Council - Regular Meeting

Before we begin our...

Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the Kitty Hawk Town Council meeting. It's July the 6th, and it's 6 o'clock p.m. We're in the Smith Room, and if you're able to stand, we'd like to have a moment of silence and a pledge of allegiance. Thank you.

indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you.

Council, I need a motion to approve tonight's agenda.

So moved. Second.

Thank you. All in favor?

Aye.

Tonight we have two presentations. The first is Devin Clark, president of the Outer Banks IAFF. And let's see.

Hi, David.

Nice to have you.

Devin, would you like to come up and talk to us tonight? Thank you.

Good evening, council members and mayors. Appreciate you having me tonight. Tonight we're going to go over a study that was compiled in 2003 by the Outer Banks International Association of Firefighters on staffing issues for the four departments that I represent, which are Kitty Hawk, Kettleville Hills, Nags Head, and Collington. The study that he should have been provided with is a comprehensive study including all of those departments, not just specific to Kitty Hawk. But it does reach out to points of your town as well. The study was also compiled with the idea of all these departments running together off of initial dispatch. kind of shifting away from a volunteer response. Using volunteers as more of a backfill of your station to cover your district while your firefighters are helping their neighbors, per se. Sorry, I'm starting to lose my voice today, so if I'm sounding a little hoarse, then just bear with me. So I'm going to give it through the key findings first. So the fire suppression apparatus that are staffed with a minimum of four firefighters do not meet company staffing objectives outlined by NFPA 1500, which Y'all do meet that standard. Magshead and Connaughton currently are the only two that do not meet that standard. We're gonna go over NFPA 1710 requirements and I'll go over NFPA 1720. Because we run combination fire departments, we kind of fall under both of them depending on certain staffing levels that we'll get into with some talking points later. One of the major things is NFPA 1710 requires the arrival of 17 firefighters to a structure fire within eight minutes to effectively and efficiently operate and mitigate the hazard. This report in terms of this area of need with roads that firefighters have trouble getting to in the proper amount of time. And we'll go through a mapping analysis that shows coverage with engine responses versus ladder truck responses currently. recommendations real quick and then I'll show you all the current response mode and then our recommended staffing. So the Outer Banks Fire Department should increase firefighter personnel totals to ensure that all fire apparatus, which includes engines and ladder trucks, are always staffed with a minimum of four to meet that requirement. Like I said, most of that is directed towards Cogs and Nags Head, where you all currently staff a four-man engine. However, if you were to increase staffing for another engine or another ladder truck, the recommendation is that there's no less than four firefighters on that piece of apparatus to effectively do their job. Atterbanks staff and employee and as a commander to all scenes, which we currently meet with your chiefs and your deputy chiefs responding back to call during their off duty times, which is very nice for the firefighters actually operating on the fire ground. And the final main recommendation is recommended that the fire departments are involved in all decision making to increase staffing levels to an effective response force. So I'm gonna jump right here to current response modes. And like I said, I'm gonna cover all the fire departments that I encompass. So right now, Station 13, which is Kitty Hawk, has one engine staff with a paid crew, 24, 7, 365, three firefighters, one captain. Station 14, which is Good Old Hills, is the same with three firefighters and one captain. On certain days that they have full staffing, they also have a truck driver. Station 16, which is Nags Head's northern station, has two firefighters and one captain on their ladder truck. And Station 21, which is Nags Head's west, which is south station, has three firefighters and one captain on an engine. And Station 15, back in Collington, runs a small squad pickup truck with one firefighter and one captain. So with current paid staffing on the departments that I represent, that's a total of 14 members that can be pumped to any one area at one time. And the standard is 17 right now within eight minutes. So even current staffing levels we don't of the amount of firefighters that are supposed to be on scene at one time. Now, this is also supplemented with our volunteer responses in other departments that are solely volunteer. And we'll get into a little bit of how long it takes us to actually accumulate 17 firefighters on a fire ground, specifically a call in y'all's town. So there are other factors to this, but the biggest thing is even currently out of the four departments, we don't even have the required staffing to fill the lowest level structure fire assignment that is laid out to us by APA, which is basically our national standard. You don't have to follow it to a T, but it's what's recommended for your fire department. Sorry, some of our interactive maps are not working. I'm supposed to show you the roads highlighted in different colors to what we can currently get to and areas that we currently cannot. I'm not 100% sure why that is not working. I'm sorry, these maps aren't working. I'll just talk about them briefly and we'll move on and I'll try to get you a better link with that in there after. That's it. It's pretty tough without the visual there, but our current two in and two out response coverage at all four stations is at a 29%. If we were to If we were to effectively increase staffing, we believe that we'd be able to hit that response model 90% of the time. So that would be a huge increase from 29%. Our ladder truck responses are supposed to be six minutes to any given area. Currently, our ladder truck response is only meeting that coverage 18% of the time. Um, and with the increased staffing, we would hope that that would come into the same area as a 90% response rate to those areas. Um, So basically where we're getting at is the recommended staffing increase for all the departments would be that Station 14 has an additional ladder company with three firefighters, one captain, a battalion chief, and a battalion chief's aide. Basically what that would be doing is alleviating the stress on the chief officers to have to come out at night or get taken away from more important who go to a fire scene, it would recommend that Compton increase their staffing to three firefighters and one captain and run an engine instead of a squad, as well as Nags Head bring all their, Nags Head adds an additional engine at station 16 with three firefighters and a captain and brings their truck and engine company up to the staffing level of four people, which would be three firefighters and one captain from what they have now. And like I said, I'll try to make sure I can get you a better copy of that study so you can actually see the interactive maps. And as you slide that cursor across, it'll actually highlight areas and de-highlight areas of what you can currently do. And then it'll slide over and show you what the coverage would become. So I'm going to go through a couple

Mr. Clark, if I could ask a question.

I don't want to interrupt in the middle, but before you move off this point, my understanding is that there were some of the low percentage ratings was because some of the roads were not accessible in that amount of time. Correct. So staffing not necessarily would help in this point. Is location of the stations, would that help?

Yes, sir. That also needs to become... becomes very important for some of your farther outreached areas. because where station location is currently, there are still some roads in Kitty Hog, especially way in the back, and some roads in Kittleville Hills way in the back, and a big gap in Nags Head between their northernmost part of their district and Kittleville Hills coming to them where, because of station location, that four to eight minute response time is never gonna be achievable.

Yeah. So it's a combination, but it's predominantly staffing, but there are some geographical obstacles and whatever.

