent, I've watched aquatics extend far beyond the pool. My daughter started in Mommy and Me Swim at Memorial Park, took lessons at the Wellness Center, and has been a member of the Barracuda Swim Club since she was six years old. Through swimming, she has learned discipline, perseverance, time management, and confidence. Every month, I watch her and her teammates, many that are my current and former students, nervous about competition and stand confidently before a race and believing in their ability to succeed. That growth doesn't happen by accident. It happens because of the opportunities provided through aquatics programming. As a middle school teacher, I see every day how important it is for students to have positive activities outside of the classroom. Aquatics provide a healthy environment where young people can stay active, develop friendships, and connect with caring coaches and mentors. Students who participate in structured activities bring greater focus, responsibility, and confidence back into the classroom. Just as importantly, they're spending time learning valuable skills, but also they spend less time on screens. Students can't be glued to a screen or engaging in risky behavior online if they're in water over their heads, gliding through lane lines, and learning how to breathe through their stress, anxieties, and emotions. Often swimming is called the best first sport for children because it's one of the only sports that can actually save lives. Every opportunity we create for someone to learn to swim makes our community safer. Drowning is a leading cause of preventable death in the United States, especially among children. For children ages one to four, drowning is the leading cause of death from unintentional injury. 80% of fatal drownings are in children under nine years old. Research shows that formal swim lessons reduce that risk by 88%. Competitive swim programs, like the Barracudas and the Science Hill swim team, remain the best source for both lesson instructors and lifeguards. Many of the Barracuda swimmers and the Science Hill swimmers teach swimming lessons and are the lifeguards for the city pools. Additionally, aquatic centers provide a safer option for teen and adult swimming by offering an alternative to deep waters that sometimes have dangerous currents. The community aquatic life cycle provides safety, fitness, and athletic activity and maximizes the impact that we have with our public facilities. Aquatic programs benefit the entire community, and in a region surrounded by lakes, rivers, streams, access to quality aquatic programming is not a luxury. It's a necessity. In a city our size in an area, often it could even be said that it would be negligent if we didn't offer these opportunities for students to learn how to swim and potentially save their own lives. We've seen over the past few months that Memorial Park cannot handle the community need on its own. A strong aquatics program is a necessary community resource and a worthy portion of the city budget. Thank you.

Thanks for being here.

Commissioners, the next speaker is David Adams.

Mr. Adams, if you don't care to come up and state your name.

Good morning, commission. Dave Adams, 3 Coventry Court. It's currently about 7.15 a.m. on Thursday at a special called meeting. And we are considering what you have rightfully called the most important item that comes before the public chambers. On June 13th, 2019, the second reading of the 2020 budget lasted three minutes and 30 seconds. On June 11, 2020, the special call meeting for the budget lasted, in its entirety, 5 minutes and 50 seconds. June 8, 2021, 2 minutes. June 9, 2022, 4 minutes. June 8, 2023, 3 minutes and 8 seconds. June 13, 2024, 3 minutes and 11 seconds. Last year, on June 12, 2025, we set a record. The special call meeting for the budget, gavel in, gavel out, lasted 1 minute and 4 seconds. My three minutes of speaking time here represent more public discussion of the budget on second reading than any single commissioner has given in the past seven years. This isn't my first, second, third, fourth, or even fifth time at this podium speaking on the same overarching points, public participation and transparency. We know that there's a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes to put things like this together. I commend city staff for the growing effort of budget prep. It is hard. It's not their work or even necessarily your decisions that folks take issues with. It's the opaque path from here to here that festers and breeds distrust and raises the temperature. This is meant to be a deliberative body. This is the public's time to hear your thoughtful deliberations, disagreements, opinions, trade-offs, and decisions on budget priorities. When you make up your mind elsewhere, the public is deprived of their right to participate in the process. I've heard it said that this body values input from residents to help guide the decision-making process. So when you hear genuine, articulate questions from people who take time out of their day to get involved and come to speak to you, you wouldn't say immediately move to approve an agenda item without discussing those concerns. That would be the opposite of valuing community input. Right, Commissioner Fowler? Before funding controversial eight-figure projects, raising every line out in budget, approving a 20% tax hike, and ultimately still depriving us of the accountability for last year's $32 million settlement, the public would like some true insight into your decision-making process. It's not an unreasonable demand. I think it's the bar for an elected official.

Thank you.

Thanks for chatting.

Commissioners, the final speaker is Coach Coraggio.

Coach, if you don't care to come up and state your name.

