City Council - Regular Meeting

Welcome to the Kanapa City Council meeting tonight, September 14th, 2026. I'm going to start off tonight. We did make a policy change the last time, so I want to make sure you know that if you want to speak tonight from the floor, we're going to ask that you have your card to Ms. Gaggs before she starts. So I noticed Ms. Violet just got hers in on time, so she's good. So if anybody else wants to have her card in, please do that. At this time, Mr. Payne is going to lead us in the pledge. Please rise.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Okay, we're through the adoption of the agenda portion of this. Mr. Daymark.

Mayor, I'd like to make a motion to revise the agenda to include a closed session pursuant to NC General Statute 143-318.11a3 to consult with an attorney in order to preserve the attorney-client privilege in General Statute 143.318.11a6 for discussing personnel matters.

Is there a second? Move to adopt. Ms. Dixon with a second. All in favor for the revised? Okay. Now I need a motion to adopt a revised agenda. Ms. Dixon again?

To adopt.

Mr. Jackson now. All in favor again? We adopt that. Okay. Ms. Hatchell?

Mr. Mayor, I just want to thank you. This is an honor tonight to read this proclamation. Our Constitution is a lot more than a historical document. It is the framework for our constitutional republic. And it has in there, it protects the freedoms that we enjoy, but it also shows us the steps that we need to take as we work through self-government.

So I'm going to go ahead and read our proclamation for Constitution Week.

From the office of Mayor of Catanapolis, North Carolina, proclamation, Constitution Week 2026. Whereas the Constitution of the United States established the framework of our nation's government and remains the foundation of the rights, liberties, and responsibilities enjoyed by the American people, And whereas the Constitution was signed on September 17, 1787, by delegates to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, marking a historic moment in the establishment of the United States of America, and whereas Constitution Week provides an opportunity for citizens to reflect upon the principles of representative government, individual liberty, equality under law, and civic responsibility embodied in the United States Constitution. And whereas understanding and appreciating the Constitution strengthens our commitment to the democratic principles upon which our nation was founded and encourages an informed and engaged citizenship, And whereas the observance of Constitution Week offers an opportunity for schools, civic organizations, libraries, families, communities to educate citizens about the history and significance of the Constitution and the enduring principles it represents. And whereas we honor the generations of Americans who have worked to preserve, protect, and uphold the Constitution and recognize the continued responsibility of each citizen to participate in the safeguard of our constitutional form of government. Now, therefore, the City Council of the City of Kannapolis, North Carolina does hereby proclaim September 17th through the 23rd, 2026 as Constitution Week and encourage all citizens to observe this week by learning about the Constitution of the United States, reflecting upon the freedoms and responsibilities it guarantees, and participating in activities that promote civic knowledge, appreciation, and engagement. In witness whereof, Mayor George Douglas Wilson, on behalf of the Kannapolis City Council, has caused the Great Seal of the City of Kannapolis to be affixed to this 14th day of September 2026. Thank you. Okay, one more time.

If anyone wants to turn a card in, Ms. Gaggs, please do it now. If you didn't hear me, if you want to turn a card in, please do it now. If not, we're going to start, and she will not be able to take any more cards. Okay, go ahead, Ms. Gaggs.

Okay, just as a reminder, when you come to the podium, if you could provide your name, you no longer need to provide your address at the podium. It should be on the card. You have four minutes to speak. You'll see the lights at the podium as well as the clock up front. When you approach a minute, you'll see the light turn yellow, and that's just a warning light for you that you're almost to the end of your four minutes. If you go past four minutes, you'll hear a buzzer, and I apologize, that would be the end of your speaking portion. And the first card I have is Deborah Johnston.

As she said, my name was Deborah Johnston. Again, I'm talking about my Eastside Park. I'm going to read this to you because I found some more information. In 2017, Kannapolis bought the 33 acres of Midlake Avenue as the site for the park. The residents have been getting input that their health is a priority as a brand for Kannapolis is a discovered a healthy life in Kannapolis. The Eastside Park Master Plan was approved in 2019, which is new to me, with plans for a picnic shelter, lakefront walking trails, access to areas including Fisher Lake, in Concord, a playground, a dog park, splash pad, paddle boats, open space. Plans show one entrance and an exit. Dog parks for small and large dogs will be at the front of the park. Much of the property will remain green space with walking trails, biking trails, with the back portion cleared with parking and anemones. There are also plans for a pollinate garden and knowns to expect existing nature of the site. The total cost of the park was 5.2 million, including the 500K North Carolina Park Recreation Trust Fund grant. The construction is expected to begin the fall and be completed in 2026. It hadn't even been started. But in February of 2024, at Charity Baptist, a meeting with the City of Parks and Recreation, a staff presented this rendering and information about the planned park. The city planned and applied for the grant and got the grant for the 5K. And 325, our brand is Discover a Healthy Life. Can't have a healthy life on the east side if we don't have a park. It's amazing to me that all the parks are on other ends of Kannapolis and we really need this park for these kids. Another thing is Within one mile of where this park is going to be, there are 10,000 residents. Within two miles, there's 25 residents. That's a lot of people that would utilize this park. And I think it's important for you to realize we want this city to be considered still a healthy city. How can it be healthy if we're only giving other areas a park? We need a park. 33 acres is a lot of area. I know that there's a bond to propose whether we want the park or not. If we approve the bond, we're going to have a tax increase. This was approved in 2019, started in 2017. I don't think we should have a bond. I think you should just absorb the extra cost for the park so that we can have those kids out. I'd like for anyone who's here for Eastside Park to stand up. These are concerned citizens. We had some last month that came and stood up. I think it's important to know that every time I come now, we have somebody who wants the park as much as I do. Not for me, but for our future. Please keep that in mind that we need the Eastside Park. Thank you.

Next card I have is for Wade Franklin.

Hello, my name is Wade Franklin. Good evening. Thanks for the opportunity to speak tonight. I'd like to raise concern about the active commercial drone use and lack of local regulation in Kannapolis and the surrounding jurisdictions. I did want to do an interactive show of hands, but I don't know if that's allowed. Is anyone aware of the drone delivery service provided by Walmart? This service started in March of 26. It uses a fleet of approximately 12 drones, three foot by five foot, delivers small packages from the Kannapolis Walmart off down Learnhart to a five mile radius to the surrounding area. Due to the location, right on the border of the city of Kannapolis, but within the city limits of Concord, over 50% of the potential customers reside in the city of Kannapolis. As a resident on Center Grove Road, my property is approximately one mile north of Walmart, meaning any delivery headed north, northwest. Can I get a tissue or something? I must have scratched myself.

Anyway.

No one's got a tissue? Okay. The drones are loud, sometimes way lower than it seems safe, create concerns for my kids and other families' privacy, and I ask for what? We already have same-day delivery services. Why do we need drones flying in the air? Seems like everyone's getting their packages early enough. I come to you because I was going to ask if any of you guys were aware of the process that Walmart had to go through. Thanks so much. in order to get this approved. The city of Kannapolis did nothing for the approval. The shed and the drones are stored in the parking lot within the city limits of Concord, so why would it concern us, right? I asked the city of Concord what was done, and they said, a typical zoning approval site plan process, thank you, for building site location, facade treatments, parking requirements, landscapes, nothing to do with the reach or effect of drone use. I figured, well, maybe a business license then. No. They determined the use of the drones would fall under the current retail license of just owning a brick and mortar store. No further licensing required. So there was no coordination between the city governments. Concord approved. Kannapolis had no input. And I'll be speaking to Concord at their next meeting unless someone from the city government would love to take that on for me. As far as the regulation goes, while drone regulation is primarily controlled by the FAA, local jurisdictions can control takeoff and landing locations which open the door for added regulations such as flight path corridors which could limit the routing over public areas in some specific zoning districts like residential, industrial, parks, stuff like that. I'm sure Walmart's solution of tethering down the packages to the houses is some sort of nice loophole to avoid the landing part of that But there's something that we need to do I'm suggesting a member from community development and the planning and zoning had this up I want to require maybe a separate business license and add to the you know hundreds of pages of zoning standards that, you know, limit nuisances, noise, unsightly conditions. I know Richard kind of knows who I am. I live next door to a gas station. I'd rather live next door to a gas station than have these drones flying over my house. But there's plenty of zoning codes for, you know, living next to the gas stations.