So I'm going to talk about some stuff that is more specific to Kitty Hawk and then try and go a little more in depth on the rules that we follow with NFPA 1720 and 1710 and some of the differences between them and why it's confusing between what we follow. And then to finish it up, when we were, Compiling this study in 2003, I pulled a low-level structure fire incident in each area and compiled the response times and how far off the benchmark of these two standards we were. And I'll just review one from Kitty Hawk in 2003 and show you. Hopefully it'll kind of bring it in perspective a little bit more. kind of how far off of those benchmarks we are. That being said, when we go through it, I don't want you to think this is taking shots at Kitty Hawk. This is an issue in every town on the Outer Banks. So you're currently operating a four-man engine company, 24-7, 365, which is amazing. It's supplemented by automatic aid from other departments as well as your volunteer staffing. NFPA 1720 is the standard for volunteer and combination fire departments where volunteer staffing exceeds your career staffing. Kitty Hawk is a combination fire department because it employs paid staffing as well as volunteer staffing. but I believe currently your paid staffing outweighs your volunteer staffing, therefore you would default to 1710. But, you know, there's a study so you can see where we land outside of both of them, not just the one. Because volunteer departments rely heavily on people responding back from home, the requirement is based off of population and fire hazard level. Staffing under 1720 for a typical low hazard structure fire, which is anything under 2,000 square foot home in an urban area where people are greater than 1,000 per square mile, you need 15 personnel in nine minutes to 90% of your incidents. Suburban, where it moves into 500 to 1,000, you need 10 people on scene in 10 minutes, 80% of the time. As you start to drop to 500 per square mile, 5 people, 14 minutes, 80% of the incidences. And I would not think that anywhere in Kitty Hawk is considered remote. Turnout times to these incidents are 60 seconds. So basically, within 60 seconds, a rig should be, an engine or a ladder should be getting out the door and responding to an incident. So initial action volunteer fire departments should be capable of safely initiating an interior fire attack within two minutes of arrival. with all necessary equipment at least 90% of the time. So that's just kind of a benchmark. So I'm going to try and keep this up with us as well. Set up means from the time they pull off, put the truck in park, they should be able to initiate a fire attack within two minutes. The more personnel that's limited on that rig, the harder that becomes to achieve. This is why our recommendation is four people on each rig. So now we'll get into NFPA 1710. NFPA 1710 requires a turnout time of the same. but they differentiate their amount of people on scene based off of square footage and type of structure. So in a low-hazard single-family dwelling, which is all our houses around here that are 2,000 square feet and under, the turnout time is 80 seconds, so they need to be out the door in 80 seconds. You need 17 firefighters, that's including one chief, on scene in eight minutes. Your medium hazards, which they call garden-style apartments for people just to wrap their head around, or any structure that's residential-based that's 12,000 square foot or above. Your turn-out time is 80 seconds. You need 28 firefighters on scene in eight minutes. So now we really start to strain our system with what the current staffing model is. Your high hazards, which are going to be your large commercial complexes such as Home Depot and Walmart in your area, your turnout time out the door for the initial engine stays the same, 80 seconds, but now you need to put 43 firefighters on the fire ground within 10 minutes and 10 seconds from the initial dispatch to effectively stop that fire. This next little part, y'all can kind of read on your end. It's just when you have some time, it's just going over how much time is allotted for the alarm process. That's the person taking the call to them dispatching you. How much time is allotted for us to get out the door, whether it's a fire or an EMS call. Basically, from that initial dispatch, you want your first arriving unit there, excuse me, within four minutes, and your second arriving company to be right on their heels at six minutes. And then your full low assignment, which is that 17 firefighters in eight minutes, and your full high hazard assignment, 10 minutes and 10 seconds to 43 firefighters. This section is just a further breakdown of what different type of dwellings are. Your garden-style apartments, your strip malls, your large commercial occupancies, those are your medium hazards, your high hazards are your major commercial complexes, Ferguson, Home Depot, Walmart, your hotels, Hilton, stuff like that. That's where you creep into that 43 firefighter mark And right here to kind of wrap everything up, I'm going to go through an example of a structure fire that happened in your district in 2023. and that was the year that the staffing study was brought out. This timeline shows the assembled personnel on the fire ground for a single family structure, so that's under 2,000 square foot. This specific house was a 14,000 square foot two-story house. Dispatch time was 02-39-27, so two o'clock in the morning. The fire was dispatched. Engine 13. was out of the station at 02.43, first arrived at 02.49. The response time was six minutes and five seconds. Still a great response time. We want to try and keep it to a four, but not bad at all. They had three personnel on scene. So at 02.51 from that initial dispatch is when we want to be hitting that NFPA 1710, that's 17 personnel on scene with one chief officer. So two minutes after the first arriving unit was when we needed the rest of the people there. 0-2-52, that's when you hit the benchmark for your 17-20 to have 15 personnel on scene within nine minutes. So even taking the lesser of the two standards, we're still way outside of them. You still, at those points, only had three guys on scene fighting fire. Battalion 13 was the second unit en route at 02.45, on scene at 02.35, which is 14 minutes after initial dispatch. Chief 13 was en route at 02.47, on scene at 02.52. Now your second attack unit is starting to arrive. Engine 124, which is coming out of Southern Shores, which is a 100% volunteer engine, currently has one paid firefighter on it, is en route at 02-48, on scene 02-55, 16 minutes after the initial dispatch. DC-13 arrived next, 17 minutes after dispatch. Engine 142 coming out of Good Old Hills was the next suppression unit, so now you're just getting the three suppression units on scene. That's engines or a lighter truck. En route at 02-52 on scene, 02-59 on scene, 20 minutes after initial dispatch. So 20 minutes into this incident, 20 minutes into this incident, you only had 14 personnel that were on scene, with 12 personnel actively engaging in fire suppression activities, whether it be searching of humans or actual putting water on the fire. Ladder 13 was the next arriving suppression unit, 02-56 is when they left. 03-01 is when they were on scene. It was 22 minutes after the initial dispatch. At 22 minutes, the incident finally met 1720 benchmark with 15 firefighters plus one command staff. However, 1720 says that we're supposed to be there in nine minutes. So at 22 minutes, you were just meeting the latter of the two requirements. Engine 132 was then en route. Last, at 0325, arrived on scene 0330, 41 minutes after initial dispatch. At 41 minutes into the incident, we finally met 1710 benchmark staffing, which requires 17 firefighters on scene. two command personnel. You had at this time 18 firefighters on scene with two command personnel. So 41 minutes total it took to get the amount of people on scene that these requirements tell us we need in eight minutes. So it's quite a big gap and I know we're asking a lot but really we just want to shave that curve down any way possible because it's a that's a that's a big gap between eight to nine minutes to 41 minutes to getting and that's just your low hazard that's not even getting into your medium hazard and your high hazard which kitty hawk has a fairly substantial commercial district to it and that's with your automatic aid using resources from other departments Thank you. Go through this conclusion real quick and then I'll ask if y'all have any questions. So a total of 20 personnel were assembled on scene at 41 minutes after initial dispatch. Under 1710, that staffing level should be achieved within eight minutes. Under 1720, that staffing benchmark should be achieved in nine minutes. Even when measured against the least demanding of the two standards, the effective response form was assembled approximately 32 minutes beyond the industry benchmark. This analysis only addresses a structure fire involving a residence less than 2,000 square feet does not account for your larger occupancy such as apartment buildings, hotels, large retail, strip malls, Walmart, Home Depot. These all require 43 firefighters in 10 minutes and 10 seconds. And to me, when you lay it out in black and white like that, that's just unachievable unless you're calling everybody from down south and across the bridge to come to you. Civil analysis of the town's year-round population and the fire department resources required to provide adequate cover combined with the significant seasonal increase in population during the summer months suggests that even the staffing increase recommended by this study may be less than what is ultimately necessary to provide the appropriate fire protection and emergency response capabilities to this area. So I hope y'all were able to get some good information out of that. I think Chief Talley passed all my contact information along to the board. Please, at any time, if you have anything for me or reach out a phone call way or email way. I have no problem meeting with you in person or talking over the phone, however. But that is what I have for y'all tonight. Sorry those interactive maps weren't really working the way they were supposed to. I'll try and get that fixed and get a new link sent out to you. Does anybody have any questions for me from the board?

Quick question I do have. When you picked that example, structure fire, you went over, is that a good average of what it is? What's the criteria for picking out that example?

It was basically, I went through, tried to find an average for all four areas of a similar style house. with a similar response and tried to make it you know as equal comparatively across all the towns so i wasn't like picking kitty hawk's worst call versus kill hill's best call you know trying to like pit one better than the other kind of pick like everybody's year 2023 pulled out all their structure cars for that year found similar houses now i mean they weren't Dead on, you know, like, Nags says it might have been a 1,500 square foot house and yours was a 1,400 or something like that, but that still falls under that 2,000 square foot house and noblaze town that I did do a medium and a high hazard. I just went simply based off of a low hazard 2000 square foot residential structure which is our typical fire that's what we run the most is a house but i've tried to pick similar incidences in each district and the conclusion pretty much came out the same and everything

That was my next question. They were pretty similar in other towns?

