City Council - Regular Meeting

Yes, sir.

Good evening and welcome to the City Council meeting of the City of Lenoir for Tuesday, May the 19th, 2026. We welcome you this evening. Thank you for being with us. Whether you're here in the audience or joining us on our TV broadcast, this will be going on tonight. We thank you for being here. In a few minutes, we'll have our moment of silence, and we'll remain standing for our Pledge of Allegiance to our country. As we go to that, I would like to mention, of course, this is Public Works Week this week. Isn't it, John, I think? Is it right? Yes, sir. And we want to say thank you to all of our public works people and what they do public utilities will include you guys in that as well That was last week. But anyway, we appreciate all the all that what you do as I always say The Public Works Department is the glue of the city and it is they always keep everything together Keep us moving forward and we appreciate all the work. So we celebrate this week with with you guys and gals and thank you for all that you do to help our city and and our area in so many different ways so have a great week with that also we have a very special birthday coming up this week Council Member Chrissy Thomas will turn 106. 106. Start seeing how special he is. 600. Either way you want to put it. I think that's Thursday. We wish you a happy birthday. Hope you have a good celebration for your birthday. Happy birthday to you. We're not going to sing. But happy birthday. Hope you have a good one on that. And other than that, I think we'll now arise for our moment of silence and our pledge. Thank you. Please salute the flag. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. As we start our meeting tonight, we do not have any matters scheduled for public hearings this evening, so we'll move on to item three, our consent agenda items. This is consisting of item A, or minutes of our city council meeting of Monday, May the 4th, 2026. Item B is the minutes of the closed session meeting of Monday, May 4th, 2026, as reviewed by the city council, the city attorney, and the city manager. And item C is a fireworks authorization permit. This is to an application for a fireworks display permit as submitted by Chris Jacobs, the fire marshal of the city of Lenoir. The date of the display is Saturday, July the 4th, which it should be, July the 4th, 2026, beginning at 9.30 p.m. at the Lenoir Optimist Park, and will be conducted by Skyworks Pyro. That's JECO Pyrotechnics Incorporated for the City of Lenoir Recreation Department. A certificate of liability insurance has been submitted by Skyworks Pyro Incorporated, and it has also been verified. So those are your consent agenda items, and I'll present to the council for any question, discussion, or motion when you're ready. Mr. Mayor, I'd like to make a motion to approve consent agenda items A through B, A through C as presented. Thank you, sir. A motion from Council Member Stevens that we approve the consent agenda items A through C as presented. No other discussion. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. All opposed. Thank you very much. That is unanimous on that. All right, next would be a on our agenda would be a request and petitions of any citizens. If there's anyone tonight who would like to address the council, this is the time to do so. Please come forward and give us your name and address and we will be glad to see it. We know you will, but tell us who you are. Good evening, everyone.

My name is Richard Lamont. Thank you very much, Council Members and Mr. Mayor, for your time. I appreciate it. So I come as a proud Lenoir citizen by way of New York. The Air Force found me throughout my career. So I did 27 years in the Air Force and then retired here to Lenoir in 2019. I'm very happy to be here. I come with the great... support of our County Veterans Office to propose that Lenore leads the way in Western North Carolina and Caldwell County to do the Veterans Banner Program. When you go through small towns in America, you can see the light posts and the banners that hang on those light posts. Sometimes they reflect those that are on right now. The 250th anniversary of our nation, 175th anniversary of our great town. Those banners are fantastic, but they all look the same. So once you look at them once, you know what every one of them says. But with a veteran's banner, and you'll have to excuse this picture that's on here, with a veteran's banner, every banner is going to look different. Every banner is going to be represented by a veteran from any of the wars that our country has faced and any conflicts. These are amazing banners that we have sourced locally. And there are companies out there that are for-profit companies, but I'd like to propose that we don't use one of those companies, that we do this all ourselves. And the reason why, local is better. To use local companies, to use the local workforce is the way. And if we can do this locally, which we have sourced through our Rotary Club, then it would be an amazing thing. These banners come in at less than $200 a piece. The proposal is that the veterans' families will sponsor every banner. And I think, I know that I would sponsor a banner. I know that our veterans' offices, they have lists of veterans that would sponsor a banner. What I propose after the final cost, I propose we charge $300 for the banner. And then any monies that are left over, we can give to the veterans associations, to whatever veterans clubs that they want to give. Now, you might ask about manpower, and there is going to be some manpower to put these up throughout the year. We can turn around and take that money and split it between the veterans group and giving back to manpower. So it's a win-win for everybody. Let's do something positive for the veterans, and let's do something positive for our town. Thank you very much for your time.

