Board of Commissioners - Regular Meeting

Everyone, um, welcome to the January 12th, 2026 Town of Kildo Hills Board of Commissioners meeting. I call this meeting to order and invite everyone to please stand and join me in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance 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.

Everyone is welcome to please join me in a moment of silence. All right. Um, good evening everyone. Um, our next item of business is our agenda. We have one before us. Move to approve the agenda. Second. We have a motion, a second. Do we have any further discussion? Hearing none. All in favor, please indicate by saying I. I. I.

All right. We have an agenda. Next, we have our first opportunity for public comment. This is an opportunity for anyone in the audience to address the board on any topic of their choosing that pertains to the town. We do that. We do ask when you are called upon, approach the podium, speak into the microphone, and identify yourself by name and address. Uh please keep comments to three minutes if you're speaking as an individual or five minutes if you are speaking on behalf of a group. And friendly reminder, there'll be another opportunity for public comment toward the end of the meeting. And if anybody would like to participate, the floor is open. All right. Evening. Uh my name is Chris Merrick. I'm one of the owners of Ocean Atlantic Reynolds, which is located at 2001 South Croin Highway in Kilovable Hills. Thanks for having me tonight. My first order of business is to remind everybody about trash attack. And it's been a labor of love for this town and and my friends for some years. And it's coming up in April probably. We're going to have a meeting soon to talk about it. Um but I I imagine it'll be April and it's always a great time. And I think it really is awesome to get the beach in the area ready um from all the wind that's blown all winter and get us set up for our visitors who are on their way. So, um, look forward to that. Um, I just wanted to say thank you to the town and to the staff for, um, working on an amendment to, um, define beach concierge setup service. Um, and I I believe y'all will be discussing and voting maybe on that tonight. And I just wanted to add my two cents worth since I am a uh equipment rental guy uh on in Killable Hills and in a couple other towns here and I've been through some ordinances on this topic with some other towns and have

some experience and I'm always available if I can help with that. But I want to thank staff for making time to discuss it with me and uh and I understand it a lot better and I really like what they modeled this program after uh this ordinance. Um, one thing in there that, um, is concerning to me is is just, um, if my equipment, which by the way is sometimes rented by people who walk into my store and sometimes rented by people who want concier service and they do it over the internet or they do it over the phone. No one can tell the difference. It's the same beach chairs with my nice big commercial logos on them. They're heavy duty oak products. many of you have seen that most vendors here use and they're expensive and I I like to retain them and the way the code is ending right now is talking about um things that violate the code will be destroyed and I just I I really have a great vibe and a great word from staff that they they believe in being neighborly and they believe in u making a phone call or or giving us just a real reasonable time to remove beach equipment and deal with our customer if they're the one in violation or if we're the ones in violation getting our staff back on board. Um but it's not written that way. So I'm just asking y'all to look at that last page in that detail tonight. Um um the other thing that I wanted to mention that is um exciting to me about this and and and this will be very quick is is there was a lot of businesses that were doing this last summer in particular and I love the entrepreneurial spirit. I have it. But they were a couple guys with a pickup truck and some popup tents from the corner store and they weren't they they were you know that's why this is

exciting is is they may not have had insurance. I don't know. I love people going for it but I think this is going to help have quality on your beaches. Um and and in that vein I would say this last thing. Sometimes there's chronic violators of these rules. And I love that you have a a $500 um concierge fee that real players are going to need to pay and I you know um have no problem with that and I think it's necessary. Um but I think when you have chronic violators who keep putting things in front of the lifeguards who keep doing bad stuff and not responding to that courtesy phone call or that courtesy ordinance uh violation, there needs to be some teeth. Maybe it's a hundred bucks after the third ding or I don't know. Um, again, other towns have figured it out way better than me. Um, but I just uh I would tell you that's kind of something that comes down the pipe with this from my experience. So, doors always open. You guys know where I where I work and live and uh thank you for the time tonight and uh go trash attack. One last thing I just wanted to ask if I could um present the mayor with one of our calendars for this year and it's all beach setup stuff on the beach. So um we love doing it. Thank you.

Sure. Thank [clears throat] you, sir. All right.

Would anybody else like to speak at this public comment period? All right. Um, not seeing anyone. We'll move on to response to public comment. Um, thank you very much, Chris, especially for the trash attack. Uh, you know, pep rally. That was very, very nice. And I couldn't agree more. That is an event we're really really proud of and it's coming up. I think uh the planning meeting is in February, February 10th. February 10th, 4 PM will be in this room. That is a very about efficiently run meeting as you're gonna attend. We're going to be in and out quick. And uh this

uh you and and Sandy Marklin do everything Sandy touches is almost gold. She um can run complex and events and organizations to a tea. So I'm looking forward to our event this year. Any other response, public comments? All right. Hearing none, we'll move on to ongoing business. Yes, sir. All right. New business item number one, annual comprehensive financial report for fiscal year 2024, 2025. Certificate of excellence in financial reporting for fiscal year ending June 30th, 2024 and popular annual physical report manager.

Yes, sir. Call Angel. All right, Angel. Good evening. So, we're gonna get our auditor, Emily Mills, on the phone, and she's gonna first give her presentation. Miss Mills, anytime you're ready. Okay. Good evening. Can you hear me? Okay. Yes. Yes.