Good morning. My name is Chris Caraggio, and I was not planning to speak this morning. You know my position, and I have presented several reasons why I support the small $0.08 property tax increase for a community aquatic center. Then, at last week's commission meeting on the Internet, in an op-ed piece in the Johnson City Press, a course of action was proposed, which at face value seems relatively harmless. But a further evaluation shows itself to be nothing more than a sneaky, nefarious political ploy. It has been so diabolically crafted that I almost missed it. I'm referring to the demand to separate the portion of the property tax proposal relative to the Johnson City Aquatic Center from the normal budget process and instead pass it along as a separate referendum. That demand seems almost benign when you first look at it. until you realize that it was introduced as being championed by the chairwoman of the Washington County Republican Committee. And what is her job? Her job is not to look out for the best interests of Johnson City. Her job is to get her people elected. Her job is to deflect controversy away from her candidates. And her job is to look out for the best interests of her political party. Her referendum campaign is designed to take away the authority and responsibility granted to all of you by our city charter. Her campaign is not about giving the people a voice. Its purpose is to protect her candidates from political fallout. Because, face it, no matter which way you vote, somebody's not going to like it. In her campaign, she has misled the public by making financial assumptions and innuendo to paint a doom and gloom scenario surrounding the Aquatic Center. She has done this in order to scare you, to scare your constituents. She has done this to take the focus away from any and all benefits that you already recognized when you put the Aquatic Center in the budget to begin with. and to convince you to relinquish your duties and responsibilities for which you were elected. In the United States of America, we live in a democratic republic where we elect our representatives to create a vision of a better future and then take necessary steps for that vision to become a reality. And yes, some of those steps require stepping forward and making hard decisions. We elected you and we trust you to do just that. Please do not capitulate to the politically motivated chicanery we see. See this maneuver for the ruse that it truly is. Stand up to it and reject this politically gamish. Thank you.

Mayor, the next item for your consideration is item 3.1, which is the only item on your agenda today, which is ordinance number 4942-26. This is the second reading. It's an ordinance to appropriate funds and adopt a budget for fiscal year July 1, 2026 to June 30, 2027.

Good morning, commissioners, and thank you for being here this morning. As Ms. Ball said earlier, we do typically have second reading in the morning, and you will have third and final reading scheduled two weeks from today. Staff is not proposing any changes to the budget ordinance as presented. I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have regarding the budget ordinance at this time.

Thank you. I'll open the floor for discussions or motions or conversations, questions for staff.

It would seem by some of the comments that we don't spend any time with this budget. But let me tell you how many hours we have spent with this budget. Many, many. And they are public meetings. We have work sessions that are advertised. Anybody can attend those. And we've reviewed every single department in this city to look at their budgets, their budget requests line item by line item. Is that a correct statement, Chief Bell? Yes, for sure. So we've spent many hours and we've deliberated about the different things in those meetings that are open to the public. Anybody can come. And so I feel very confident that we, that I personally, have gone through this budget. It is obviously every city, county right now are having challenges that you have to answer the things on how you move your city ahead through the budget process. And so I feel very confident that I am prepared to make a vote this morning and would make a motion to accept on second reading.

Is there a second?

Second.

So I'm going to open the floor for discussion. I think it is worth just a few comments or questions amongst each other and I'll save some of mine for the end if anybody doesn't have any beforehand. I know Mr. Wise it sounds like your voice may be so you can lean. JT, turn that mic up a little bit. Um, but does any, any discussion?

I'll go first. Um, I have been listening to the public. I have heard lots of people talk to me individually, plus text, plus emails. And we listen to what comes in. Um, I do want to make something clear. I was not the author of of the new aquatic center. I had nothing to do with the original plans of the aquatic center. I did not push this forward. We have not been talking about this for years. This is something that came to us. So any of those who think I'm the one who did this, it had nothing to do with me. I was mayor a few years ago. We didn't talk about it back then. So it is not a new thing. So anyway, I am, the team doctor for Science Hill. And yes, it would be great to have a new aquatic center here. It would be great for the public. It would bring in money. It would cost lots of money to do it. And people would come here to swim just like they do in Greensboro at the pool they have there. It is not something that is an absolute have to. If we needed to cut something from the budget of the other things that are in there that are fire trucks, that are giving us that ASO 1 rating that lets your insurance for your homes go down and stay down. There are things that happen that help with Johnson City that we're doing. We are not perfect. No one is perfect. He was here and he left and hopefully he's coming back in the near future. We do what we can. We are citizens. This is not a high-paying job for us. This is because people here want to do something to help Johnson City. And we are criticized, and I've been called everything, more things than I've ever been called. This is the worst job I have ever had, just to let you know. This is not something that I do because I want recognition. I did it to try and get my kids to move back here by making Johnson City a nicer place. So... With that, if you want to cut something to budget, we could cut the aquatic center because it's not a necessity like the other things that are really on there with this tax increase. We can't help that gas is $4 a gallon and it costs us a whole lot more for all the vehicles that the city has. So, anyway, that's all I really want to say. Thanks.