Thank you.

Mary Ann Lila.

I have to move my microphone down a little bit compared to him. I'm Mary Ann Lila, and I'm from North Carolina State University right here on the horseshoe. And I work on functional compounds in foods that protect human health. But what a lot of people, and especially berries, and what a lot of people don't realize is those functional compounds that are antioxidant or anti-inflammatory, they don't get into your bloodstream very well unless there's also physical exertion to go with them. It's diet and exercise. It's like what your grandmother always told you, but we're putting the science behind it. If you're a couch potato and you have a big bowl of blueberries and you're eating that instead of popcorn watching the Super Bowl, it's not going to do you a lot of good unless you have the physical exercise to go with it. And there's nothing that that makes physical exertion or activity more available to people than having parks. And I understand on the east side that we don't have really anything for people to get that exercise going to increase their healthy life. I'm from Illinois. I moved here 18 years ago. And I'm so impressed with how it is here in North Carolina. Your parks are so wonderfully used. I had nothing like that at Illinois with people using parks. Of course, it's a lot colder there too, so we had a lot less time to do it. But I'm just so flabbergasted about how people are swarming, especially in the parks around where I live, Village Park, And, you know, even Veterans Park. So I just want to advocate, you know, a park is a wonderful thing. It really does help increase the health and activity of people here in Kannapolis. Thank you.

And Violet Elaine Mitchell.

Okay, this is not going to take four minutes for me to say. But anyway, I'm Violet Elaine Mitchell, and I call myself the Cabarrus County Southern Belle. Okay, for those of you that don't know me, for years I have came up here and sang little parodies. So I'm just going to do a little repeat of one I did years ago to the tune of the Little Shepherd Boy. said the Little Violet and the Eastside community to Kannapolis City Council. We want to make sure that you are still considering our request. We want our sidewalks, and we want our Eastside Park, and we want them before we are down six feet in the ground. And this here, I pulled this out of the archive in my living room. These are minutes that go back to 2017 when we were still talking about the North and South Little Texas Road sidewalk project. And I'm here to say I still won't believe it until I see it. And I have told y'all that statistically, My grandmother died at age 70. My mother died at age 72. My uncle died at age 74. He lived the longest at age 74. As I approach December 16th of this year, I will be 70. So not that I'm trying to carry myself away or wish death on me, but I'm looking at things realistically. I'm about to hit 70. So I would like to see this North and South Little Texas Road project move forward on a quick and efficient manner. I have talked to Beth Hassenfrich, I think her last name is, and she keeps saying, you know, we're still working on it, we're still getting the right-of-ways. And I'm going to tell you all the same way I told Judge... Governor Josh Stein, when I met with him about three weeks ago, North Carolina just takes too long to act on stuff. By the time they act on it, you're literally going on to the happy hunting ground. So, Ryan, if I have gone on to the happy hunting ground by the time this North and South Little Texas Road sidewalk project take place, I want you to be sure and name it the Valley Delane Mitchell Memorial Sidewalk.

You got it.

Mayor, that was the last card I had.

The last card you had, okay. All right. Council, we have now a need for a motion on our consent agenda.

Motion to approve.

Ms. Berry? Second. Second. Mr. Davoff? All in favor? Good. Okay. Moving forward to our business agenda, I think this is Ms. Jones. Ms. Jones? And her team? Mr. Roberts?

I'm part of Kristen's team. That's correct, yes. We recognize that. Good evening, Mayor and Council. The item before you is a presentation on the water and sewer system development fees. SDF study was completed with Will Dan Financial Services. I want to note that Will Dan has been a partner with the city for over 20 years and prepared for our financial needs. They're also part of our rate study that was presented earlier this year. Darrell Parker tonight with Will Dan will be making the presentation. I'd like to go ahead and introduce him.