Thank you, Richard. We appreciate that.

I know you've talked to me before about that. It's a great program. Kim, anything to add from the Veterans Office about it at all?

Hi, I'm Kimberly Vance. I'm with the Colwell County Veterans Office. Been a Colwell County employee for almost 30 years. Been with the Veterans Service Office around nine years. We serve many veterans, the majority from Colwell County. I think it's an honor and a privilege to be able to put their names on these banners because they give the best years of their life to our country. They strive to be a community member, and I think the support of the communities themselves, making the cost of the banners, like Richard said, it's a win-win. But I think they deserve this honor of putting their rank, their branch of service, their picture, and I honestly think that their family members will come and view the banners. They'll spread it word of mouth and then others will come so i think it's going to bring some a lot of people to downtown lenore just because we're leading the way okay thank you thank you kim we appreciate that

we will uh well i will get this to the proper people uh i guess john hogan maybe this will be something that would come to public works i would think brenda probably too with uh downtown anyway let's we'll do we'll research into what we need to to do uh to be involved with this and what it what it takes manpower all that kind of thing to do that so thank you for your presentation we certainly appreciate you Hudson, glad to have you as well. Richard's son, I know he's learning about local government. We're glad to have you come out with us tonight and be here. Even though we should have named you Lenore, but you know. I like Hudson though, it's a good name. Thank y'all for coming though. Anyone else that would like to talk with the council while we're in this part of our agenda? Okay, seeing no one, thank you. We will move on then to reports of our boards and commissions. Tonight we have our plant administrator from the Western Piedmont Council of Governments, Jennifer Cannon is with us. She will hold the second public meeting to receive public comments concerning the proposed FY2026 action plan for the City of Lenoir and the Unifor Home Consortium as part of the five-year consolidated plan. This plan is required by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development outlines goals and action plans for the City of Lenoir and the Uniform Home Consortium and its use of the Community Development Block Grant funds, that's CDBG, and home funds for fiscal year 2026, beginning July 1st, 2026, and ending on June the 30th of 2027. The City of Lenoir received $118,886 in Community Development Block Grant funds, which will be used for public facility improvements. The City of Lenoir, as lead entity for the Unifor Consortium, received $976,597.50, which will be used for assistance to first-time homebuyers, financing of multi-family housing projects, and the funding of community housing development organizations. Staff recommends approval of the action plan and the Unifor Consortium FY2026 action plan as submitted. Jennifer, welcome. Glad to have you, as always. And you even brought our buddy with us. Mr. Oxford is here.

Good evening, Mayor and members of the council. So I'm here seeking council's approval for the fiscal year 2026 action plan so we can submit it to HUD. The action plan is for the City of Illinois, the CDBG program, and for the Unifor Consortium Home Program, which Illinois is the lead entity. As for CDBG, the city has previously used the funds for renovations at the old Lenore High School campus project. For that project, CDBG awarded the $118,886. This year, we're going to do a similar continuation of what we've done in the past. We anticipate most of the funds to be used for the stormwater improvements located at the back of the AVT, the farmer's market, and the pavilion. Funds also may be used for continued renovations at the old Lenore High School complex. The Unifor Consortium Home Program will receive the $976,597.50 for fiscal year 2026. The consortium is a 28 local government entity that covers Alexander, Burke, Caldwell, and Catawba counties. Lenore is the lead entity. All funds flow from HUD through the city for all activities. The first activity we usually do is down payment assistance. A four county wide program used to assist low to moderate income families to help purchase a house. We can provide up to $20,000 in down payment assistance in the form of a zero interest, zero monthly payment loan. The homebuyer triggers repayment if they sell the property and half of the loan is forgiven at the 10 year anniversary of the loan. We can cover like a regular stick-built homes, condos, town homes. We just do not do mobile homes. The next activity is the CHODOs, the Community Housing Development Organization. They're doing housing related activities throughout the four counties. The third activity is the multifamily apartments. They serve low to moderate income families, workforce families, and they can be senior apartments as well. We assist the funding for, like, the developers to do the LIHTC program, apartments, low-income housing tax credits. That just helps them get the loan for the family or the seniors. You have to be 55 years or older. Typically, it's usually about 50 to 90 apartments in the units and a $10 million to $15 million projects, usually. The loans are usually about $300,000, and they are a 2% 20-year term. Some of the ones we've done here locally are Cat's Corner, Viridian, and Arbor Glen, which Arbor Glen would be the senior one. We also do receive some program income that is created as these loans are repaid to us. And also when down payment, the homebuyers repay us as well, and that just gets recycled back into our program and used again. uh... in your package you have some more information on all those uh... for the action plan for the home and the CDBG uh... we will submit those together at the same time to HUD for approval so we're just seeking approval from the council tonight

Thank you. Any questions of Jennifer?