Thanks, Commissioner.

as I mentioned in first reading I think there are many positive elements in this budget as I mentioned in Thank you. Thank you. As I mentioned during our first reading, I believe there are many positive elements in this budget that deserve recognition. But I'm also increasingly aware of the economic realities our citizens are facing. As Commissioner Fowler mentioned, we hear from a lot of individuals across the community that have strong opinions on both sides of the issue. And I just think any discussion on a tax burden must be weighted carefully against those economic realities. But again, there are many items in this budget, investments in infrastructure, investments in our employees. So, as we continue this process, this very important process of three readings, you know, those are things that are going through my mind. And just wanted to let the public know kind of the balance that we each are facing as we go through this process. Thank you.

I'll strain to say this. I don't have anything to add from my comments at the last meeting. I've heard from a lot of people and everybody assumes they're the one expressing the opinion of 100% of the people and you're not. You're expressing the opinion of some of the people and there are other people expressing the absolute opposite opinion of you. And so Freedom Hall pool has been a challenge since I moved back to Johnson City in 1998. There were already issues around the facility there that became an issue. aquatics is just one thing a city does it's a thing we as a city have done with the freedom hall and memorial park and legion street pool it is not an unusual thing for a community like johnson city to make a priority and it's something that i believe should be a priority and so i fully support the budget we've worked through months of workshops and looked at those numbers and asked those questions and i i believe have arrived at the right place for johnson city not just today but long term i don't really care whether i get reelected i'm one of the few politicians perhaps out there that actually still is going to make the decision based on what i think is right for johnson city and so that's all i would have well i'll chime in with a few and um

sometimes I get frustrated because I'm like, gosh, I want to say some things, but when it gets disseminated out in the community, people pick and choose what they want to hear or what they want to repeat that justifies their own arguments. And I think sometimes even the media doesn't do a great job of having the whole story out there. Um, this is i talked to two other mayors that i reached out to yesterday of cities our size and two county mayors and i think they would all love to be in the position we are with our current tax rate they're all struggling and they've already raised taxes in the last couple years and so this is so much more than an aquatic center there's other things on this budget that could be discussed too You know, a lot of people, when they come up and talk about not needing a tax increase, it's because they're upset about the level of service they're getting. Well, a tax increase is needed to make sure our police can get to where they need to at a certain amount of time, to make sure that we don't have issues like we're having with Freedom Hall right now. You have to maintain your public facilities. And at some point, you have to make painful decisions to adjust your tax rate to compensate for that. Wanting to be a commissioner. I had kind of two main focuses that I wanted to. But one is parks and rec. Absolutely. I think that we need to do as a community anything we can to get young people away from their phones and foresight to what the world will look like in the years to come. And it's a big deal. AI is a big deal. seeing my kids want to get my phone, seeing how much I use my phone. I want to have facilities, whether it's aquatic center or whatever it is, tannery knobs that are top notch that make us stand out in the country for getting people the best we can off their phones. I do have a little hard time with the aquatic center as a line item for debt service. I would prefer it to read more of the parks and rec capital improvement because I do think depending on what the bids come back your freedom hall the speed of the aquatic center conversation can change i mean i i would propose personally to amend the budget to read it for parks and rec capital so we can try to get all of our parks and rec facilities to a top-notch spot and as one gentleman said make sure we can maintain what we have before we move on to something else we do have a motion in a second so that's not the place to do an amendment right now we're talking about motion on the floor but in the next reading i would really like to have a conversation on that at some point so with that i'm going to go ahead and call the roll Mr. Blake?

Dr. Fowler?

Yes, but we'll make sure the third reading we discuss amending it possibly.

Commissioner Gitz? Sorry.

I also vote yes, knowing there is a third reading. Thank you.

Commissioner Weiss? Yes. Vice Mayor Brock?

Yes.

Mayor Cox?

Yes.

Motion carries.

Well, with that, I think that's...

Yes, Mayor. We had no one signed up to speak under other items.

So we have the third and final reading is two Thursdays from today. It will be at a regular scheduled meeting. I encourage anyone wishing to speak for that meeting to sign up in advance. And in the meantime, there's a lot to discuss that is... It would be great to get some feedback from the community and not for maybe compromise of instead of we want this and we don't want anything, just feel free