Yes.

Okay.

I think the best one out of all of them was the fire in Kittle Hills, and it was still 35 minutes over initial dispatch. This particular incident was 41 minutes, I believe. So, I mean, 35, 41 minutes is not... not a great deal off, you know, so it's not, it's across the board.

And I'm just curious, you said E-124 was Southern Shore's engine, is that right? Yes, sir. What is E-142?

That is Kettle Hill's engine.

And then E-132?

Is your, would be your Kitty Hawk's volunteer engine, or off the page, coming back to staff that rig, coming to incident.

Got it.

Kill Devil Heals demographic is quite different from ours, I think. They're much more concise. And we have a lot more outreach. So when you say industry benchmark, how is that determined?

uh that's determined by the national fire protection association across the whole country okay so they do that that's a nationwide standard okay thank you and like i said you're not tied to the fda but it's like If a major incident happens and people get brought in from the outside, that's the standard they're going to go off of to try and decide whether you met your requirements or didn't.

Okay. Thank you. Anybody else?

I have a comment. Go ahead. We don't have a phone truck here on the Outer Banks. If a fuel truck comes through the intersection of Rex and there's however many gallons of fuel and an 18-wheeler of gas, is the closest one to deal with that Williamson with Carolina? Do we have anybody here on the Outer Banks that can respond to that type of fire?

It'd be fun, wouldn't it? Currently, it would be Williamston, because I believe Manteo Airport has discontinued their phone truck, so they're not operating it anymore. All the engines carry a very minute amount of foam, so you'd be relying on all your neighbors bringing everything they had, and then, yes, waiting about that. for Williamson to get here and really... Have the prisoners in prayer or something, right?

Yeah.

There's more containment for us at that point, just trying to keep it in a centralized area and let it burn out versus actually making a fire attack on it.

So if everybody came in together collectively, there's a way to technically contain that to Williamson who can get here, hypothetically.

Hypothetically. Right.

I'm just surprised there's not a bigger push for us to have a... Dara County or whoever pays for it, have a truck,

I don't, and I, the airport, Manteo Airport has operated a phone truck for the regional area to be able to use for years, you know, going all the way back to the 80s, I believe. I'm not 100% on that, I can find out for you, but why they chose to discontinue that truck, I don't know.

Jet fuel and, like, regular gasoline, is that burned the same?

Similar. Similar. We would fight it the same.

I'm telling you, I said I'm going to sell it.

So they discontinued their use from the airport as well? The airport doesn't have a foam truck?

Foam truck, yeah. Wow. My understanding is they currently do not have a foam truck and they are not currently looking into replacing it.

If you think about that, maybe, I mean, I don't know, but if there's a little bit of an accident on the runway, generally it's probably just a plane by itself, and on the bypass in July, it'd be catastrophic. I'm glad you have a way to at least contain it somewhat.

If we use our automatic aid system, we have a good chance at holding it to an area, but we're not fighting it. We're just trying to keep it from spreading and going into runoff pipes, going into dishes, stuff like that.

I appreciate your answer. Thank you.

So I've got quite a few questions, actually. But for emphasis of time, I'm not going to hold everybody hostage. But I am interested to know, A lot of good information passed here. We've got a lot of good studies on the IAFF study. For instance, you know, we were just talking about this one, you know, you did the one scenario, which is great, an actual scenario and where we responded in 2023. But, you know, in this most recent study that was just recently done, you know, to be able to get there within four minutes on the roads here, and this is all the districts, not just Kitty Hogg, it's KTH and Nags Head, is 29% of the time we can meet their requirements. is the findings, which is to me abysmal. Being able to get 17 firefighters within eight minutes simply cannot be done, according to the report. That's kind of where we're at right now, just to kind of put it out there. So I've got a ton of questions, and some good thoughts and recommendations, and I've heard a lot of people talk about it. But I guess what I'm interested in, and maybe this is more of a Chief Talley question or town manager question, how do we move forward with all this information? What can we do? Is it possible to do an analysis of what it would take Kitty Hawk to meet these standards with crew funding, possible locations of stations? Because many of the roads, as we just said, the location... In order to be able to meet the requirements, the governmental level approved requirements, what would it cost us? And then if there was some innovative thinking of blending resources with other towns, how would that help us? I'm sure there's some analysis we can do to figure out what that cost would be compared to what we would have to pay and what KDH would have to pay singularly out of pocket. Those numbers are out there. It takes some stubby pencils in figuring it out, but I think that can be done. So is there a thought or a way forward on how we can address this? I know we, in this last budget cycle, went through great pains to make sure we're going to meet the requirement for a fire truck, which is just one piece of the equation, a very expensive piece of the equation. But right now, we're not meeting requirements.

Um, there is, there are some things underway that we're going to discuss with other towns and then within the month or so to see if there are things that we can implement that would help this situation.

What kind of things are we saying things like what?

I don't know that I want to talk about it right now. I can tell you later.

I guess, Chief Tyler, one of the things, too, is it would be possible without too much of a science project being able to say, in order to meet these requirements that we were just briefed, what would you be coming to council for with budget requests to meet that? I don't need that answer now. I'm just saying, would you be able to do that? Would you be able to say, hey, you know, we've got the fire engine taken care of, but able to do all these other things to meet the requirements. Would you be able to come up with a delta? What is that difference in funding requirement?

Yeah, well, yeah. But there's so many variables here, you know. I mean, we talk about automatic aid. We really, we have mutual aid. Our mutual aid agreements go... 20 years plus, and they're boilerplate documents that somebody's pulled from the state that really don't get into the nitty-gritty of how we practice and how we deliver services together. There's no agency in the entire Outer Banks that can operate in their own silo. Every time that a fire comes out, you're going to have three jurisdictions on a minimum that are going to get the alarm and have to come in. There's not one, like today, there was a fire that came out in a warehouse in Nags Head. You had three departments that were going to that fire right from the get-go. The problem is we just don't have comprehensive response models. We have these 20-plus-year-old mutual aid agreements that really don't bring us together and describe what has to happen. If nothing else, with zero money, we can actually improve the system just by putting a comprehensive plan together. I think Councilman Pruitt put together what he was talking about years ago with his father. They actually did used to have a pretty comprehensive system back then. It was just 100% volunteers. We kind of went away from that, if you will. Even though the alarm goes off and our pagers sound at the same time, we kind of don't know what each one of our partners are doing. on a day-to-day basis. When we show up, we don't know who they are, what equipment they have, not in a comprehensive manner. So I would say right at the get-go, there's so much we can do. We come to the table, revamp some of our agreements, start developing true standard operating procedures and guidelines. We can make a huge impact just by doing that, probably with very little money.

So it sounds like there is some discussion happening, as the town manager said. There's some offline discussions happening. But to bring everybody to the table, I don't know what it would require to do that. But we have an obligation to know what Kitty Hawk's requirements are and what that delta is from what we pay now and what we Probably should or could be paying but you know obviously that's not Feasible in the near term, so what are those other outside approaches? Because we do have an obligation for the safety and preparedness of this town planning something

I mean, you're really looking at probably quadruple to make Kitty Hawk meet the standard by itself? It's about a quadruple in staffing. So, 48 firefighters.

If you've got those numbers out there, and then you've got, on the other hand, a comprehensive plan that says, hey, we could do it with this amount of resources as we help each other out. And then it becomes very clear that this ain't going to happen. And that's just Kitty Hawk, let alone every town doing the same thing.

The proof was the town was set up to run by itself. They had three engines and a line. Back when they had an abundance of volunteers, they could actually get three engines and a ladder to a fire. Maybe not the time that NFPA says, but you can get them there a lot faster. We don't have those resources anymore. You see all these departments now going away from volunteers because they just don't have them. And it's just the way society is these days. People can't survive just with one salary, or they got kids, or whatever the circumstance is, and it just doesn't allow for that kind of flexibility like it used to.