Okay. My name is Emily Mills and I'm a partner with DMJPS, formerly Pottering Company, and I'm pleased to be here before you this evening to present the town's annual comprehensive financial report for the fiscal year ended June 30th, 2025. Thank you for allowing our firm to perform this service for the town. I want to commend the work of the finance staff. Angel, Sam, and the entire finance team were helpful, professional, and wonderful to work with. On page nine of your financial statements, you will find our independent auditor's report. We have issued an unmodified opinion on the statements of the town of Kville Hills as of June 30th, 2025. An unmodified report is the highest level of assurance that we as independent auditors can issue and it states that the financial statements present fairly in all material respect the financial position of the town at June 30th 2025. This is commonly referred to as a clean opinion. In addition to the independent auditors report, we have also issued a report on the town's compliance known as the yellow book report. This report is in the compliance section of the financial statement starting on page 178. This report deals with the town's compliance with government auditing standards. We noted no findings that we consider to be significant deficiencies or material weaknesses. These financial statements were submitted to the LGC on December the 10th and the LGC reviewed the statements on December the 22nd. There is one item that requires the town to submit a response to the LGC. This item is concerning the benchmark ratio for water and sewer capital assets and this is generated from the LGC's data input

workbook. The town had to submit a response on this same ratio in prior year's audits. The town's response should be submitted to the LGC within 60 days of today's presentation and should be signed by a majority of the board, the manager, and the finance officer. Example responses are available on the LGC's website. The balance sheet information for the general fund can be found on page 32. At the end of the year, the town's general fund had an unrestricted cash balance of 23 million and a restricted cash balance of 9 million. The general fund total fund balance was 35 million. Of this amount, 19 million was unassigned for any specific purpose. The revenues and expenditures for the general fund are summarized on page 34. The general fund reported 26 million in revenues, 37 million in expenditures, and 11 million from other financing sources. This resulted in an increase to fund balance of a little over 500,000. And the statements for water and wastewater activities begin on page 38. And these funds resulted in a combined increase of 1.7 million for the year. Again, I'd like to thank the town for the opportunity to be of service and I am happy to answer any questions.

Any questions from the board? Looks great as always. No, no, I'll quit order ahead. It sounds pretty good. So, um, thank you very much and thank you Angel and team. Very nice. Thank you, Emily. Thank you, Emiline. Have a good evening. Thank you. Thank you.

All right. So, I'm gonna just add a couple things to Emily's report. Uh, first, I would like to present the town's 36th consecutive certificate of achievement for excellence in financial reporting, and that's for our annual comprehensive financial report for the fiscal year ended June 30th, 2024. Uh, this [clears throat] is a document that truly takes the whole finance department, but I want to specifically thank assistant finance officer Sam Angelo and the accountant Scott Nickens for really putting this document together. In addition, the town also received its second conse consecutive award for outstanding achievement in popular annual financial reporting. Again, this is for a fiscal year ending June 30th, 2024. And this is a document that we put together just to be a userfriendly, much easier to read version of our financial information. So with that, we will look at this year's popular annual financial report. And for this one, I want to specifically recognize our customer service representative, Selma Selena Dermatus. She really took a lot of time to put this together. So I would encourage you all to look through the whole thing. It's got both financial and non-financial information, but I am just going to hit on the financial highlights, which really start on pages seven and eight. And this is the document that looks like this. You guys should have that.

Um, so if you look at page eight, that's our townwide financial information. And here you can see how our net position changed throughout the year. you will see our overall net position um was beginning net position was restated as of the beginning of the year by about 1.2 million. This was due to a change in accounting principle. So while that beginning number was not incorrect, it needed to be adjusted to make it consistent with the financial reporting requirements that were released in 2025. So that reduced that beginning net position by about 1.2 million. And then during the year we had an overall net position increase of about 3.35 million. And that's the amount that our revenues exceeded our expenses for the year for both governmental and business type activities. So then we'll take a look at the fund specific information. If you flip over to page 10, we'll start with our general fund, which is where most of our activity takes place. Revenues for the year were about 26.4 million. That's up from about 25.9 million in 2024. I'll touch on the advalorum and the other taxes and licenses on the next page, but here we'll just look at those intergovernmental revenues. They did dip a little bit and that's just due to some one-time grant funds that we received in 2024 that we did not receive in 2025. And then our other revenues, those were very steady from 24 to 25. That includes our permits and fees, our sales and services, some investment income, and then some other miscellaneous sources. Our expenditures on the year were almost 37 a.5 million. But we can look at that general government expenditure section and you can see it looks like a huge increase there. That spike is due to another new accounting standard where we have to recognize the full principal amount of a lease in the year that that lease begins. So the fire station began in 2025. We had to record the full 10.2 million in that year. However, that will

be paid over 20 years. there's an other financing source to offset that entry. So, it doesn't actually affect our fund balance. It just results in looking like we had a huge spike in our expenses, but that's not actually a cash flow thing. That's just um if you remove that 10.4 or 10.2 million, the expenditures were about the same from 2024 to 2025.

There was also a slight spike in our transportation expenditures, and that's due to the Rightsville Boulevard project that was ongoing in 2025. Public safety and public works both had slight increases you would expect for increased personnel and inflationary cost. Our environmental expenditures actually went down and that's due to some garbage trucks that were purchased in 2024. We didn't have any garbage truck purchases in 2025. And then our debt service, we saw a slight increase there and that's mainly due to the first full year of the fire station lease payments. On the next page, we'll take a look at those tax revenues. The adalorum taxes increased about 2.5%. The tax rate stayed the same at 35 1.5 cent per $100 of valuation. So that 2.5% increase is really due to continued development and growth within the town. Our other taxes and licenses increased about 4.9% mostly due to increased sales taxes. Sales taxes went up about 7.9%. Occupancy was about the same with an increase of only.1% and our land transfer tax increased about 1.4%. On the next page, we just another look at those expenditures. This goes into a little bit more detail about that fire station and lays out the expenses for the Ritzville Boulevard Street project. Um, and then down at the bottom, you can see our capital outlay purchases for the year, and that's mainly our machinery and equipment that was purchased. On the next page, we have our capital projects for the year. We have a nice new walk over at the Haymon Street Beach Access. About 69,000 of that came from grant funds with about 23,000 coming from our capital reserve fund for a total project cost of about 92,000. We had a new walkway or repairs on a walkway on Bay Drive for about 12,000. The Writesville Boulevard project, we had paid about 4.2 million as of the end of 2025 and with about 4 million of that coming