Thank you, Brian. Good evening, Council. I'd like to first thank you all for trusting Wildan and our company for this very important study. And I'd also like to thank Kristen and Brian and their team for the work that they did in helping us do the whole study. And so, in fact, this was supposed to be my colleague Michael Cronin here tonight. Michael and his wife had a baby about six or seven weeks ago, so he's on leave, so I'm filling in for him. But yeah, I'll be able to answer any questions you may have. There we go. So you may have seen some of this stuff before, but we'll kind of go over everything again. So the system development fees in North Carolina, they have been, there's a legislation, the guiding legislation that dictates what you can and can't do, and so basically that legislation defines fees, it's only imposed on new development, and it's to fund the costs of water and sewer improvements, and it's Basically, those projects existing and anticipated future projects that are required to facilitate continued growth. And so basically, it's kind of helping growth pay for itself is what these fees are intended to do. And it's supported by other courts as well, the Supreme Court and all that. So it's not a new thing at all. So several of the things that the legislation does require is a fee analysis prepared by a financial professional, and I'll stand in as that today. And our company, Wildan, actually does a good number of these in North Carolina and other states as well. But the important thing is that we've got the experience here in North Carolina, so we know what is required to adopt these fees. It must be generally accepted accounting principles. You've got to have a CIP. If you're going to recover those future capital costs, you have to kind of have them defined. Here's what we're planning on doing for the next five to 20 years. It's got to be at least five, no more than 20 that we can recover. The report's already been posted for a 45-day public comment period. There were no comments from anybody from the public, so this should be good to go. A public hearing after the 45-day period, that's kind of what we're doing tonight. If there were any modifications that needed to be done from public comments, we would have done that. Like I said, there were none. There's got to be a resolution or an ordinance that adopts the fees, and it's got to be updated at least every five years. That's part of the state's requirement, not the finance guy's. So you currently have fees in place. And so these are the current fees. And so basically the first two columns, the water system and sewer system, those are your fees. The other is the Water and Sewer Authority of Ferris County. And so they charge fees to new customers of anybody who is receiving service from their system treatment services. So we'll run through the methodology. Well, I think there we go. So basically, there's three defined methods. There's the buy-in method, which is recovering the cost of existing facilities. And there's the incremental cost method, which is the future facilities, the CIP. And then there's the combined. And that's what we've done in this case. We've done both and combined the two. So the assets that we can include for recovery, and you'll see here in a minute, we're not recovering all of the utility assets. We're recovering the big items. So we're looking at any water supply, water treatment, storage, major transmission distribution lines on the sewer side. It's the major collection lines and lift stations and anything to do with the treatment, which here again, you're... a customer of the Water and Sewer Authority of Cabarrus County. What we do not include are small things, like for example, localized distribution and collection lines, anything that's kind of neighborhood specific, anything that's been contributed by developers or that's been funded from grants, because we can only recover the costs that have been incurred by the utility and by the city. So when we break that down, kind of what we do is we look at all your existing assets and just kind of categorize them. We've got the original costs from accounting data and asset listings. We've got depreciation. So what we do is we take the original cost and we bring it to today's dollars. We have construction indices that are specific to the utility system that we use for that. So we bring it to today's dollars, and so we've got the replacement costs new. But they're not new. A lot of them are depreciated. So we do the same for the accumulated depreciation. We bring it to today's dollars. And so what we get then is the RCNLD, which is replacement costs new, less depreciation. We do that for both the water and the sewer systems. Like I said, we're not looking to recover everything. We just start with everything. And then we back out certain things that we don't want to include for recovery. One of the first things we do is some things we can't really tell, like what a line item might be. So one of the things we do is we assume that any asset that is less than $100,000 But it's not a major component of the system. And so we back those out right away. And so like, for example, the equipment and things like that. So that's where those numbers are adjusted. And then it gives us the net adjusted recoverable facilities that we're going to include in the analysis. And so when we're looking at the incremental cost method, we look at the CIP, the capital improvement plan, and here again, we're not gonna try to recover everything. We're looking for things that add capacity or they're upgrading the system to make the system function better, operate better, or if it's needed to meet changing regulatory requirements, which does happen quite a bit in this world. The non-recoverable, anything that's a renewal replacement. If you've got old lines out there, they're 100 years old, they just need to be replaced, but you're not upsizing them. They're not taking additional service to anybody. You're not adding any capacity. We don't include those projects. Things like vehicles and equipment, anything that's kind of administrative in nature. And here again, anything that you're looking down the road and think is going to be grant funded or developer contributed, we back those out as well. So here's kind of a summarized version of the CIP. So we've got our total projects separated by water and sewer. And then we pull out what we consider non-recoverable. And so we net that out. And so then that gives us our total growth-related projects. So now we've got the components we need. We've got the existing facilities. We've got the planned facilities. We've pulled out everything that shouldn't be in there. And so then we can kind of start doing our math. So here's what that looks like. We've got the existing and here again the plan, the CIP, and so a little over $300 million in total costs that we're looking to recover. So then what we do with that total recoverable, like I mentioned, they're combined now. So the total recoverable costs have to be adjusted one more time. We make the principal balance on any existing utility-related debt. We net that out. Kind of the thought process is that if a new customer comes onto the system, If we include that debt amount for recovery in this fee, and then when they connect to the system and start using the system like any other customer, that debt service is part of your budget, which is funded through the rates. So we don't want them to end up paying twice. That's kind of one of those things we do to make sure this is legally defensible and that every effort is made to not – include things that shouldn't be in there. There's also, as a requirement of the legislation, a 25% adjustment to the CIP. And I'm not sure where they got 25%, but that's the number. So we make that adjustment, and so that gives us then our net recoverable facilities. And so it nets down to, we're at 318 in total, it nets down to about 229, so about $90 million different. So that's the amount that we're shooting for as far as, okay, this is the amount that we can include for recovery. So at that point, the math becomes pretty easy. We take the recoverable costs separated by water and sewer, and we separate them because they are two different systems. And you can see they've got two different capacity numbers. And ultimately, what we're trying to get to is a cost per unit of capacity. And so when we do that, just divide the cost by the capacity, we've got a water cost and then a sewer cost. And that sewer number, if you had your own treatment facilities for the sewer system, it would be quite a bit higher than that. But here again, Watson kind of has their own impact or capacity fee that they pay, that they charge the new customers. So we've got our cost per gallon of capacity, and then we apply a level of service. And so for water, the state uses 400 gallons per day for planning purposes for future water growth. And the 263 for sewer is the city's planning number. And so we apply those individual values to those amounts to come up with the fee per ERU, per equivalent residential unit. And so that's what it looks like. So we've come up with the middle one is the calculated amount that we've come up with in this analysis. And so 3,300 for water, 2,600 for sewer. So compared to your existing fee, it does need to go up to capture those costs. And here again, one of the things that I told the mayor when I was up there, he said, yeah, good luck with this. I said, actually, this is good news because this is a fee that's going to generate more money for the utility system to pay for future projects, but it doesn't impact your existing customers because they don't pay any of it. So that's, like I said, usually that's kind of the good news part of this. So here's what that kind of breakdown looks like. So here again, it's separated by water and sewer. And all we do for, because not every customer, every new customer is going to be just a residential home with a five-eighths or three-quarter inch water meter. So you're going to have some non-residential customers, restaurants, things like that. So if they're going to have larger than a standard meter, what we do is apply meter equivalency factors. Those are right out of the industry norms of American Water Works Association, Water Environmental Federation, and they're based on the size of the water meter. And so as that connection gets bigger, the demand on the system is bigger, so they pay a higher system development fee. Here again, legally defensible. So here's kind of what that looks like compared to some others. So right now you're kind of over there on that, like the third one in, the 2350 number. You're well below the average right now of this comparison group. So the amount that we're looking at here now kind of pushes you up higher than the average, which is not a bad spot to be, like I said, for this type of fee. And so that's what we're proposing the fee be. to be, and that's the water and sewer separated. And with that, I can open it up to any questions. Okay, are there any questions?

Oh, you have a question? Go ahead. Thank you for your presentation. Oh, you're welcome. Can you go back to that slide before? My question revolves around the communities that are in the ballpark of what we charge today. Is it because they have not had similar assessments done by a firm like you all that they are still in this $2,700, $2,300 range of cost, or... Are their costs of doing business lower than ours?

Well, we don't know their cost of doing business and the cost of their facilities for other systems, but what we do know is to have this fee in place, you do have to have this analysis done, but you... If you don't want to change it, you don't have to change it. So a lot of times, now here again, I don't know with those other utilities, but a lot of times an elected body might decide, well, yeah, we get it that it should be up here, but we want it to be down here. I mean, we don't really – it doesn't impact us either way, but our recommendation is always get what you can from the new development because without them, you wouldn't need a lot of this capital facilities.

I appreciate that. The comment I would make about that is it's a shame this wasn't done a long time ago because there's so much that has been built in the past several years that we could have captured from that new growth. And now with high interest rates, high cost of construction, there's less of all that happening. So our chance to recover some of these costs are, you know, it's on down the road if we went to your proposed rate right out of the gate. And I think there's a fine balance between remaining competitively advantaged as a community to these other communities, our peer communities, if you will. But I do like the fact that this does not affect existing customers and our existing citizens. This is only for new development. And I believe that, you know, new development should pay for itself as much as possible. So, I don't know, just a few random thoughts. Thank you. Senator, did you have something?

I was just going to say, you read my mind. Those are all the questions. I wanted to make it very clear this is for new utilities, not existing.

Mr. Dixon, did you have something?

Yes. Thank you for your presentation.

You're welcome, ma'am.

My question is, do you collaborate with WASAC when you are making your calculations, or is this an independent?

This is just the city of Kannapolis. So we only include the WASAC number in there because that is a fee – that the new customers will have to pay also. So we just want to show that number and, you know, just to kind of be transparent about it. But no, we don't do any work for them and never have, and I anticipate I never will before I retire. You're welcome. Mr. Jackson?

Yeah. I also would think with our investment that we have in infrastructure, particularly on the the east side and the west side, do you foresee improvement in the next year or so as these properties become developed and we start connecting some of these sewer and water lines that we already paid for and have invested in the east and west side?

Do I anticipate

our costs lower as we get more volume out of existing infrastructure.