It's not their fault. And the equipment...

But if we had three agents like we have now, and a lot of staff, we would meet the SBA requirements and would not require help from any outside staff.

But the equipment... is a whole separate criteria. Like when we say, oh, we got an ISO rating of three, that is really, as Chief Talley explained it to me, we have enough equipment to respond. Has nothing to do with staffing. There's a whole nother criteria, like Devin just went over, that deals with staffing. So yes, we have the equipment to respond, But, you know, we're gonna spend too much dollars.

The answer is not that firehouse on Kitty Yacht Road being fully staffed where every rig has a four person crew. I think that is nowhere, we cannot sustain that. It's gotta be a partnership.

Instead of one town absorbing all the cost of staffing three engines and a ladder solely on their own, how can we increase Keok staffing along with Kettle Hill staffing along with Naxahead staffing and then revamp those automatic aid agreements? we're all pulling together to get what we need on a fire ground. And then that would also limit the hit to any one town. We simply can't put down a report.

Yeah.

So that's what I'm at. What's the way forward? Lots of great recommendations. Lots of good things. Lots of findings. Lots of good recommendations. A well thought out study. You backed it up with your presentation, so thank you for that. You just re-edified what everything was in there. So what's the next step, I guess?

So awareness is the first step. This is why we brought Devin today. And we've talked about it in budget processes and stuff. The Council has directed the Mayor and I to discuss this with some other towns and so forth and that is in the works as we speak.

Yeah.

So, that's the next step.

Yeah. So, little things such as, you know, there's some assumptions that were based on these findings, but little things such as administrative time. I mean, you know that better than anybody, okay. We just talked about fighting a fire, but there's a whole tale behind that logistics and everything else. training and documentation and equipment upkeep and all that goes with that. So when you start talking about staffing, it's not just, can I get 17 folks in a certain place at a certain amount of time? There's a whole tale behind that.

standpoint we're not coming in here saying we need this done tomorrow it's just like the town manager said first steps awareness all we want to do is bring to you knowledge and efficiencies and hopefully that gets the ball rolling to start the discussion that Hopefully in a decade we meet it, or however long. But it's not a, oh, we need to do something today, it better happen tomorrow. fully understand the background that has to go into this, all the logistics, the planning, the administrative level stuff. This is a long road that it seems like with y'all bringing me in here today, you're willing to at least get in the car and go on a road trip with us, where before we were all just standing out trying to plan a route. Go ahead and start.

Yeah. And what we don't know is when our next major conflagration is.

Yes, sir. Yes, sir.

Okay. Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you. Anything else, ma'am?

Kevin, thank you so much for bringing this to our attention and making sure that we're at least talking about it.

Yes, ma'am. I appreciate y'all's time and your time for being here.

Thank you.

Thank you. Please reach out if you have anything else.

Okay. Thank you.

Thanks, Deb. Thank you.

Next, we have a presentation from Ken Wilson. Come bring us some good news, Ken.

We need to mark our calendars.

Oh, wow. That's good.

How's your arm? Terrible.

We have gremlins tonight.

Oh, there you are. You were on that screen.

a little bit of intro, but the last time I was up here, I think it was in March, and we were talking about some of the design criteria that we were using for the next beach nourishment project, and we talked a little bit about the potential that we had been looking at of trying to build this next project to potentially go not only five years, but potentially six or seven years, and some of the cost differential involved in all of that. But when we met in March, that was kind of a briefing, trying to set the table, provide you all some good context. But we always knew that we were gonna get new surveys in the summer of 2026. So those surveys were completed back in early June. And today, I'll give you some of those updated numbers. And we'll talk a little bit about how that impacts what we might recommend to go forward and build here next year in 2027.

Just say, OK.

Okay, it went away. It's not connected anymore, I don't think. It's not up there. We'll just have to walk up there. We'll make copies for y'all, okay? Sorry about that.

I don't think it's the internet.

It's just something with the computer. Did the screen get changed? There you go. Oh, my God. an engineer.

All right, so we'll fast forward here a little bit. But this was one of those diagrams that we talked a little bit about last time. Just this idea of when we build these projects, we're thinking about it in two dimensions. We're trying to make sure that in the beginning, we created this design for Kitty Hawk. It was really to try to minimize the amount of flooding that you guys have underneath the houses, over top of Highway 12, and into the surrounding neighborhoods. And so we built that design, and we've been trying to keep it in place. And by keeping it in place, typically you would provide additional sand, sometimes we call it sacrificial sand, that advanced fill. And every five years or so you've got to recharge that advanced fill so that you keep that design fill in place. I showed this graphic last time about how that growth of that starter dune has really taken off since the original project was done in 2017. We're really pleased with the way that that's on. We showed a couple of these before and after pictures, so folks remember what that looked like in some of those flooding events, overtopping events. This is a picture that's about three or four years old. I think it's taken right around Kitty Hawk Road. We used to use that house that's kind of two-toned out there as a marker, but I think they painted it in some kind of blue color. I'll take that picture there. Here's another one closer to Bennett Street. This was pre-project. This is a picture from last summer. Again, just to highlight the images there of the way that that started. It started out as just kind of a beach push. We put a little extra sand there in 2017. We had the bulldozers shape it up a little bit, but the town and some of the volunteer organizations have done a great job continuing to put sand fence out there, planting vegetation on that. The dune is looking fantastic. And I put this slide up here because I want to walk you through kind of how the project is performing, but in terms of the northern central section, the central section, and the southern section. So this map kind of shows those divisions. That division between the north and central section is right around Eckner. That division between the central section and southern section is around where that Lillian Street access, beach access is. So if you keep those in mind, you'll kind of understand the difference between Northern, Central, and Southern. All right. Since the last project was built, this middle column there says post-con, so that's post-construction. As soon as the 2022 project was done, we took surveys. We kind of locked that in as our new baseline. And then every year in the summer, we come back and we compare the new surveys. So that center line tells us from when the project was completed in 2022 to the most recent surveys that were done last month. In the northern area, we're gaining sand at about six cubic yards per foot per year, which is great. And over here on the right hand side, what you're looking at is a comparison of that same rate of what was measured between The end of the 1st project in 2017, so we did our baseline survey after the initial project in 2017. And then the very last survey that was done in 2022 before the 2nd project was built. So that that right hand column kind of represents. How the sand performed from the 1st project all the way up to right before we built the 2nd project. So during that period, we were losing about two cubic yards per foot, but over the last four years, we're gaining six cubic yards per foot. So those are great. Central area, we're gaining even more. We're gaining the most in that central section. So between Heckner Street and the Lillian Street access. Previously, we were losing about 9.3 cubic yards per foot per year. And then the only section right now after the four-year survey where we have a negative is down in that southern section so from Lillian Street all the way down to the Kilo Hills border however if you look at this side number you know we were losing close to 11 cubic yards per foot per year in that area during the previous maintenance cycle so all of these areas are outperforming the expectations you see This is an average of the entire beach over that first period between the 2017 project and the 2022 project. per foot per year on average across the whole town, right? So in terms of actual volumes, I mean, all these numbers are hard for folks that don't deal with this on a daily basis to digest. So they're sort of relative terms here, but this number on the right hand side is what was actually placed during the last maintenance project. So in 2022, we placed about 871,000 cubic yards of sand on the beach in Kitty Hawk. to the southern over there on the right hand side and then in the middle is what has happened in addition to the volume that's in that right hand column the middle column shows you how much more or less sand you've gained or lost since that 2022 project was built so if you look at the northern section 272 500 was placed during the project since the project that area shows that there's 94 because there are good problems to have. Central section looks like similar trend, and then in the southern, just like the rates, we have lost a little bit, but nowhere close. I mean, that's about 10% of what was actually placed in 2022, right? So this is a graphic. I'm gonna walk you through this. Is there a way that the pointer goes up there?