in fiscal year 25. So that left about 160,000 to be paid in fiscal year 2026. And then there was a new sound system installed over at Aviation Park to be used at the events that are hosted over there. On the next page, you can see our fund balance. Fund balance in total bumped up to about 35.2 million. That's up from about 34.7 million in 2024. About 230,000 of that is in non-spendable form, which is inventory and prepaid items. About 15.2 is restricted. 6.8 million of that is restricted by state statute. about 48,000 restricted for public safety, about 30 330,000 for streets, and about 8.1 million is in our capital reserve fund, which I'll touch on on the next page. We had no money committed at the end of fiscal year 2025. We had about 78,000 that was assigned and that was the amount of fund balance appropriated in our fiscal year 2026 budget. So that leaves about 19.7 in our unassigned fund balance. Our fund balance policy requires that we keep 35% of the next year's expenditures in unassigned fund balance. So that's about 9.75 million and that leaves about 9.9 million to meet the ongoing needs of the town. On the next page, we have our capital reserve funds. And this just shows the breakdown of that 8.1 million and how it's distributed among the five purposes we have capital reserve funds set up for. We have about 5.7 million for beach nourishment, about 400,000 for shoreline access, about 266,000 for our wreck facilities, about 284 for our sidewalks, and about 1.4 million for streets. And that wraps up our general fund. So, I'll just briefly touch on our business type activities, which is our water and wastewater funds. Those are pretty steady revenues and expenses from year to year. In the water fund, the total operating revenues were about 6.1

million. That was up about 5% from the prior year, mostly due to the 4% increase that we had in our water rates. And then operating expenses totaled just over 5 billion. That was an increase of about 9.5% from the prior year. And that's mainly due to personnel inflation. And we did have some increases in our maintenance and repair costs. Wastewater. Um the operating revenues totaled about 203,000 which is almost exactly the same as it was the prior year. and expenses did see a small bump of to about 181,000. That's mainly due to some increases we had in our maintenance and repair costs. So, that is all that I wanted to highlight, but I'm happy to answer any questions that you guys may have.

Great job. Okay, this is awesome. I like this. Yeah, I know. Very user friendly. [clears throat] It is. Yes. said our customer service representative worked a long time on this. This would be good to present the COA classes on this financial obligations the town has to have, right? Understanding what municipal government actually does, how the money spent is much easier for if I could understand it, I think the COA students would be just fine. So, uh, thank you. It's like the USA Today version. [laughter] And my dog's in there, too. So, we were wondering whose dog that was. [laughter] Perfect. Big great Dane trip. Perfect. All right. Thank you guys. Thank you.

Thank you team. Nice.

All right. Moving on. New business item number two proposed amendment to chapter 96 seaside regulations. Add regulations for beach equipment setup and regulation for beach concier services. Meredith or Cam. I'm not sure who's going to take the lead. I'll start and Cameron can jump in when he needs to. Um, we've received from the board um several times uh about beach setups and where they're set up and how they're set up and when they're set up. Um, we've been working with the ocean rescue um with what they're seeing in real time out there and we also researched our neighbor municipalities. Duck and Nagad both have um ordinances that that directly go to the the concier services. So, this uh change to our seaside regulations would define BC concier services. um several other definitions that go along with that along with um regulations for the concier services. Um they will require to be permitted here in town. They'll have to have a shy bond which is insurance. Um they'll have um specific areas that they can set up which is 30 feet from our access points. Um, and when I say access points, we're talking the physical access points, not the whole 50 or 100 foot wide right of way that the access is on, but where the people come out and where the vehicles come out, depending what we got [clears throat] going on there. U, we are limiting it to no more than two canopies within 10 feet of each other. So you don't have five or six stretched out um in in big swaths of the beach. Canopies can't be greater than 12 by 12.

Can't be set up before 6:00 a.m. must be removed by 8. Um it has to be anchored to prevent it flying away. Um if it's not in use, everything has to be located under the canopy or umbrella. Um this was intended to prevent the early morning canopy with the chairs that stretch out 10 or 12 feet on either side just to try to secure some some space on the beach. Um, like I said, the concier services will have to register with the town. They'll get a permit. The permit will be $500. That's part of the fee schedule change that we're requesting. Um most of the things I just said applied not only to the concier services but to um people setting up personally. The no more than two uh more than 10 ft of uh two 10 ft apart. Is that right? Yes. Um anchored um have to be removed at night. Um all transactions for concier services have to happen off the beach. You cannot do business on the beach. You can't just go set up an umbrella and chairs and then sell it when someone shows up at the beach. Um we've had that happen a lot in Kville Hills. Um it it was always illegal, but now it's written into the ordinance. Um and there's violations. I think we give um one of the things that Chris brought up was the violations for what you got?