So once those customers connect, like I said, they become regular customers and water and sewer users of your system. So when we did the most recent rate study for the water and sewer rates, that growth was part of our projected revenue growth.

Yeah, I think that's what I was asking because we I just wonder if you had any projection on the future on how it could affect our rates.

Well, the rate study was just very recent. So, Brian, I'll turn that one over to you. Sure.

I can help with that a little bit, too. So, as a part of our CIP plan, and Brian, I'll let you jump in here, as part of our CIP plan, we looked at this, and one of the things that we'll see is this will help us to be able to retire that debt that we've invested in the east and the west side quicker with having these These adjustments for the new connections that are out, because what's happening right now, obviously, is that the customer base is subsidizing some of that. This will help level set that so that truly what council asks is that development's helping to pay for retirement or that debt for infrastructure to support its growth.

So our past investments should help us.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

And I'd like to address, I think Councilwoman Dixon had a question relative to when you were talking about the rates and the fees that are out. Looking at this, some of the communities that when we looked at this, I remember working extensively with this with Michael, and I asked the question, I said, well, These communities, some of them are much lower than us, and what we found is that it had been some period of time that they've done some of the analysis and work that we had done. And when we looked and compared to their websites and information, it had been years since they had been updated. So this is a recent update. I'm sure that our neighboring communities that are challenged with capacity, just as we are, are probably going to be looking at some of the same things that we're doing right now.

Ms. Berry? Yeah.

Okay, I think I'm hung up on the word recovery. If it's for new customers only, why do you refer to it as recovery?

Because for me, recovery is going back and getting something that... Well, I think we refer to it as recoverable, but let me just double check that. There we go. Total net recoverable facilities because some of them are recoverable. You haven't paid for them yet, but you plan to. And so we want to make sure that you're building up that kind of capital reserve to fund those when it's time to pay for them.

Okay.

And as much as some of us are against the rapid growth that we've had, well, increasing these and going up on the scale that much for Kannapolis put an end to potential growth?

I've not seen that happen in this area. I mean, that's always a thought, and I've gotten that question before, and there's no way to know that for sure, but typically, I mean, the builders expect these types of fees when they're building the developments, and they capture it through the cost of the new home. And so... Typically, the fee in and of itself doesn't slow down growth, doesn't have any negative impact on growth at all.

One other thing that if I can add to the recoverable, and I think this is another part of that, and again, it addresses another part of Councilwoman Dixon's question relative to the WASAC fee. We can't go in and charge system development fees for assets that we don't own. And since we are a customer of the WASAC, we're not able to recover that capital that's at the plants. In other words, we can't charge that additional cost for expansion of the plant because that's recovered in our rates.

Thank you, Mr. Mullen.

Anything else? Go ahead, Mr. Daywell. So the way I see this is this is the legal way to claim impact fees because impact fees are not allowed in North Carolina, and this is a way that you essentially are recovering the impact of a new community on your community. And it puts the burden on that development. Whether they want to come here or not, they have to make that decision. I mean, you look at Harrisburg, and it was one of the highest ones on that list, and they have probably the highest growth rate of our county as far as residential development goes for years now. And so I can't imagine that... You know, we're not Harrisburg. We're, you know, on the other side of Concord. But I can't imagine that Concord would not raise theirs and do the same sort of assessment that we've done, especially if we implement this. Because, I mean, they're leaving a lot of money on the table if that's truly their number.

As a consultant, maybe I should call them.

Anyone else? Those are all good comments. I think we have a need for a public hearing, so I'm going to open it. And if you want to speak on this subject only, please come. So the public hearing is open. Does anyone want to come speak? This gentleman is coming now, okay?

My name is Wade Franklin again. Just reacting to the presentation, I think there should be some consideration for single-family dwellings that are developments uh... also uh... sewer and water taps that are connecting uh... better already parcels as part of the city if it's already a parcel has road frontage we should have already Foreseeing that a water and sewer tap in that zone would have been captured. I don't think You know, I'm okay with commercial developments But you know as a homeowner I want to you know build a new house down the road or something My tap fee just doubled that's wild and then the other thing is I actually just bought a home that I is not connected to city sewer yet. It was built in 49, has city water. I'm terrified if I go to get my existing home, tap to sewer, my rate is going to double. I'm just a homeowner, $2,500 for sewer. It's tough, but I can stomach it. If it goes up to, I don't know what it was, the figure almost doubled, I believe. That's just a hard pill to swallow. Thanks.

Mr. Roberts? Could you all put that last slide up that has all the different cities? I just had a couple questions. So, where Kannapolis is consisted, $2,350. That's basically the cost of the year for a utility for the water. Okay, that's your tax. And so, we're proposing, again, to go to

To your point, that is almost three times an increase.

And I actually was thinking about, Mr. Melton, what you were thinking, or Ms. Dixon, about Ms. Berry. Is that going to be, if I'm a builder, am I going to not go in Kannapolis now because I'm looking at almost three times the amount of of one-time fees for sewer systems. But Mr. Milton, you said that that's not going to be a deterrent. Because I thought it was going to slow down the growth. We've been complaining about the growth, but actually it's not going to stop the growth. It's just going to be for the new business, cost of doing business, and they will incur that cost when the people build. So I just had some of those questions, and it seems like They've been answered. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else?

I would just like to say, Valerie Mitchell, again, through the years, when we first built our house off of Southland, Texas Road, my water bill used to be like $8.25. And through the years, it just kept climbing, climbing, climbing, climbing. And when I look at the bill, you know, even currently, most of the stuff is in sewer fees, plumbing. pipe fees, whatever kind of fees they want to throw on there. And so now my water bill is up to like $54. And even though you may not think that's a lot of money, but it is a lot of money when you're used to paying $30 and $40 for your water fee. And it's just me in the house, and I'm paying like $54 now, going back from 1979 when my bill was $8.25. Thank you.

Anyone else? Anyone else? Okay, we're going to close the public hearing. Okay, Council, we have two different things to look at here. We need, first of all, a motion on the recommended system development fee.

Can I ask a question?

You can.

And I don't know if this should be – you can probably answer this, Wilmer, unless – unless our guest wants to come back up. But to the point that the gentleman on Center Grove Road brought up about infill development, does this differentiate between a mass development of, let's just say, 200 houses versus a sewer line that's going by the house? There's a place in here I was looking the sewer tap fee for that was $4,300 or something like that. And then I guess explain the differences if there are any.

So, no, the connection fee that is being proposed would not differentiate between a vacant lot or if it's a larger development. What we're looking at doing, though, to help with some of this is we're looking at the potential of how can we help residents that want to connect. A lot of these places, you might remember, are lots that just, the reason they're not built upon is because they were challenged to be built upon anyway. ones that you're getting flooding concerns about, the ones at Brookdale, and they've been developed. So one of the things that we're trying to do is look at ways that we can help offset this, maybe allow somebody to pay for this tap over a period of time, two, three years, the same as cash, to really give that opportunity. We had that program a few years ago, but we're trying to come in and do that.

have to be fair and across the board so we can't differentiate between a development that's brand new or one that's an existing lot that's in place okay so i guess my my concern would be more in line with like his situation he's got an existing house built in 49 he needs sewer it never was hooked on the sewer um That's a different situation than somebody coming in, a developer coming in and buying a lot, building a brand new house. They're going to get that money back quickly for when they sell that house. But in that case, and there's still, I would say, a lot of them out there that people have septic systems. Sewer line may have been ran by their house years ago and the connection was never made for whatever reason. Is there something that... that we could do in that case to lessen that burden. I mean, is that program pay over time? I mean, for sure that's a good help for a lot of folks, but maybe there's something different that that could apply under.