Are you looking at that? Could I just ask a quick question on that last slide? When do you take these measurements? Is this an average? Because some days you go out there and there's zero beach and sometimes you go out there and there's a lot of beach.

So we typically measure two different things. We'll measure the shoreline change, which is a specific contour along the beach. and looking at how that contour has kind of moved laterally, whether it moves onshore or offshore. And that's what you talk about. Like if you were to walk out there today, you could say, Oh, I see 50 feet of dry sand beach. All of these numbers represent all of the volume that's computed from the back side of the dune, over the dune, across the dry sand beach, into the surf zone, and out to about 25 feet of water. So it takes into consideration the bar, it takes into consideration what's going on down 18, 20 feet of water. exactly what you said. If you just go out there one day, take a snapshot of what's up on the beach, two weeks later it might be completely different measurements. But by capturing that area all the way out to 25 feet of water, Whether the sand is up on the dry sand beach or it is migrated out into the farm and it's going to come back up at some point, we're capturing all of that. It doesn't really matter where in the system that sand is. We're just measuring.

Unless it moves north or south.

Correct. or how much sand has changed in this area since right before the 2017 project was built. So all the way to the left you see that red line kind of spike up and it meets that intersection of that vertical black dashed line. And that represents the 2017 construction of the beach nourishment project. And then each one of those dots moving between those two vertical black lines is a data point between the 2017 and 2022 as we were monitoring this project each year so you can see some pretty steep drops you can see some leveling off you can see a couple of gains in that area but if you look at the difference between the peak where that left-hand black vertical line meets the red line from that peak all the way down to the red dot that is just to the left of the black dash line that's in the middle of that graphic. That slope represents that loss of about 7.6 cubic yards per foot per year on average. Then you see the jump up that intersects that line, the middle vertical black dash line. That will be where we were after 2022. But then you see one more bump up, so from 22 to 23 we gained, and then we just went through two years in a row where we saw a loss, which is a normal trend. But this last year in Kitty Hawk, we've actually seen an uptick again. So it's that last uptick that put a lot of those numbers in the black, whereas when we were showing those numbers in March from 2025, most of those numbers were slightly in the red. They were less than what we had in 2022. So this second slide here, all those lines are, it's the same sort of makeup of a cumulative change as you move from left to right, but now each one of those lines shows the difference between the northern section, the central section, and the southern section. So the southern section That will be that purple line. If you kind of follow that with your eyes, you see that, yes, we placed the most in that southern section at the beginning of the 2017 project. It decreases the most across the board in the middle. And then if you look from the central black line, 2022 out to 2026, you see that purple line again. It's kind of the one that's lost the most amount of volume. If you look at that blue line or that green line, you can see that trend from 2022 up to present where we actually have a positive volume of reception. Alright, so that's all good news. Let's talk a little bit about how we take that information and we bake it into what we're going to propose for this next 2027 project. All right, so I showed a similar slide to this last time I was up here. Essentially what we've been looking at is that the lateral extent for all four towns is going to remain the same. So where we placed sand in Kitty Hawk in 2022, we've been looking at placing sand in the same areas for 2027. We're looking at variable fill densities. So all that means is if we have to place a certain amount of volume of sand across Kitty Hawk, we're probably not going to place an even amount all the way across. And as I showed those numbers, you can see that if in the northern area we're gaining and in the central area we're gaining and in the south we're losing, then we may end up placing more material in that southern area. The total beach fill for all four projects combined is somewhere in the range of 2.4 to 2.8 million cubic yards, depending on whether we're constructing this five or six or seven year maintenance cycle. We do have the potential for doing some dune construction. in the kitting off permit. That would basically be if when the project, if next year when the dredges show up, if there is a need to do some repair work to some of the dunes, especially down on the south area, the permits would allow us for us to go in and put some additional sand in those dunes. That'll probably be a game time decision. It wouldn't be additional sand that you would need above and beyond what's already been projected. It would just be, for those duty periods. And then we do have some additional borrow areas that we've been looking at recently that should help the project. Okay, again, this same kind of slide, just wanted to reinforce this concept because I'm gonna talk about the difference between the design and the advance bill on this next graphic. The next graphic I'm going to show you is a similar cumulative volume change curve of the ones that I showed. But what we're going to start looking at are projections of losses out five, six, seven years and in relation to the design. So that graphic's going to show you where you are in terms of volume, but are you above? Do you have more than that design or do you have less than that design? All right. So to familiarize yourself here, this horizontal line that goes across the middle of the page If our curve is above that dashed black line, that means that we have all of the design volume for the project in place and excess in addition to that, that advanced fill. If on that curve we fall below that design line, that means that we have started chewing into that red design area that I'd shown on the previous graphic. And not only would we have to put back the advance mill, but we might have to repair some of the design. That was kind of the case back in 2022. We were tracking erosion rates faster than what the original design called for back in 2017. That's not uncommon when you first build these projects, you're kind of trying to tune the projects in and get a feel for how that much sand placed out on the beach is gonna react to nature. So when we built the 2022 project, we based the amount of sand we assumed we would loss on those loss rates that we saw between 2017 and 2022, the 7.6 cubic yards per foot per year. And that last point, the 2026 survey point, kind of in the middle of that first red dot, that's where we are right now after those last surveys that were done in June. If we project out a loss of 7.6 cubic yards per foot per year across the whole beach area of Kitty Hawk, that would be the progression of our volume

All right.