Liability. I said they had to have liability insurance and they have to have a shy bond for the um if there's violations they'll for being registered or violations to the setups and takedowns they will be issued a notice of violation and civil citation which is $50 a day and then $100 after 15 days. So So there are and then it's $500 after 30 days. So there are remedies for people that are coming out that are not registered, that are not setting up correctly and also it's two strikes and you lose your permit to have a concier service on our beach. So not only will they monetarily they'll also lose their permit if they're doing business without a permit. They're going three times. um if they they working without a permit, they get an automatic violation and that will be a civil citation. So, we will have some some repercussions for the entrepreneur that didn't. We're also planning on trying to do if the board adopts this uh education contacting the concier services that we know about doing a video um and letting them know what the ordinances so that we can get this information out before the season starts so that we can get people registered and their permits issued so that we know who's going to be out there. The lifeguards will know who's out there. Lifeguards are going to be our monitors. planning department will be the ones that will issue any violations, our code enforcement, but our lifeguards will be the monitors letting us know what's happening on the beach so that we're not sending planning department out there. Although I mean I I volunteer on really pretty days, but um [clears throat] and that's that's essentially the removal of equipment [clears throat] is not something new to

the ordinance. It's it's been there. Um it's always been there. It's been there for about six or seven years now. Our lifeguards have a tag process where they tag equipment that they find in the morning that's been there overnight giving a warning and if it's still there the next morning it gets removed. If it's concierge service, what'll happen is they'll report it to us. We'll call the concier service, let them know. And if they say, "Well, we rented that to Miss Smith from our store." we're going to say, "Well, you need to tell Miss Smith to pick it up or we're going to take it tomorrow." So, there there that's always been a point of communicating. Um, and the concier service will make it easier because they'll be registered. So, that's really it. And other thing Chris had talked about signage. Um, signage is something we we do want. Um, it's helpful to identify whose it is, but how much we don't also want billboards on the beach. So, we've got it specifically in there for how much signage is allowed to be on the canopies and that does mirror the other m other municipalities that do regulate it. So, hoping that if they're already following those guidelines, we're not changing the way it's regulated. So,

and a lot of one of the complaints that we got regularly was that the setups were being set up and no one was in them. That's still going to happen. Um, but their setups will all be confined to underneath the canopies, their canopy or umbrella now and so if they show up they can spread out [clears throat] as they need to. But until then and um I think the lifeguard services said that they would also make sure that it was confined and let us know if people are violating it. So it'll give us a little bit more control on our beaches. Yeah. So,

so can I ask uh does this is it proper to ask right now? Yes. Uh can I ask uh does this um so this applies to anybody let's say you're renting a home is applying to private people as well. I mean even though they won't be have knowledge of this ordinance likely. I mean, obviously you're charged with having knowledge of the laws where you travel, but um so most of most of these regulations have been in place for years with both individuals and the concier. We're just kind of separating out the concier services and requiring a permit. The private residents, our lifeguards have done an incredible job with public education in person. Yeah.

Letting them know. We have the warning tags so that they know that they can't leave their stuff out. Um, yeah. Overnight, the lifeguards, our supervisors have spent a tremendous amount of time for public education, right? Because I see the private person is not going to know that one rule about leaving not putting their chairs outside of the tent. You know what I'm saying? And that's not going to be very easy to and and and the when in working on this ordinance with with the lifeguard services, they're very willing to do public education in person with people on the beach. That's

Does this actually is this um put more taxing on the lifeguards? I mean, take away their their general duty to life be lifeguards or it's something they're already doing. So in the ordinance you look in the seaside regulations it already talks about beach equipment and where it can go but it's pretty vague but it's been interpreted for years you know if it's it's if it's in the line of sight or if it's you know taking up where they where they drive they're they work with the public every day already on the setup of beach equipment. So it it gives them instead of this loose interpretation some real teeth rules no but also real rules that they can show someone that hey these are the rules that are on the books this is what we need you to do. Okay. But what I'm asking more is

I'm into oper I'm not an operator in beach lifeguard services but from speaking with Dave it's their supervisors that are on four-wheelers that do most of the public education not the person sitting on the stand watching the water. Okay. The person on the stand watching the water that their primary responsibility and that's all they're going to do is public safety for the ocean.

Right. So, I was just like thinking is that is it is the directive going to be super enforcement or is it going to be like are you amping up are they going to amp up their enforcement? I mean comes from the town manager or or it comes from you know whoever's in charge of lifeguards the supervisor there. Is it going to be like hey this is more of an active like now we have these rules are we going to be more active? Do you do you anticipate that or the the private rules for setup are not changing? Right.

They're just being separated from the concurge and now the concierge the business people that are making money setting these things up. The businesses now have a permit process and they have to have a shy bond and and insurance. I'm just asking is that job do you view that job is going to be more intense for that person now that lifeguard who who's on the 4x4? that the education's going to be about the same as it was before. It's it's actually going to take a little bit of pressure off of them because if one of the businesses is not doing what they're supposed to, they're going to be able to call us who are in the office and we're then going to make contact with the concier's business that has a permit. So, it's actually going to it creates accountability.

It's going to take a little bit of pressure off of them if if there's um if it is a marked business that's set up incorrectly, they're going to call us. Okay. So, and and a lot of these things are based off of issues that they have been having on the beach every summer. Yeah. And so, a lot of these new regulations just for everybody's beach equipment was based off of, you know, what what things they struggle with dayto-day. Do we have any an estimate on how many chairs or umbrellas get tagged by lifeguards for being abandoned overnight? I don't have that information. Yes, sir.