Not proposed as a part of this, but I think that is the, again, being fair and equitable across the board to all customers, whether it's an existing house or a vacant lot that could have been built upon, what we can offer is that program over time where they'd be able to pay. I don't know that we can come in, and that might be a legal question that we ask our consultant as well as the attorney, but I don't know legally if we can come out and offer or differentiate between a vacant lot and existing house. Certainly a development's new, but I think in equity across the board, we'd probably be looking at charging the same rate because it's the same impact regardless. Sure.

How much time are we talking about giving them on that?

What we did before was 36 months that we proposed over time to allow to be able to pay that. And, you know, you can set that up in payments so that it's more manageable for families.

Okay. Is that a program that would need to be enacted upon adoption of this separately or? should we table this until that's an official thing so that we actually have that as an option?

We had that program in place some years ago, and I can tell you our finance team and our water resource team, they're working on it right now to bring something back to you. I don't know that you... You know, you said it a little while ago, the longer you wait on this, it impacts your recovery. But that program can come back to you relatively quick, I think, and give those individuals that are asking for connections options.

Okay. Thank you. Does that answer your question? Yes, ma'am.

If we adopt this tonight, is it effective tonight?

Yes, ma'am. That is the plan. If council chooses, this would be adopted and these fees would go into effect. There are several actions that are on your agenda. So you would, obviously answering any questions, you adopt the fees and you modify the fee schedule. And then we can bring back something to you on the program where you pay over time. That's something we've done for years. If we had extensions, and I can tell you that we've gone out with projects where we extended sewer. We offered this to customers where there were reduced rates even at one point for folks to be able to connect on. And if they chose not to, obviously you can't force them. We didn't do that. But you know, things do go up over time. There are a lot of impacts that we're having to pay for in our system and things that haven't been done, replacement or expansion of new lines for capacity, going to the Catawba, building elevated storage tanks. I know that there was conversation about some of the things when you start looking at expansions that we have to do with the water plant in order to be able to meet future and current needs. Those are significant. They're regulatory things that we have to comply with, PFAS and others that are out. So those are all things that were incorporated as a part of your master plan and is reflected in the fees that you see tonight.

Mr. Melton, I just kind of want to make it real simple. The reality is if we don't accept the higher rate tonight for this, which is for new customers, not really for existing customers, if we don't do that, our costs are going to be the same, which will then be a burden to the existing customers.

That is correct.

Which could eventually cause us to have to go higher on other rates and stuff like that to recover those costs. Is that correct?

That is correct, and the other thing is if we don't do this, then we have to take a hard look at our CIP that you just approved on what we're gonna be able to do. We may have to reevaluate some of those projects.

Errol, you have anything?

No.

Okay, anyone else? All right, now I'm back to where I was a minute ago. So we need a motion on this system development fee.

Mayor, I'll make that motion. I'll second it.

And we're saying going forward here. You're making a motion to accept it? Yes. Okay.

All in favor?

Okay, good. Now we have another motion here regarding the fiscal year 2026 fee schedule. I'll make the motion to amend it. Ms. Hatch, only one second. Ms. Dixon? Okay, we got that. All in favor? Good. Thank you very much. That's a tough subject. I mean, I don't know that there's a win in there, really, but we'll see.

I think the sooner we get a payment plan possibility brought, I mean, we have to do that.

Well, Melton, let me say this. If we're going to go there and the costs have gone up, I think maybe we need to make it a little longer than 36 months, make it a little more affordable. Can we do that?

We'll look into that, Mayor. I can't promise that tonight, but let me work with our finance team.

Ms. Jones is giving me a hard look back there, but I mean, I think it's a little easier to say if it's not so hard to digest, right?

Absolutely.

Okay.

We'll do what we can.

Can I ask a question?

You can.

Could CBDG funds, I always say that backwards, but could next year, could some of that be allocated to help people with this or? No, I'm just asking if there's some relief for people who just can't do it.

If they qualify. It's possible if they qualify. I'll get with, I don't see Irene back, but we certainly can look at that if the person qualifies for those funds. Remember, we use those funds, and we've used them for infrastructure in the past, but if an individual qualifies, it's possible. It's something we need to take a look at.

Yeah, like an extreme needy situation where they just can't. Yeah, okay. Thank you.

Again, the key is qualification for the program.

So we're through with that, and we're going on to Mr. Smith again.

You won't hear from me much this evening, Mayor. I'm actually handing it off to someone else. But as Council is aware, in the over 20 years of its existence, our train station is one of our greater assets, and it's certainly a regional asset as well. Passenger rail picks it up, and it's certainly drawn attention since we've moved the baseball stadium downtown as well. That's absolutely right. I've used the passenger service on two occasions, one to Raleigh and one time to Charlotte last year, and both occasions were very enjoyable experiences. So we have with us this evening Jason Myers from North Carolina Department of Transportation Rail Division. He's going to give you an update on some of the numbers and such and a study they had done and kind of give you an overview of that. Mr. Myers.