Now, one more thing. So you can imagine if we ran this same projection last year when that dot was a tick mark back on that blue line and a lot lower. We'd be talking about getting to that design in three, four years, something like that, and we're We want to stay ahead of that line. But with this latest increase, now we're looking at projections that stay above that design life for a lot longer. So what we're showing here now, that jump in that red line that is shown is the anticipated 2027 event. That represents the volume of sand that we have been projecting that Kittyhawks would need to put on their beaches for 2025. And since we finished up the 2022 project, I think we were talking about maintenance needs for the upcoming next project in five years. So all we're doing is we're showing the increase of that volume and we're showing the projection over time of where we would be in 2032, 2033, 2034, which would be either a five-year, a six-year, or a seven-year maintenance cycle. And you can see that all of those lines even out to 2034 at that point in time, you all would be in excess of the design volume. So right now we're in this predicament where each town has a graphic like this and not everyone is in the same location. So I'd say tomorrow morning, They're in a similar situation of where you are. So if we project out the amount of sand that they need for a five-year project, we feel really comfortable that that amount of sand would last six years or seven years. We wouldn't recommend you put even more sand out there to get six years or seven years of life out of this. But in order for the plan to work, all four towns kind of have to do the same thing. So Killable Hills is close to where you guys are. It looks like if you run their projections, they'll make it out six years. At seven years, they're dipping just below that design line, but they're right there close to the line. In Duck, at five years, they're pretty much hitting that design line right on the mark. they will have to add budget to their project and add more sand to go six years or even more sand to go seven years. So right now that's kind of the discussion between the various four towns about what needs to be done. As we've talked with the town manager a little bit, the finance director a little bit, I think right now kind of where our firm is is recommending to, stay with the plan of placing the equivalent of five years worth of sand that's been budgeted for thus far. It puts you in a stronger position, even if the other towns decide to go for the six year You know, you've gained a lot of sand there. I think one of our hypotheses at this point in time is that the fact that you have southern shores to the north and Killable Hills to the south, and both of them are now participating in the project, there probably is a gain, because no matter what, we talked about sand moving north-south, no matter what the trend is, if it's moving north to south, you're gaining. If it's moving south to north, you're gaining from somebody else. So that would explain some of the, you know, the fact that the Kitty Hawk project is performing so well. But we've seen some things out there in terms of wave patterns that our recommendation would be bank this excess performance at this point in time. Be in a position to be able to take this thing out six, seven years if the other towns will go along with it. And the other thing is we've been talking multiple times about trying to increase the storm protection of this project. We've run some of those model simulations when I was here in March, we talked about a little bit about that. But with this latest increase in the volume, if we go ahead and plan for this five years, after the project is constructed, we could really start going back and looking at that point in time to see if anything really needs to be done at this point in time to achieve that same level of storm protection that Killable Hills and Southern Shores were designed for. I don't know how many of you guys are following or people in the audience, but when the initial project was built, the purpose was slightly different from your neighbors to the north and the south in that it was really to mitigate flooding impacts to Kitty Hawk. It wasn't necessarily to protect the ocean front houses. With the amount of sand that's out there right now, the amount of dune that's grown from that starter dune, clearly there's a lot of storm protection out there. We could try to quantify what that level of protection is to see if we've now achieved that same level of protection for Kitty Hawk and Kill the Whills. Essentially what we would do is we would take this graphic and if we change the goal of the project to provide the same level of storm protection as Kildare Hills and Southern Shores, we would raise that black horizontal line higher up on the graph, and then from that point forward, try to stay above that curve every time we do a future maintenance cycle. But right now, I mean, costs, we've been updating these costs based on, Nags Head just finished up a project, so based on the bids that they got back in fall of last year, the other Dare County projects, we've updated these. But right now, what I showed back in March was volumes in this graphic. In the upper panel, it shows the volume in the upper right-hand panel where it says six-year maintenance interval, those were additional volumes that would have to be added for your project to be able to go six years. And then in the bottom panel, we did the same kind of projection for seven years. But if you look at the volumes for all those scenarios for Kitty Dolphin, you see the volume is the same, 721,600. So what we've done is, years, we would keep that volume the same at $721,600. And the only one on that graphic really that goes up is DUP. If you look at their five, six, and seven year numbers, they're having to add additional volume, additional cost to their project. Really it's about getting all four towns on the same page in terms of which maintenance interval to plan for. It seems kind of easy for Southern Shores and Kitty Hawk, probably Killable Hills as well. The real decision point is kind of with Duck. If Duck determined that they could only go five years and it wasn't in the cards, try to go six years or seven years, it may be, I don't know, there's probably the other towns might back off their volume a little bit. But in terms of like planning for a rainy day and storms and things like that, kind of making the fact that the projects have outperformed and then building what you've been planning for and make adjustments And then moving forward, we're really trying to finalize these design recommendations in the next couple of months. By August, September really, we're gonna prepare bidding documents, plans and specs and things like that, put that out for advertising. We're looking to solicit the bids from the dredge contractors by September, October. That's kind of the timing that we've done for the last cycle. Worked out really well. We got good pricing. We're in front of the big market demand. The Corps of Engineers is constantly putting out bids and things. We want to stay ahead of the market. We don't want to put these bids out so late in the day that the fleet basically doesn't have capacity to build. That's kind of the strategy there and then we're anticipating construction next year sometime between May and October 2027.

We all have to choose the same year out.

I think because the main cost savings of the project is the fact that everyone stays in line with the cycle, it would be ideal if we could come to an agreement that everyone was doing the same thing. If you guys all plan for... six years and, um, duck, you know, plans for five years, um, you know, after five years, the question is going to be, well, we could, we could wait another year. We could, you know, bank that savings. Um, you know, the, the way that the county fund works is kind of like, you know, your, your portion of the beach nourishment fund grows year after year. Um, so if you can push this thing out six years or seven years, there is a lot of financial, um, financial gain by pushing these projects out. But if one or two communities had to go it alone, they would essentially have to pay the fixed cost of the mobilization that's a huge driving factor in these projects. So everybody wants to be able to say, the dredges show up, we're gonna all do it together. And that's kind of the reason for trying to get everybody to line up.

And I did speak with the town manager for Kill Devil Hills, and they are gonna recommend to their council they go for the six.

Yeah. The six?

Yes, which is what we're gonna try to. Yeah. And then Duck would be the one who's really in question.

Okay. So these numbers, though, I mean, what we're showing here is that the five-year number, the six-year number, and the seven-year number are essentially the same. That's 721.6, so that's zero. Yes. Okay.

I think you said in one of your last visits here that if we could get it together, it would be a savings by having each town doing it at the same time. Is that right? Correct. That's a pretty substantial amount of money, too, isn't it?

It is, at various times. If you look at these totals here, like the five-year, the $42,000, I mean, the mobilization cost, it's not completely linear, but the mobilization cost there is well in excess of $10 million. And if one community was gonna do their own project, yes, the cost for the volume of the sand would go down. But they would not be paying a quarter of that mobilization cost. They might be paying 70% of that cost to do one town or something. So it's a huge increase for one town to have to do it on their own.

Mr. Wilson, I might be showing my ignorance, but I have a question on, I think the slide before this one where it showed the projected, that projected 7.6 cubic feet per year rate of erosion. That's a loss. But one of the earlier tables you showed us, we're showing gaining after the initial project. So how are we projecting a loss if we're gaining?

Correct. So this is where that 7.6 comes from. It comes from the original project from 2017 to right before the second project was built in 2022. And over that five years, we had measured a loss of 7.6 cubic yards per foot per year. So basically, the trend that... that's measured between those two dashed lines here from the left side, that peak all the way down to the last red dot before you get to that center black vertical line, that represents that loss of 7.6. And so right after the 2022 project was built, we developed a plan for each town to be able to plan for this 2027 project. And in that document, we use that 7.6 cubic yards per foot per year as the planning number for this coming 2027 project. And so that's what we've kind of anticipated the project is going to erode on. But if you look, when you get to 2022, we saw that first year and it gained. And everybody gained, like there was gains in Currituck County, there were gains in the other four towns. And we kind of dismissed that as the wave climate, there's a principle of sometimes the sand, Although we go way out into 25 feet of water, there are times where you can get recovery of sand that's even deeper than that, and if it crosses over that 25-foot contour and it gets into shallower water, even if it's in 18 feet of water, when we do our surveys, we still see that as a gain to the system. So that tick up from 22 to 23, we sort of discounted that as it was an anomaly. And then when we saw those next two years of loss, we said, okay, well now the project's kind of doing what we thought it was going to do. It's eroding. But in your case, in Kitty Hawk, this last year has thrown that curve back up. to the point where we actually have more sand there now than we did in 2022 when the project was built. So there is this thought of, okay, well, what rate are we gonna plan for next? And the fact that we've been kind of programming in this 7.6, the safest bet is to say, let's go with that. But there's an argument to be made, do we pull back on some of that? Certainly if the other towns were saying, we only wanna plan for this five year scenario, there'd be room to maybe pull that number back a little bit. but we're still a little bit gun-shy because these projects, I mean, there are a lot of variables at play out there, and so it's, you expect to get these things dialed in after a couple of projects, and I think we're getting closer there to be able to say, okay, well, we got this thing under control, let's back off, but we'd like to see a little bit more data before we fully pull off. And then, you know, Kilo Hills on their graph, it's kind of the exact opposite. Over the last year, where you guys have ticked up, they've kind of ticked down almost on the same trajectory. So, you know, Southern Shores had a fairly decent loss, like one of their biggest losses since the project was built this past year. They had a pretty good tick down as well. So last year, this time, they were talking about, do we even need a project? Should we delay it altogether or decrease? and it takes one more year of data.

It's all about the data. In the event that the data is not as accurate as what we think, is there any disadvantages of putting too much sand?