I mean, not just to chief anything that you may know if the Dave It probably doesn't get to you. I'd be better keep numbers on it. I I don't know. I'd have to ask Elder Dave Elder. I have I don't know if they keep a daily account numbers for the season, for the week. I don't know. I'm just curious, kind of going to back something Chris said, what percentage of things that may be left out overnight belong to a a rental company versus privately owned? And is that a regular thing? From what I've heard, I believe the majority of the ones that are more of a nuisance are as as Chris said earlier, the fly by nighters,

the two kids from home for the summer. We're going to run this business. Uh, you know, we went out, we didn't we only got $60 on a tarp and made $300 on it today. We're not going to worry about picking another hook. I don't know. I'm assuming that's what the majority of the stuff is. I don't think the uh the vendors [clears throat] the concier service most of them have got much you know the more reputable bigger ones have got a lot more high quality stuff that they're not willing to

just lose. The other thing that the planning department has chased down through the lifeguard beach services is the fly by nights that are actually at beach accesses that they've set up four or five umbrellas and two chairs and they have someone sitting there and said, "Well, you can rent that umbrella and chairs for me for 50 bucks for the day." And it's not so much as a staying overnight, but they're actually conducting they're they're taking up space and trying to sell it in person. they're pedalling [clears throat]

um their umbrellas and chairs and that takes from the reputable businesses that are getting permits and we can stop that. They're also one of the big problems we've had in the past is storing their equipment at the base of a beach access overnight because they don't want to really take it all the way off because they're going to be back in the morning. So they'll tuck it to the dudes and maybe put a tarp over it. Well, we don't want that. That's dangerous. Um, so this really puts a lot more accountability into that that that can't be done and we can stop them from working on our beach.

Yeah. and in talking with our public services department too who ends up being responsible for picking up this as solid waste is when we first started picking up overnight equipment. The first summer was very busy. But over time with education, most people realized you can't leave it out there all night long or you can't leave it at the toe of the dune. So even this summer there was numerous times we were calling up companies who left beach equipment at beach accesses or at the toe of the dune and let them know they couldn't do that. they need to come get it and it wasn't thrown away. So, there's still a lot of education going on, but over time we saw that there ended up being an understanding of what the rules are. So, it it will take time, but

and I just looked it up the over or Michael just let me know the overnight equipment regulation has been in place since 2015. So, we've been doing that for 10 years. That's that's not new. Yeah. the um civil penalties pursuant with section 10.99 of this of this code. What's the dollar amount? Could you guys imagine if you do have a initial violator or repeat violator to uh it's a graduated scale? Yeah, it starts at $50. Teeth there is that we can revoke the permit. That's just for one year.

Yeah. Yeah. So, will run from January 1 to December 31st. We'll hope to get everybody permitted and prepared before the season. And then that those three violations will be, you know, for the really a summer season. A a lot of people are already operating thinking that we have these rules. Um I've spoken to several people like, "Oh, I thought you already had the same rules as Duck or Nag's head." Um because they wanted their equipment to be taken care of, too. They're pretty proud when they put their logos on these things. Um, but there there have been others that have not followed these rules. [clears throat]

Any more questions or comments? Just when when everything's teared torn down and and you said left a lot of times right at the base of someone's um oceanfront stairs in the you know dunes or that's private or concier. You're okay as soon as you can. Are you are do you want that in on their st wood stairs or do you want off the beach? Oh, you want it west of the dune. Yes. So, okay. A lot of that's been that way for Yeah. How many years? A decade. A decade. Yeah. And I've Oh, at night overnight. Really? Yeah. I've seen a lot of, you know, concier left on that side, too. Just for ease of set up, you know, it makes sense.

We've had some We've had some some very specific issues in very specific areas for years. So, that's going to change there. It it's been that way. No, I know. But and we write them violations and call them. It's every year. Okay. This that's I'm just not aware of that. Okay. It's not new. Thank you. It's the easy place to to put it. Yeah, I understand. It's not easy to carry it. Makes sense. Okay. I think this is great. Thank you very much for this. It's very thorough and it's very much needed.

All right. Um, if unless anyone has any more comments or questions, I'll what would the board like to do? We could I'll entertain a motion or I'll make a motion to adopt the amendment to chapter 96, seaside regulations, add regulations for beach equipment setup and regulations for beach concier services. I'll second. We have a motion, a second. Any further discussion? Mayor. Yes. Um, would you include in your motion, please, um, to amend the town's um, consolidated fee schedule to include the beach concier service permit for $500? Yes.

Thank you. And would you amend your second? I would amend my second. Thank you. All right. Um, we have an amended motion and second. Any more discussion or comment? All in favor, please indicate by saying I. I. I. I. All righty. Thank you. Let's move on to new business item number three, proposed amendment chapter 71, traffic regulations pro prohibition of vehicular travel in flooded areas. Um, yes, sir. Debbie, I'll turn it over to you.

Thank you. Um, this ordinance is I won't tell you what I was calling it, but anyway, it's where you've got heavy storm events and people are driving through the flooded waters and it makes the way to go up into private property. um just creating various misunders. Um the police department has highlighted its mission to promote public [clears throat] safety and prevent damage in flooded areas and proposed this amendments to chapter 71 traffic regulations. If it's adopted, it would make it unlawful for motorists to operate a vehicle in flooded water, displacing water and/or creating a wave that would adversely affect and staff would recommend adoption of the ordinances presented.

Okay. Got a few questions. Okay. Um 2 in of water as the threshold. Um does this ordinance only apply to Kill Devil Hills roads or does commercial property or private property encompassed in it as well? This this would be the um the town's road. Just the road. So, anything in a commercial businesses Yes. If a commercial business's parking lot's flooded and someone drives through that, this ordinance does not include that. Jurisdiction. Okay.