Thank you Richard and thank you council and city manager. It's good to be with you tonight. I want to point out really quickly that some of the backup materials put my title, I got a promotion, and they put me as the rail division director or rail director. I'm the rail programs manager. The rail division director is Jason Orthner. We sometimes get Jason confusion in the office. And he could not be here tonight, so he asked if I could be here. So what I'm gonna do in my presentation is first give a little bit of background about NC by train service for those that may not be as familiar with it. talk about the engagement effort that we are trying to wrap up here. I will focus then on what we are going to be doing going forward into the future and I'll talk about the feedback and then close by talking about what we're going to be doing going forward into the future. So this is a map of our existing NC by train service and our existing passenger rail service in the state of North Carolina. The main part of our network, the core of our NC by train service, is the Charlotte to Raleigh corridor. We call that the Piedmont corridor, and that's what this report is focused on. We also sponsor the train to New York City, the Carolinian that goes from Charlotte to New York every day. Amtrak also has a number of long-distance passenger trains that serve the state and in various ways So the NC by train service is the thicker red and blue lines The thin lines are those long-distance trains that we're glad exists from Amtrak But we in the rail division don't have a whole lot of oversight over and then there's a couple of bus connections that help help bring people to those services and I'm going to take a second to talk about the types of trains because sometimes people hear train and they're thinking one thing where we're talking about a different thing. We provide inner city passenger rail service and that's what all of Amtrak is in various ways. There can be a lot of different types of inner city passenger rail but these are services that connect cities to each other or towns to each other or towns to cities over relatively long distances and have amenities and schedules that support people making those journeys. Things like baggage and food and beverage service are often a part of intercity passenger rail service. In the Charlotte region, they are working on planning for a commuter rail system, which technologically is very similar, but is set up for a different type of service. And traditionally, those were trains that went a relatively short distance, stopped a lot, and brought people from maybe out suburban areas into a city center for a nine to five commute. That is not something that the state DOT works in except to help coordination for railroads. And then the third one that we've got is light rail, which does exist in the Charlotte region nearby and is an urban transit system that's on a separate rail network using separate technology. It has a couple things in common, but it's a very different thing to move people about within a metropolitan area. So everything in this report and everything in our plans is about this inner city passenger service mode. Over the last few years, the NC by train service has had some pretty significant ridership growth, and we're pretty proud of this, and we are basically trying to find as much as we can do to keep continuing this growth into the future. In 2025, the last year we have full numbers for, we were 59% higher for our NC by train ridership than we were before COVID. And that was a series of records one after another for a number of years there. And a lot of what we're trying to do is continue that growth into the future. Take a second to talk a little bit about some of the things. This is not the order. Did I skip too fast? Yeah, somehow this jumped way ahead. I must have held down the button. I apologize. I wanted to talk a bit about Kannapolis. The Kannapolis station in 2025 had a ridership record as well of about 41,500 passengers for the calendar year. But part of the reason for that is that we partnered with the Kannapolis Cannonballers as a marketing partner to help get the word out to your citizens and the folks who come to your the baseball games in your town. So that's one thing that we did and we always look for those opportunities and try to find them around the state. Another thing that we've been doing the last couple years is having a partnership with the State Brewers Guild. NC Beer is one of their brand names and then the Craft Brewers Guild is in their name for them. And they actually came to us with this idea. They wanted to market taking the train to their member breweries, which there's a number of them in the community. Specifically, the closest one is the Old Armour Brewery kind of between us and the station, which is a part of that ale trail by rail. Another thing that we do is, and I want to make sure it's understood by the city government, city staff, and city council, is that we can make small schedule changes given some advance notice, move trains around a little bit if there's a really good reason to, add a stop that isn't a part of the schedule on occasion, and certainly love hearing requests for those. A couple of months ago, we made some changes for the nearby to serve the Cheerwine Festival that Salisbury has. And that, I think, doubled the number of riders that went in 2026 to the Cheerwine Festival compared to the year before. Actually, a large number of them were folks who were coming from Kannapolis to that festival because we made some changes that helped make it possible to get people from Kannapolis. So I also want to talk about another way that we're focused on growth is by expanding the network to new locations. And that doesn't just serve those new locations better. It also serves the folks who we already serve better by giving you more places to be able to take the train to and from. There are seven corridors that are in our federal planning program that are funded. We're actively doing work. Those are in green on the map here. And there's another five that we're doing some early feasibility studies for and hoping to advance those as well. So the goals for this public engagement were to very much focus on the next service expansion. We have five round trips a day between Charlotte and Raleigh, and we want to have six. And we want to understand our customers' needs and wants. We want to understand the needs and wants of stakeholders who aren't customers and maybe would be customers or represent institutions and organizations and people who may take the train or at least have something to say about how the train serves our community. And we want to do this in a way that helps us improve our collaboration between the communities we serve and that service. So the different elements of that is we started by publishing an educational video that got a little bit into how we build our schedules, the different constraints we have to navigate on the private railroad right-of-way and the company that operates that and the agreements we have to make with the railroad to get these things to happen. We followed that quickly by an online survey, which is where the data that you have in your pack it comes from. And then we held a couple in person open houses to give folks a chance to kind of talk to the project team to get questions answered before they took that survey and interact with us. Those open houses were last May and June. We took that data. It took a little while to process through that data. We created this draft report and have been trying to coordinate with some of the communities afterwards to view those draft reports and or view the draft report and be able to finalize things so that this fall we can say that this engagement done is over for now until we're able to have another schedule and come back to you so we are asking for feedback and questions on that report which is in your agenda packet it was the last thing in that pdf So the rest of this presentation gets into what are those survey results. What did we hear? I'm not going to get into everything. There's a lot more information in the report itself. But I'll go cover some of the highlights. So who answered the survey? We got about 2,000 survey responses, which we're pretty happy by that response. A little bit more than half of them were people who take the train today. A little bit less than half were people who don't take the train today for various reasons. And we asked questions about that. We held an in-person event in Kannapolis on June 10th of last year. And to get people to come to that event to make sure that they knew about the survey and about the event, we sent direct email to various stakeholders and organizations. We put out a press release. We used our social media channels. We're happy with that response. And so now, getting to some of those results, one of the questions we asked is how far do you want to take the train? Where do you want to start from? Where do you want to go for your most common trip? Realize there's a lot of different options. About 87% of folks gave us an answer of a trip that's relatively long, longer than 35 miles. And a smaller number gave us a shorter one. And on the bottom of this slide, you can see distances from Kannapolis and how that fits into the system. So a Charlotte trip or a Salisbury trip would be a shorter trip, but a trip to even High Point would be one of those longer trips. Another data point on here is our actual ticketed average trip length on the Piedmont Corridor is about 116 miles. That varies day to day and week to week, but that's relatively stable in that range. That's out of 173 miles total distance. We asked folks, given a binary choice between having faster travel times and stopping at more stations, about two-thirds would rather have faster travel times, and about one-third would rather stop at more stations. And we asked people, what time of day do they want to travel? We ask them, you know, if you start a journey, what time of the day do you want to start that journey? If you end that journey, what time would you want to end that journey? And what we're seeing in these numbers is a lot of people, almost 90%, want to do something heading in one direction in the morning and then head in the other direction in the evening. between 3 in the late afternoon or evening, about 85% looking at return trips between 3 and 6 and then 6 and after. That's an interesting implication to us because most of our trains today are more concentrated in the midday. we ask people about the onboard amenities that we offer and how important they are to their utility of the train service and the number one choice by a pretty strong margin is the wifi that we offer on our trains but then onboard food and beverage and premium class seating follow that a little bit and while these are all things we offer today we know there's ways we can improve with food and beverage and premium class seating on some of our trains that don't have don't have vending machine food today or any premium class seating. Those are both things we're looking to add. We asked people about preferences for, you know, basically what is it that drove them to choose the train? You know, what are the things that are most important to them? And number one answer by far is the convenience, followed by comfort and cost. This question was actually targeted to both riders and non-riders. So this is riders telling us why they chose the train and also people who said, oh, I don't take the train, telling us what would be most important to them to help make sure that they would want to take the train. And then we got a vast amount of open-ended feedback through just text comments. And that was a part of what we were looking for. And we spent a lot of time diving through that. And this is only really going to scratch the surface of what some of that is. The appendices of the report get into a lot more detail and give samples of a lot of the specific comments we got. But of the 870 open-ended comments, these are some of the major themes we had. We had 572 folks who wanted to do something to increase the train frequency or improve the schedule. One of the biggest ones in that was just provide more trains, add more frequency. And of course, as I said, that's our goal. That's why we're doing this engagement is to understand how we should do that. But there is certainly a desire for that. More specifically, a lot of people were asking for later evening trains. And a slightly less number, but also an important piece of feedback was some people want more early morning arrivals. Another major theme is to enhance train speed and to improve on time performance. There's about 120 comments in total. Faster travel time being specifically a big focus of a lot of that, and reducing delays being another part of that. And then a couple other themes that were significant, kind of on their own, though we don't see ways to break this down, is enhanced connectivity to local transit. We do have something that we're rolling out and looking to expand into more communities. It's called the Rail and Ride. It allows you to use local transit or urban transit in the Triangle, the Triad, or the Charlotte region without having to pay for it, whether you're getting to the train or from the train. So, for instance, folks who might have taken the train from the Triangle to the Triad Yesterday to go to the Panthers game got off the Panthers or got off the train We're able to use a QR code on their app and then get on the bus that took them to the the stadium Without having to pay a fare including that in the price of their ticket That's a new thing we are bringing and looking to expand that to more places as transit is offered But that did not exist when we had this survey. I Another important thing that we heard a lot was folks wanted us to stop at all the stations with all the trains and almost an equal number said that we need to build Charlotte Gateway Station which the state DOT has completed the track and the the platform on time and on budget and and we're waiting for a Public-private partnership that's led by the city to be able to finish that so we can have the Charlotte train station in in uptown Charlotte. And then the last one that I've got in here that was a major theme was just different ways people are asking for us to make sure we keep the prices affordable in our trains. Now, shifting to a future focus and looking at what we will be doing in the future, in order to have that next service expansion, there's a few things that we need to do. The main part of it is to build some infrastructure that provides more capacity on the railroad so that we can fit more trains on the railroad at more times of the day. And the major component of that is a series of projects called the Carolinian and Piedmont Passenger and Freight Improvements Program. The North Carolina Railroad Company came up with that acronym when they went to get a grant and they were awarded that grant, they call it CAPFE. And that is going to add some capacity between Greensboro and Cary where right now it's mostly a single track railroad. So we need to build those projects and North Carolina Railroad Company is responsible for those projects and we're working with them as much as we can to get that done quickly. We also need to finalize the agreement with Norfolk Southern on operating this additional train and find out if there is another project or something that we might need to do to make sure there's room and capacity on the railroad for passenger trains while the freight is also most important to them. And then the other thing we'll need to do is come back and talk to our stakeholders like you all about what that schedule will look like once we get close enough to knowing exactly what that should be. So there aren't surprises that we're not putting out a schedule just a few days before it goes into effect. In the longer term, both in terms of expanding service and improving it in the longer term, and also some of the things that are happening kind of separately from from the uh... the schedule itself is we were recently awarded uh... almost three hundred million dollar federal grant to add even more capacity to the greensboro to to carry section which will help with train reliability uh... and on time performance quite a bit it might help us get additional round trip beyond the six some day but that's that's very tentative and uh... that was just announced a couple weeks ago about a month maybe And we're looking to develop those projects as fast as we can. And of course, Corridor ID is the program to bring trains to more places, which gives us more places to take the train from in a community like Kannapolis. We're working on continuous improvements to our onboard experience. In this next year, we hope to be adding a cafe car service to all of our trains that don't have it today always. And being able to add business class seating is a part of that. That's something that we're excited about. And we've been doing kind of a continuous equipment refreshment and have more things planned to keep our equipment in good shape, even while we're really excited about having new state-of-the-art modern trains. Being rolled into our service in the next few years the picture at the bottom is an arrow is what Amtrak calls this brand name This train is going to start going into service in the Pacific Northwest and the end of the month It should be on the Carolinian service next year and then a few years later on the Piedmont service and these are higher capacity more comfortable much more accessible to folks with mobility and site challenges and than what we have today and will help allow us to grow and continue to provide great customer service. And then the last thing I want to talk about is what we think that next schedule might look like when we can go from five to six round trips a day. And so the chart is the same one I showed earlier about what people ask for in terms of a lot of travel in the morning and a lot of travel in the afternoon. What we intend to be able to do is start two trains in the morning from Charlotte. Today there's only one. It leaves at 6.45 on its way to New York City. And we're looking at maybe having one earlier than that. and then that train is probably stuck at that time because of what happens around Washington and New York for the time being. That provides more morning options in the northbound direction, but also making some changes that give us more morning options in the southbound direction. as well. We also will look to add a late train from Raleigh towards Charlotte, where today we have a later train from Charlotte towards Raleigh, but not anything late in the evening in the other direction. And then the implication of all of those things, and also just the necessity of passing these trains in some places where it's a single track railroad, and being able to allow the railroad to maintain its track, those trains have to get spaced around a little bit more evenly in the midday. So that's where we think we're going to be going with this schedule. Of course, we're still in active discussions with the freight railroad about doing that. And when we know when those projects are going to be done and when we know when we can implement a new schedule, we will be back to all of our stakeholders to talk about what that looks like. And with that, I'm happy to answer any questions you can have, and I appreciate your time.