If there was one project that was by itself like duck there there's been a lot of work done to try to figure out where that happy medium is that if you put so much sand out there and build out the project so far it does have a tendency to erode away faster because you've created this huge perturbation in the shoreline that nature kind of wants to wants to flatten but I mean, the amount, the volume of sand that you all are putting is comparable in density to what we're placing down in Killable Hills. It's a little less than what's planned for Southern Shores, but I think the fact that this project is extensive all the way along eight miles, I wouldn't be as concerned about, you know, that there's just too much going on in that area. And again, when we first designed that 2017 project, back in 2013 when we first did the feasibility study, the thought was, all right, well, everybody else is getting a dry sand beach and a big dune. How far out will we actually have to push the shoreline in Kitty Hawk with those houses out on the open beach? And it was an insurmountable amount of money at that point in time. There's no way we could widen the beach that much and build the dune up that much in one project. or the town before. But now we're getting some benefits of some of these natural processes and projects performing better. We're getting pretty close to that now.

along with what councilman till it was saying um you know in that southern portion we saw was the last um replenishment they ended up adding a secondary dune out there they really expanded the dune well all that's gone so i don't know how you calculate that into the volume so you can get a shoreline out but all that dune that's a lot of sand that was put up there and that's all gone that whole secondary dune line is gone now right um so that I don't know if that factors into your algorithm, into your charts up there, but my suspect is it probably isn't. It was all figured out on shoreline out, so there's probably a lot more loss there in that southern area. It looks like the dunes held up well in the northern and central, but not so much in that southern.

Yeah, I mean, we talked a couple of times about this. to migrate south since we first started looking at this back in 2013. It originally started way up by the Pelican Purge and then kind of went down in front of the Black Pelican and it's just continued to kind of move further south. We'd like to believe that it'll continue to move south, but I do think that if we move forward with this five year plan, thinking that it could go six and seven years as well, that we probably would throw another good, pretty wide density of sand down there. Maybe we add some sand to the dune as well. But that's the biggest factor. When that scarping occurs or when you see that embayment down there and there's just no dry sand beach in front of that dune at every high tide, it's just taking that. So it's not only putting the sand back in the dune, but it's keeping a wide enough beach in front of that dune so that it's not constantly under attack.

I think right there, where he's talking about, didn't the ocean floor get, I'll call it like a crack, not a crack, but there's some underlying stress on the bottom of the ocean floor right there in that hot spot compared to other areas, right?

Yeah, it gets, like from way offshore, the contours kind of diverge. Usually if you saw a contour map, they just run perfectly parallel to shore. But there, it's kind of like this trough that cuts in really close to shore. And I mean, what we've seen in some of the modeling is that it allows those waves to get further and further in before they dissipate. And so when they hit the ocean, or when they hit the shoreline, there's more energy in some of those waves.

Like a sandbar moving around from time to time, that's going to kind of stay right there in that area, right?

Yeah, sometimes in that area, the sandbar has almost gone away. In fact, in the last cycle, there were times where you'd go up there. That last time, the kitty golf was right north. Willie kept saying how there wasn't even a sandbar out there in that area. It was like a break in the sandbar, but that was kind of the theory that because of that convergence of the contours. All right.

Anybody else have questions for Mr. Wilson?

No, ma'am.

Anybody else? Thank you, Ken. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you.

Madam Clerk, do we have anybody signed up for public comment this evening?

Okay.

Craig, would you like to come up? speak directly into the microphone and tell us who and where.

My name is Craig Taylor, born and raised in Kitty Hawk. It may sound kind of crazy, but it's a simple question. Is there any way that we could increase the minimum lot size and third acre to half acre in Kitty Hawk Village to save some of this density developing that's headed our way more and more all the time. I'm on Kerrinda Lane is where I live. It's already happened from my previous that y'all accepted the five lots and one parcel. And I was just trying to, and one's a flag lot. There's a house behind the house, which is, I think, inappropriate for the area. Is it a state? to have a third acre in Kitty Hawk or is it a town? I mean is there any way that we could increase it to keep from this density from happening more and more all the time in Kitty Hawk? I mean can we go to a half acre?

Well, two ways, obviously. You guys can direct Rob to... Well, have a conversation about it at a future meeting. Direct Rob to bring some kind of text amendment back to you for your guys' review. Or, of course, citizens always have the ability to propose text amendment themselves for your consideration. So, both of those options are out there. It isn't a state mandate, Mr. Gillett. So, what was stated earlier is correct. um i mean one consideration no matter what we've got to go back to this idea of down zoning and all that good stuff so but that would only come in the event some text amendment is put before the council so i believe you can get with rob and bring it on your own too back after y'all accepted the five lots on corinne lane to you know front of the road rob text me

and wanted to talk to several of the natives and see what our opinion was or what we could do to change. So I've had that on my mind.

I don't think it's a bad idea.

For a long time. And that's what I've come up with. It's just plain the lots are too small. And we've got to enlarge them to keep this density from overwhelming. The problem, there's a lot of partial next to me. I've been told that she's trying to do the same thing. Put six houses on that lot next to my partial. Well, that's going to be 13 houses before I get to my lot, my house.

I certainly do hate to cut you off, Mr. Taylor.

In 32 years, it's going to be three houses.

We'll take this under advisement.

It's just so important to me to try to slow this down. And the Scarborough tract, I've been told, has been sold. A guy just won't put one house on it. But who knows? Who really knows? And if we could do this before they start trying to accept... try and get agreement to do these developments, maybe we can stop it, you know? Thank you. I mean, it's just... We'll look into it. For y'all to see what I'm trying to do. I love Kitty Hall. And it's killing me to see it just, you know, just scattered everywhere.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councillor, do I have a motion to approve tonight's consent agenda? Oh.

There's no one else signed up.

I thought you said it was just me.

Second.

All in favour? Aye. Thank you. There were no items removed. We need to move on to setting a public hearing. Council, do I have a motion?

So moved.

Okay. For the next meeting?

I just, do you want me to drop the, there's a motion to read on that, isn't there?

Yes.

I did have one question on that. how would we be moving that forward with the original planning board recommendation or... Help me out. What are we moving forward? So if we... in public hearing, if we request that we see the zoning amendment section 42-528, and we hear that, what are we going to be hearing? What are we going to be voting on next session or at the public hearing next session? What are we going to be? Is it going to be 800 plus a capped 800 unconditioned space or an unlimited unconditioned space? There's two proposals to put forward, so...

What came about at that meeting was that the natural consequences of the size of the lot would prevent anything larger than that 800. You allow for the septic, you allow for the setbacks, and you allow for all those things. It was a natural. Right.

So so the planning board kind of pushed forward two options and they said, we recommend not limiting the unconditioned space. But if you have to go, so what are we pushing forward? So to you guys because this is a town proposal.

Do we discuss that now or do we discuss that later? I guess what I'm trying to say. We want to hear what the public has to say before we make that call.

So we just leave it open-ended as written with both options and then we'll determine at the next meeting.

Okay, that's what I was trying to figure out. You want me to read that now?

Yes.

I made a set of codes here at the town council meeting on August 3rd, 2026 to consider the proposed text amendment section 42-528. Thank you.

All in favor? Aye. Thank you. Let's see. We now need to go into public hearing. Council, I need to.

So moved. Okay, thank you. Second.

Thank you. All in favor? Aye. Okay.

What's the public hearing for? I'm sorry? What's the public hearing for?

Do you want me to take it? Go ahead.

The special use permit. This patient couple has been...