That was my initial question. Where did um again the genesis of this where did two inches of water as a threshold come from as uh as a depth I guess for uh for this we picked like was there is there any any I did okay where did we is there any other two inches yeah like what's what's the background for that any other towns do this two inches that cover the the roadways which if the way that our roads are built, they crown and go to the sides, which means the edges will be dramatically more than two inches. Yes. Where people

the two in is a is a basic flood number. And if that is moved and you're going into something that's six or eight inches on the side of the roads, you're creating a lot of water movement. So it has to be 2 in across the paved surface of the road, not on the sides. If there's two inches on the the side of the road,

people are not water. It's just for the actual road surface of the road because that means the flooding on the sides of the roads because of the way we design our streets is dramatically deeper and it will go towards private properties. It also creates the spray that hits people's windshields and blinds them when they're moving. So that's that's where it came from. But two inches at the crest of the road in the center of this highest point the pave portion obviously it'll be much deeper on the side. Okay.

Is this from this for marked areas though? Not like they're sign this is for marked areas. You're not you're not as a motorist have to decide whether there's two inches on the road or not. or this is this applies to every every area. Every area, especially right after you have a storm, you don't have a time to put out signs let know that there there's water on the road and people it's obvious you're not supposed to drive through high water anyway. Yeah. But some of these people would take NC12. We've had some places that drive up there in ladies house and water to go in. They're still drive 35 miles an hour through there throwing weights up higher than vehicles. Oh yeah. I mean, common sense [clears throat]

should prevail, but it's not like I mean, I've been on I've been driving out of Hatters where every single car is ruining itself going through, you know, six correct to 12 inches of water and that's basically the only way to come and go. So, but they're not doing it reckless in a manner to that would cause it. They're trying to drive slow enough that they can get through it, not throwing water up on the other vehicles they're meeting, hitting their windshield, and that might cause them to uh I mean, but it's not like if you have to get to your place or you have to get out of your place. I mean, you're going to have to go through it. That's Oh, no. If you have to go through it and you're not sitting there driving reckless, you should be able to go through it. You drive like like you said, have some comments. Oh, this talks about reckless.

That was my that was my concern as well. Like is is this a blanket ban on No, this is it's like for the like in the first sentence where it talks about the secret individuals. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I'm sorry. purposely doing this, right? Yeah. Yeah. It's not the person that's trying to get to their house, driving slow, and paying attention to what they're doing. So, you're looking for intent. That's correct. Of the driver. Yes. Yeah. It's in It's in that sentence. It No, I understand. Yeah. But how do you how do you how do you regulate intent of how do you determine intent? The officers are going to determine intent. The officers will. Yes, sir. Okay. How? No different than reckless driving,

right? Well, I know reckless driving water. As you know, as a criminal attorney, reckless driving is sort of a very broad and and intent can I'm just wondering what it is that's gonna because I just see like a lot of problems with this being so broad. You know what I'm saying? Like I mean, yes, we we all think we know what's intentional and what's not and obviously an officer is more trained than that at that than others, but I just don't like adding, you know, something that's, you know, Yeah. I mean, it's I mean, it should be reckless. Isn't it covered by reckless driving, first of all? Not necessarily. Wouldn't you wouldn't you say? Not necessarily.

I'm not a criminal lawyer, so I'm going to defer. [laughter] But I could I could see why not. You know, reckless driving, you're thinking of crossing left or center, driving at a high rate of speed in a school zone, things of that nature. Here, I mean, I guess it maybe falls, but not necessarily. Right. I was going to say it basically just helps our police department be able to deal with these situations, especially after a storm and like said, you don't have time to put up signs. Um you may have time an opportunity to put cones out. Yeah. But they witness people moving the cones to go around. Yeah. And this is a civil citation also. Oh, okay.

Right. Right. That's the I was going to add that. Yes. That's right, Chief. Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean I you know and officer is going to use this discretion at it anyway. If it's intentional, they'll be able to tell. But you you've seen trucks with big tires. They'll be running throwing rooster tails for bad have a good old time just to just to cause some trouble. I get it. Yeah. Thrill seeking. Yes.

No. Nobody needs a wake in their living room. I get I I get it all. I just It's just like it seems a little broad to me, but uh and I don't like broad. But anyway, it's okay. It's an ordinance. It's not a statute, but it's just kind of broad. But questions or comments? Anything else? I mean, I I kind of have a funny feeling, too. I I completely could support the thought.

I wish the language was a little more detailed of maybe the road being completely covered in water and then I just wish it the little more specific. I just can't but I I completely support the the idea. What would you add in the specifics? The road completely submerged in water and uh as we described where the crest of the road is two inches or below underwater. Like if there's puddles on the side where the motors get to safely navigate through the middle, they may think, well, there's two inches on. They just their tire touches that puddle, they may be in violation of this.

If they navigate safely through the two inches of water, they're not in violation. And that was my question because I interpreted this as like there's flood waters, you can't drive. So with this understanding of the intent and that's what I think we were getting at maybe we should clear this up a little bit. Yes.

With the understanding of the intent of the ordinance which I get the intent. Common sense says do not do this but we don't live in that world. So if we can clarify that intent of yes calming people down perhaps a little bit and that you are allowed to drive down your road if it is flooded as long as you do so in a reasonable manner. I think that I can get that and I do I do understand the first sentence. It's very exciting way to start it. It just kind of threw me um regarding the intent. I think you have to define something else like but it says water to be displaced and or create a wake of water. So So the interpretation is if you do not create the wake then you are fine.