Ms. Hatchell, go ahead.

Yeah, thank you so much for your presentation. I appreciate it. Now, you said that there were currently five trips between Charlotte and Raleigh daily, correct?

Yes, ma'am.

Do all of those stop here at Kannapolis, though?

No, they do not. The 77 and 78 do not stop in Kannapolis. One of the main reasons for that is that train 76 stops in Kannapolis when train 77 comes through. And until there was a temporary schedule change, 79 stopped in Kannapolis when the other train came through. And those two trains can't be in the same place at the same time. So we have to have one of those trains be on the other side of the track and not stop at the station.

Okay, because it's been brought to our attention that we've had people asking us to have that there and also to ask you guys for that. Because it was my understanding that all of those routes were stopping in Kannapolis at one time.

Before 2023, we had four round trips a day, and they all stopped in Kannapolis. And they all stopped in all the stations in North Carolina, or all of them on the corridor. When we added that new service, things got congested in terms of constraints like the one I talked about. And there was also a lot of feedback to try to provide a faster round trip between Raleigh and Charlotte and some of the major communities. Now, the fastest round trip does stop in Kannapolis, It's actually a different train that misses Kannapolis for those reasons. But we looked at the ridership in those places and the time of day when people were taking the train in those smaller communities and chose the schedule. And it's been successful. All of the stations have seen ridership growth. But we do know that that concern is out there as perspective from some people that we should have all trains stop at all stations. And we also have people asking, why is the train even stopping as much as it does? And it's tough to navigate that issue.

My experience has been it's very full when you do take it from Kannapolis to Raleigh. Thank you.

Ms. Dixon, would you like to say something?

Yes, thank you so much.

All right.

Thank you for your presentation. My family and I had the opportunity to ride the train to High Point, and we really, really enjoyed that experience. I was really, really amazed by that experience. I guess the speed of the train, but the cleanliness of the of the train was was really remarkable. So I thank you. And so I would just ask our mayor and and city manager if perhaps we could schedule a train ride just for the for the experience of it. And so that way I think that helps us in making decisions about future plans and the way we make decisions here. REGARDING THE TRAIN SERVICE?

I WAS GOING TO SAY, I'M HAPPY TO DO WHAT WE CAN TO FACILITATE THAT FOR YOU ALL, AND I'LL LEAVE MY CARD WITH PROBABLY THE CITY CLERK OR THE CITY MANAGER ON MY WAY OUT. We can help you figure out what makes sense to you and how you want to do that. I took a group of my friends from church on a train trip from Raleigh to Burlington a couple Saturdays ago, and it's one of those things that you see, and we also had folks from out of state who wanted, in their state, they want to implement a service like this. They came to North Carolina to see what we do and to kind of see it and feel it and touch it and have some of their elected officials be a part of it. It's a great idea. I'm happy to help facilitate that.

Mr. Jackson? I guess we all envision a commuter train. Anyone that's ever lived outside of a big city get used to using trains. Do you envision ever being able to get on a train and go to the airport, Shaw Airport?

No. I will go back in my slides to one of the things we heard in this engagement. You'll see comments about the airport in the content there. What I will point out is that one of those corridor ID corridors, one of those places we want to expand, is to extend our Piedmont service from Charlotte out to King's Mountain and that line passes the airport. It goes through Gastonia where an Amtrak long distance train stops and it could conceivably potentially stop at or near the airport and then King's Mountain and maybe another community in that area. So it is something that we're thinking about but it isn't something that we have an active plan for and it would still be an inner city service of a few trains a day doing that. the idea of a transit system going to the airport from Kannapolis is something that the NCDOT is not directly involved in but the region's transit planning framework can address.