So this, indeed, Mary, this is a special use permit. It's applicable to the property located at 5118 Lindbergh Avenue. The idea here, the proposal is an apartment on the second story of a compatible commercial use. As you guys know, Rob is absent tonight, but I'm going to give a very brief update. I know that you guys have had a chance to speak with Rob, ask your own questions if you had them. That was part of what we did or actually confirmed during our last, I guess, work session is what we called it. But the applicant is requesting the approval of a special use permit to allow a two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment, which is approximately 1,100 square feet, on the second floor of an existing commercial building located at 5118 Lindbergh Avenue. Property is zoned BC2, so residential uses above compatible commercial uses are permitted as a special use. subject to, of course, compliance with all applicable building codes and parking requirements. You will note we have had these special use quasi-judicial hearings in the past, and site plans have come up, so I do want to iterate. We don't have one tonight, but there's a reason. There's no change to the footprint. There's no change to the building itself. This ultimately, if approved, would be an administrative approval as to what changes are made inside, you know, inspections, things of that nature. No need for a site plan because there's no change to the actual footprint or intensity of the development at all. The primary consideration for you guys, fortunately Rob has answered it for you, but in Rob's opinion is whether adequate parking can be provided to meet both commercial and residential requirements. You'll note on the second page of the report that ultimately Eight parking spaces would be required for the proposed commercial use and the apartment combined. And there are currently nine parking spaces on site. So it does appear that Rob was satisfied that parking requirements could be met. Of course, he would be checking on that. If this were approved, that would be something that would, as part of the ordinance, is a condition. Doesn't have to be read into any motion tonight. It has to be met. um rob did find that the pro proposal is consistent with the town's use plan land use plan as the site's located within the maintain and enjoy character area and that particular area does support a mix of residential and small-scale commercial uses rob feels though Feels as though that is what is being proposed in front of you guys tonight. I would note the planning board, again, this can't be the sole basis of your considerations tonight or decisions tonight, but did recommend to unanimously approve the special use permit. I'm no planner. If there's any questions before we turn it over, if the applicant or anyone from the public wants to speak, I'll do my best to answer them. But what it appears to me is that we don't have a lot of change here outside of introducing a mixed component use to an existing structure, with Rob's main concern at the time of application being adequate parking. And it does appear that that parking can be met.

Lauren, do we have anybody signed up to speak to this? Thank you.

All right, so you can.

Applicants are here. If you have any questions for them, please let me know. What are your plans for that? Will it be year-round or short-term?

Lauren, swear me real quick. Sorry. Okay. So ultimately what it is is commercial parts go upstairs. Two-thirds of it is for storage for business. The other part is probably going to be part of an office where the bathrooms are connected to. And upstairs, we're going to turn it into a two-bed, two-bath. And we're going to either put a year-round residence in or maybe even employees. We're sensing it's so hard for everybody to have a job. We're still up in the air if we get approval. And then we move on to inspections and all the stuff we need to make it happen.

I like it. You have a question?

I was going to make a motion.

Well, before we do. Oh, yeah. To go out of. Yeah. Okay. Got it. Got it. I just want to make sure I wasn't on approval or something. We got to go out first, and then you guys can make the motion as to however you do.

I'm going to make the motion to come out of public hearing. Second. Second.

All in favour?

Aye.

Now, are there any questions?

I have a motion. Nobody has any discussion?

And I will note before any motion is made, reading it as presented, as you know, there are the four factors that you have to comply with and meet in applications for special use permits. Reading of this motion as presented would be sufficient to state compliance with all four factors.

Do I have a motion? I have a motion.

Okay. I move to grant approval of the special use permit to allow an apartment on the second floor of the commercial use at 5118 Lindbergh Avenue. Town Council finds that the proposal is consistent with the camera land use plan and meets the conditions of section 42-100B8. Do I have a second?

I'll second that. Okay. All in favor? Aye.

Okay. Good to go.

Does anybody mind? I severely underestimated my babysitter tonight. Can they even blow me up? Does anybody mind? Do you have any objections? Chief can brief me as needed on the closed session item tonight. But if that will be okay, I don't know what she's doing. She blew me up.

Thank you. All right.

I appreciate it.

We have no new business, no old business. Town manager, do you have a report for us?

I do. Thank you. I have a few things this evening. Good evening, staff and people out in the virtual world. We have, backed by popular demand, scheduled COA to come back to the town hall for more free digital literacy training. The people that have attended have just really been very complimentary of the instructor from COA and it's you can have software skills training or just confidence using technology and they will be here from 9 to 1 on July 16th and July 30th and on our website there is a link to sign up for those classes Our Deer County Emergency Management and the US National Weather Service are sponsoring a hurricane forum, and it is for the community. All are welcome to attend. It's Wednesday, July 29th. here at Kitty Hawk Town Hall. They do ask that you register just because of limited space. And again, that link is on the town's website. And I can also make sure that you guys have it personally. I think it was in the weekly update as well. If you cannot attend in person, that form will be recorded and be able to view on demand. And lastly, if you have not completed the town's bicycle and pedestrian plan survey, the deadline is July the 10th. We have exceeded our goal with over 300 responses, but now we've set a new goal of 500. So we have four days to get 200 responses. That link is under the projects page on our town website, and I encourage you to share it with everybody you know and anybody watching. It's open to residents and visitors and anyone who would like to complete the survey. And that's all I have. Thank you. Thank you.

I attended the COA computer literacy thing, and it was very good. Thank you. All right. Dylan, do you have any comments?

Mr. Mayor, I have nothing else to add tonight. All right. Come on.

All I have is... I was at the beach a couple weeks ago, and I happened to be there at the time there was a rescue going on at the Carlton Smith Bath House. I had the chance to thank Chief Talley and all the first responders and lifeguards. The look on the people's face, I was told it, told it all. But thank you for what you're doing, saving lives. It was really tremendous. That's all I have.

Thank you. David?

Two quick things. Piggyback on the emergency services, fire department, police department, saw them out in force this weekend, very busy weekend, and they were kicking butt and taking names. I appreciate that, keeping us safe. And the other thing is I was super excited to see the amount of volunteers who have put in applications for various boards and that sort of thing. Just encourage the citizens to keep that up because that's how we keep getting feedback, and citizen engagement is what makes this town great.

This is a busy month for me. Earlier this month, Lauren Garrett, Amy Heckhouse, and I attended a post-disaster simulation. And it was very eye-opening, and cash and gas, fuel, were in big demand. So it was very good to have that.

I'm going to say that Charlotte was a meth addict in the... Yes. But I'm cured now. I'm good. And Lauren was an alcoholic.

But thank you for bringing that to everybody.

Thank you. It was a great exercise.

Yeah, it really was. It truly was. And how long you had to wait for services and how it could just be, we just need to be prepared. If nothing else, you're kids.

Represent our citizens in a certain way?

Just experience.

Okay.

assigned a person to the whole set of needs and you had to navigate getting all of your services for your specific needs. It was very interesting and very in-depth with the way that it was put on and they did a really great program. Deer County Health and Human Services were really involved in that. So it's very interesting to see it from the other side of the people that are actually needing the services. So it was a really good exercise. It was very high.

Trillium put it on, didn't they? Didn't Trillium kind of try that out? Yes. And then Councilman Mance and I were asked to go and volunteer at the beach pantry, food pantry. And that was an amazing experience to go in there and see. We all have struggles, but we don't realize that the people, food, and supplies that you need should not be a struggle. And I want to thank the grocery stores that contribute to that food pantry and the small and large stores Um, grocery stores do, and I appreciate that very much. And I was very excited and, and happy with our first councilman council workshop. and we began to talk, and I really appreciated that very much, and that's where it all begins. One more thing, I had somebody contact me and tell me what an amazing job Cory Morris did, and he was very professional and handled the situation very nicely.

Everybody absolutely loves him in this town.

Yes, he is.

We've been talking about Raleigh. We're gonna talk about Riley PD now. True story.

But anyway, that's all I have. And now... I believe we're going to need to go into closed session. So do I have a motion to go into closed session?

So moved.

So moved. All right. And everybody, all in favor? Aye. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for coming.

Lieutenant Hounds, I'd like your haircut. Thank you, Chief. I like yours, too. Did y'all go together?

No.