You're not displacing it or creating a wake then you're not in violation. I don't think it's as clear as you think it is. I think it's really not that clear. Okay. I mean when you say I mean we have to define like we define in other things you know what the travel surface is what the there's nothing about crescent of the road. So we like we'd have to define a couple other things in there but I don't think it's as clear as as you see then I think you're getting too specific like all you people specific is good with law specific is good. I don't think people broad is bad

and it's broad and it's very broad but but you know you're just as specific when in in the drafting of the of the last ordinance and defining certain things I think you have to define um travel surface define you know roadway define a couple things I think would make a lot more sense don't you agree I think like the sentence it should it shall be unlawful to drive slash operate a motor vehicle maybe that recklessly drive or ne or dangerously drive. That's what I'm getting at. Specific the type of driving is what we're trying to prohibit. Not safely going through two of

I think that's also a good point. That's a there's a second thing that it's a good point. That's my only concern. That's my only concern. Do you want to try to amend this here and now or do you want to try to table this and I think there is consensus that we all support the the notion and I think it's a good idea maybe we table this and give staff time to [clears throat] refine it add a few more details based on this discussion to bring it back to our next meeting be glad to help yeah town attorney maybe able to help too we craft it get it up. Yeah, it's just it's just a little broad.

All right. Do we need a motion or cons? Okay. All right. Moving on to new business. Item number four, process and timeline to fill vacant position on the board of commissioners. Town manager.

Yes, sir. Um staff has recently conferred with representatives for years. um UN School of Government for guidance in this process um on filling the vacancy to cause the death city commissioner Terry Gray. Um we're recommending the following. Um Monday, February the 2nd would be the deadline for applications to be submitted. Um applications may be submitted online through the town's website and a resume may also be um submitted with the complete application. Um, February the 9th, the town clerk will forward all eligible applications to the board. February 9th through March 9th, the board members will review the application and may individually contact applicants to obtain additional information or clarification on any of the information submitted. March 9th, which would be um the first meeting in March. During the board commissioners meeting, members will use the nomination and ballot method to fill the vacant seat from the eligible candidates submitted applications. Um if an applicant is selected at that meeting, then on the 25th of March, the office would be administered to the um to the commissioner. And just for clarification purposes, when filled, the term of this appointment um made by the board will be through December 2027, which is when Commissioner Grace term would have um ended. The remaining two years, I'm sorry, it um would not have ended. The remaining two years of the term would then be decided by the voters in November 27 municipal election and the certified winner of that election would serve in December 29th which is when the term [clears throat] was bra term would have ended.

So we were our it keeps your it keeps your terms the same. It keeps your board staggered. Yes. But it allows the citizens to fill the seat for the remaining two years and obviously um they could elect one that you appoint. All right. Thank you very much. Yeah. Thank you. Um any comment or feedback on this proposal? I move to approve the recommended process and timeline. I will second. We have a motion and a second. Any more discussion? hearing none. All in favor, please indicate by saying I. I. I.

All right. [clears throat] New business. New business. Item number five, appointments and nominations. We have three different sections here. U we think we should just go maybe one at a time. Uh we'll start out with our planning board. We currently have uh two vacancies. Uh first uh our longtime chairman Howard Buchanan has recently moved outside of our town limits which has opened a vacancy on that spot. And we also have Becky Brieholtz. Her term is is expiring and uh she has expressed interest in being reappointed to her seat. Um I will jump in here and we had ch I had a chance to really look at the four applications. I think everybody else added did as well. Uh I I first would like to nominate Becky Brie Holtz to be reappointed to the seat. She has that br awful lot of of experience to the planning board and has been a real asset as well. And um for the open seat, I I like Shannon MacArthur. I thought her application was good. Um, I thought she has some real I I read genuine desire to serve and then a good background. Uh, I'll open it up to you rest of you all for discussion as well.

I agree as well. Having reviewed the applications, her answers were more than thorough. Yeah. So, I agree. I uh I had talked to you guys. I do like Jason Self. I know he has served the town. Um I feel like he's um uh you know he's a longterm time member of the town and and resident of the town. But um I do agree that that was that was that application was filled out, you know, clear and complete and uh will uh agree with that.

All right. So my uh my motion is to reappoint Becky Brie Haltz to the seat she currently occupies and then nominate appoint Shannon MacArthur to the open seat on the planning board. I'll second that. Uh motion second. Any more discussion? Hearing none. All in favor please indicate by saying I. I.

I. All right. Thank you. And board's restocked. All right. [laughter] Um, our next two items of this is the government education access channels and dear county tourism board were uh seats that Terry had uh was serving in during his time on the board. I know Ivy, I'll turn over to you if you'd like to speak or I can go ahead. Sure.

All right. Um we had discussed um the government access channel appointment and the tourism board appointment um potentially holding off on those if that's if that's an option until the seat is filled so that we can um properly um spread out the duties. Is that is that something that's possible?

It's certainly your option. Um, specifically with the government access channel, um, I think that would work work very well. As you recall with the with the visitors bureau and bureau, um, you make nominations through and we send those to their county um, in the order of your preference. So unless you're thinking that the appointed position is the one that you want on the visitors bureau, then I would recommend you not wait because you go that much longer without a representative on that board. Okay?

So if that but that if that's your intent is that that the appointed commissioner will be your choice for the visitors bureau then wait. Well, we we got a lot to work out. Yeah, maybe. It's a maybe at this point because we we have to see who applies, what their availability and preferences are. I'm just I just want to point out that that's a pretty big time to be without a representative on that. True. Because it has once you do that, then it goes it's another it's another month or six weeks. Yeah.

True. to make the appointment and typically they will appoint the one that you list as your main option your preference right I I agree with Commissioner Ingram sentiment I think that I kind of would like to get all our seats full again and get a chance to really kind of talk through sure we all have careers with families it's big time commitment and you know let's see where people like what they where they want to serve where they can serve um work these things out. That was important [clears throat] to point out, right? Yeah, absolutely.

Um any more thoughts on those two appointments? Should we need to make a motion to uh table consensus? Okay. No, we're just um it'll come back if you do um select someone and they are sworn in at the March last March meeting, we'll have on the March agenda if that's okay. or if you'd rather let April whichever. Well, April. April's how I feel. How do you all What do you all think? Because it may be too How about this? Let's put it on March. Yeah, March given, you know, I mean, the person would have already been selected. We'd have a couple weeks. So, yeah, let's let's do that. March.