And we also envision as our towns grow in population as far as housing is concerned, a commuter type situation where you can live downtown and commute to Charlotte or Salisbury or would enhance the the intent of building our downtowns and our our residential population and we do have a number of people who use our train to commute today as i said it's not what it's set up for it isn't going to be

at the sort of service frequency and the service parameters that we are able to provide, going to be first and foremost a commuter rail solution for most people, but it is something that we're happy to have those riders, and I believe there's probably people doing that today on the schedule. And the more trains we add, the more we're going to be able to serve those trips as well.

Sounds great. Thank you.

Mr. Davout.

Thank you, Mayor. I'll say that I always do a commercial when we're talking about Amtrak and the trains that, When you're coming into Kannapolis, you're coming to the prettiest community that you enter into on the entire rail, at least from Raleigh to here. Because coming into our downtown, it's the most unique experience when you come by the campus and come into downtown. So we have that to be thankful for. The one thing that's in your report that it says that the Kannapolis station had the highest percentage of respondents indicating that train schedules do not meet their needs. So I just want to reiterate that as you know that And it goes to what Ms. Hatchell was talking about earlier about trying to get this station where it is a destination and it is a good thing for a lot of people, but it could be a whole lot better with more resources going toward transportation. that station getting the second platform put in getting the bridge across to the train station itself as the plans are still still out there and still hopefully to be done at some point but i bring up that at the research campus just last friday we hosted over 50 students from UNC, and they had to take two chartered buses to get here. And, you know, it's one of those things that if the service was more timely and the timing would match up better from Chapel Hill to Durham and then from Durham to Kannapolis and then going back, there's plenty of opportunities like that that kind of tie into our program hyper-local area that we're talking about, let alone all the other things that we have in our community. So we appreciate you coming and giving us an update on all this and be interested in how it goes forward.

Thank you. If I may, you mentioned chartered bus. I do want to acknowledge that for the last few weeks and going forward for the next few weeks, we are operating on a very limited schedule Monday through Thursday that substitutes a bus round trip for a train round trip. And between Greensboro and Raleigh it even eliminates another round trip so that the Norfolk Southern Rail Company can replace the rail there. That's actually a part of that grant I mentioned. It's a state of good repair thing and it's been a challenge for us ridership wise because people when they go to buy a train ticket they see it's a slower bus journey. They're less likely to buy that ticket for us, and we hope to be able to win those riders back when that project is done in a few weeks. It may have been that that drove the situation to come out. It may have been something else completely. But if it was the former, then hopefully in the future it will work for them great. Thank you. I just got one other question.

Yes, sir. From a budgeting standpoint of view, I know that fares probably don't cover the cost of operating trains. Can you kind of give us an insight on how the money flows?

So the rail division's budget supports the operations of the Carolina and the Piedmont, and we also supplement that with congestion mitigation air quality federal funding that DOT has. It is... I guess in terms of those decisions, the General Assembly gives us the budget and asks us to operate those trains. We set fares to be competitive as much as we can to drive an increase of ridership. That's what we've been asked to do. And not necessarily try to optimize the monetary economics of it, but we also have been having to raise fares a little bit to keep up with costs and try to keep that economical for the state. But we I guess I'm not sure I'm answering your question, sir, but it is a service provided by the state of North Carolina. And the federal government. Well, and the state of North Carolina has given that CMAQ money in kind of a block grant format, just like there was a discussion of a different block grant program earlier, and that could go to other things that qualify that the state DOT directs. But it's justified by the reduction in some emissions and the traffic on the highways.

Mr. Berry, do you have anything? Okay, anyone else? Sir, thank you.

You're welcome. Thank you for your time.

Moving on, Mr. Nelson.

I don't have anything, Mayor.

Any council members? Mr. Payne.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. In light of the continued comments and concerns surrounding the Eastside Park project, I wanted to take a moment to shine a light on the facts and clarify where things currently stand. The Eastside Park project is on a general obligation bond along with several other projects. We made the decision to give the citizens the opportunity to have a voice in determining whether this project should move forward right now. As we have stated previously, we have shifted our priorities towards addressing core services like public safety. For perspective, a single fire truck costs nearly $2 million. Personally, I believe that if the city is going to absorb additional costs, especially during this fiscal year, our first priority should be core services like public safety. When Kannapolis citizens call 911, we need to ensure that our police officers, firefighters, and other public safety personnel have the best equipment, tools, vehicles, and resources available to do their job safely and effectively. That is a priority. We have not said no to Eastside Park. We have said not right now. At this time, I do not believe it is in the city's best financial interest to spend approximately $6 million to construct the park, particularly when the project would also require roughly $300,000 annually in ongoing operating costs. Additionally, the $500,000 grant being discussed does not even cover 10% of the total construction costs. Ultimately, we have put the choice in the hands of the citizens. If the citizens truly want Eastside Park and are comfortable with the property tax increase necessary to fund it, they have the opportunity to make that decision through the voting process. This is not about saying no to a park. It is about priorities, fiscal responsibility, and making sure we are taking care of our community's most critical needs first.

Thank you, Mr. Pine. Anybody else? Ms. Dixon.

I'd like to ask that our staff investigate the possibility of an application for Kannapolis to become an all-American city. This is something that I've discussed kind of for the past two years and would just like to have some information about that application.

That's a good idea.

You're a very progressive city, and Kanapolis is indeed a destination location, and so this may be the time for us to do that investigation. Thank you.

Good. I like that. Yeah. Anyone else?

I'll throw one out. Go ahead. Since we're asking about staff to give additional duties, I guess, to Kanapolis, To look at that, I think that's a great idea. I feel, and we talked about this a little bit in our retreat in, whenever that was, it feels like it was five years ago, that we've had the same brand as a city for quite some time now, and I believe that it's time that we look at all that and develop a new strategy for the city. Maybe it incorporates some of the current branding efforts, but we have a lot of assets here now that we didn't have 10 years ago when we adopted that brand. We've got a downtown ball stadium. We've got the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame. We've got breweries, restaurants. economic development in downtown. There's just a lot of things here that we did not have when that brand was implemented. We really need to look at that long and hard. We also need a major website revamp. It is almost impossible to find anything on our website. There's a lot of outdated information. There's There's just all sorts of issues that the website has. It's hard for me to navigate it. If I go to look for an event schedule, not parks and rec events per se, but just in general things that are happening, it's almost impossible. There's just a lot of things that it needs. So I think it needs to go along with a revamp, but that website really needs to be priority to elevate what we're doing and show off what we have and let our citizens be able to find what we have. So again, that was brought up a little bit in the retreat, but I think we just need to hone in on that a little bit more now. So thank you.

Anyone else? Well, before we go into the last segment here, we did a proclamation earlier tonight, and I had the privilege today, thanks to Ms. Gaggs, I didn't know I could sing, and she trapped me into going out here to the Big Elm. This is National Assisted Living Week, so I got to go spend some time with those wonderful people. I did not know I was going to sing Eye of the Tiger when I got there, but I did. So anyway, they listened to it. I'm glad they didn't understand what I was saying, but it all worked out. But they're wonderful people out there. September 13th through the 19th is National Assisted Living Week, That's a whole other population of people, and God bless them. My mother was there. I know other of you have had that. It's something we shouldn't forget, and there were precious people out there today, and I want to thank Ms. Gax for getting me involved. So having said that, Mr. Dayball.

Mayor, I'd like to make a motion to close the session pursuant to North Carolina General Statute 143.318.11a3 to consult with an attorney in order to preserve the attorney-client privilege and General Statute 143.318.11a6 for discussing personnel matters.

Is there a second? Second. Mr. Payne, all in favor? Okay, we're now in closed session. Thank you for coming.