Thank you. All right. Next item on the agenda is committee reports. Nothing for me. Nothing. [clears throat] Nothing.

Uh, well, I got one quick thing to share. On December 16th last year, I attended the DARE housing foundation meeting. Uh, it's been really nice to see the task force become the foundation and and move forward in addressing a very complex issue. Um, we adopted a meeting calendar for the rest of the year. We have found an office, a home and office space in Southern Shores for the time going forward. And uh we've established committee work to kind of look at marketing, look at potential sites, really move this uh nonprofit uh forward and addressing the issue. Um it just so happens our chairs in this audience today, too. So great time to talk about [clears throat] the the housing foundation. I I found that when people do ask me questions, I I can always refer back to the the task force's report as we ended the task force and confer and turned into uh the foundation. It's a nice way to kind of have a understanding of what work we're doing. Uh that seems to come up a lot in casual conversation on social media in the media. Uh this is a nice resource to kind of know, you know, what we're working on and what our goals are and what's happening. So, um that's all I have for committee reports. Commissioner's agenda. Nothing for me, sir.

No agenda here.

I wanted to um bring up something. Um I did the laptop receiving from Caleb today. And so, I wanted to bring up something that we've talked about before um and it wasn't super popular, but I'm going to bring it up again because it's 2026. And um I'm going to ask that we consider ditching the paper um since we have nice beautiful laptops now and it's a huge waste of resources. Um I I think I like I personally like having an agenda here in front of me too. of maybe we print one agenda per spot, but this is it's a lot of unnecessary paper and I'd like us to really consider that paper waste and the resources that the town is using. So, just throwing it out there.

I know I'm so I'm so old school. I probably was the one that was against it last time. I just I [laughter] like I do like the paper. I do like the paper, but that's just is it possible for some of us to have paper and some of us, right? Okay. And you know, certainly I think you want to take a little time to get used to your For sure. Yeah. Yeah. Just something for us to consider in the next couple months. Consider and we could kind of ease into it. Maybe by Earth Day. I like I like April 25th. I like the idea of it being a choice for different board members if they want to try it. I'm now that we have a I never the old iPad I never No, that didn't work. But a laptop's a whole different story, right?

I'm uh openminded to give it a shot. Let's just ask Caleb how the paper he has calculated how far the paper goes around town. Ask him and then when you get you when you get your laptop, ask him about his paper calculations [laughter] and it might change your mind right. I'm I'm [laughter] willing to try it. I'm willing to give it a shot. I I I am very much like Commissioner Makavoy. I enjoy I write notes all over my [laughter]

No, I I I mean dinosaurs. Yeah, I I really have to um modernize here, but I'm I'm completely open-minded to adopt Commissioner Ingram's recommendation. We made an investment in computer. Let's see if we can live without this, but um good call out. [laughter] Yes, I think that's the preference is is fine.

Uh anything else under commissioner's agenda? Hearing none, I under mayor's agenda, I have a few things. Um, holiday drives. I want to take a moment to share with the board and everyone how successful uh the town's 2025 holiday drives were. Thanks to generous donations by our community, we there were numerous toys donated for Toys for Tots and over 400 pounds of food for the Beach Food Pantry. I promise you, they need it. Um early voting uh that just just like we just got out of one just got done with that and we're talking about it again. Uh the town has again volunteered the town hall meeting room to serve as a site for early voting for all voters of Dair County for the upcoming March 3rd primary election. Early voting will begin on Thursday, February 12th. Um, it'll run from the 12th through the 27th, weekdays from 8:00 am to 7:30 p.m. on February 29th. Uh, that's the only Saturday for early voting from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. And election day is March 3rd. Polls open at 6:30 in the morning, close at 7:30 at night. And to remind everyone, the town is not involved in the voting process. If anyone has questions about voting, registration, etc., Please contact the Dare County Elections Office. All right, and that's all I have for mayor's agenda. Um, town manager's agenda,

nothing this evening. Thank you. Town attorney, nothing for me. All right, we can move on to the consent agenda. Yes, sir. Thank you. Um the minutes from the December 8th, 2025 meeting, the November 2025 monthly report, the annual certification of firefighters, um approval of the consent agenda will record the board certification of the fire department's roster.

Um earlier this evening when Emily was giving her report on the audit, she referenced this um response to the local government commission. We've talked about this before. Um, and simply the the letter has been written and if Michael has not gotten you um if you would before you leave this evening, please sign that. Um, approval of the consent agenda will record the board's approval of the response to the LGC and authorize its execution and submission. Number five is a proclamation um for a reimbursement resolution for fiscal year 2526 declaring the intent to reimburse the cost of certain expenditures. Approval of the consent agenda will approve the reimbursement resolution for the fiscal year declaring the intent to reimburse the cost of certain expenditures and allow the town to reimburse itself for cost incurred for the purchases of the above items with loan proceeds. and staff recommends approval of the consent agenda as presented and a motion would be in order.

I'll make a motion to approve the consent agenda. Second. Have a motion, a second. Any discussion? [laughter] Hearing none. All in favor, please indicate by saying I. I. I. All right. So now, thank you very much. Thank you. Um, now is our time. Second opportunity for public comments. Duke, you're the only public person we have in the in the in the room right now. Anybody would like to speak. U you're welcome to do so. Seeing no takers, we'll close the second public comment period. Move to adjourn. Second. Uh all in favor, please indicate by saying I.

I I thank you all. Good job. [cough and clears throat] This is the angel. that actually.