Jennifer, give them some examples of a chodo, like habitats.

Habitats. The chodos most of the time are the habitats. One of the four habitats have Alexander Burke, not Alexander Burke, call it Catawba habitats. We give them money.

For the building of those, yeah. Okay, anybody, any other questions? And this is open to anybody in the audience would like to ask any question, you're certainly welcome to. It's a public comment section. Okay, thank you. Seeing none, we'll turn it over to council for any action when you're ready to vote on this.

Mayor, I make a motion that we approve the FY2026-27 proposed budget as presented.

Okay. I have a motion from Councilmember Thomas that we approve the FY2026 action plan for the City of Lenoir and the Unifor Home Consortium as presented. No other questions? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. All opposed? Thank you. That carries unanimously. Thank you, Jennifer.

Thank you.

Rick, good to see you as well, sir. Thank you. All right, we'll move on then to reports and recommendations of our city manager. First is an action item. This is a FY2026-2027 proposed budget. City Manager Scott Hildebrand will present this recommended annual budget for the City of Lenoir to the City Council and further request that the City Council call for a public hearing be held on Tuesday, June 2nd, 2026 at 6 o'clock to consider approval of the recommended budget. Mr. Hildebrand?

Prior to doing that, let me go back and do the items information first, and that way I'll step down there then to give you the budget presentation. As the mayor mentioned, the city council will have a budget work session on Thursday, May 21st at 6 o'clock. That will be third floor city hall. Additional budget work session scheduled for next Thursday as well if necessary, and that will be the 28th. City also will be closed on Monday, May 25th in observance of Memorial Day. The Committee of the Whole will meet on Tuesday, May 26th, 8.30, 3rd Floor City Hall. The Foothills Regional Airport Authority will meet on Wednesday, May 27th at noon at the airport. And lastly, the Neon Knot Ride will be held on Friday, May 29th, starting at 8.30, and that's at the Rotary Soccer Complex. I encourage anybody who wants to bring their bike out there and get decorated to do that. And with that, I'll step down to the podium.

The memorial service that Legion does will be on Sunday here on the square at 5 o'clock on Sunday afternoon. So it's not Monday, it's on Sunday. So everyone will know that.

you guys pull up the presentation okay this document the budget as well as the presentation has been uploaded to the city's website available there and it's an email to you in the last 20 minutes to you as well and Joshua descended out the PowerPoint Well, good evening. Thank you for the opportunity to present the 2026-27 annual budget for your review and consideration. This budget, as always, is built based on your strategic priorities set in February at your planning meeting and also in your March budget meeting, as well as throughout the year at Committee of the Whole meetings. Your priorities for this year are continued efforts to go back and offer competitive compensation and benefits for employees to improve recruitment and retention. Your second goal is to address corridor appearance and empty commercial buildings through continued code enforcement and beautification of public properties. Third priority is to explore ways to close sidewalk gaps along US 321 Blount Boulevard by working with NCDOT as well as the Greater Hickory Metropolitan Planning Organization. Our fourth goal is to continue to develop strategies to attract attainable and affordable housing by promoting the Collierville County Housing Plan, as well as the Living in the War 2045 Comprehensive Plan. And lastly, your fifth goal is to continue to inform the public about our city programs, services, events, and encourage participation in government. So the budget's based on those five priorities you set earlier in the year. The general fund totals $27,104,230. The proposed property tax rate remains at 46 cent per 100. The rescue readiness tax remains at .85 cent per 100 for a total rate of 46.85, same as last year. And as I mentioned last year, this is the lowest rate in 25 years. Your values may have gone up, but the rate's the lowest it's been in 25 years. All general fund fees and charges will remain the same, so no fee increases with that. The budget's balanced per state law. So if you look at the budget revenues here, we did the major categories. If you look at the three major revenues, property tax, sales tax, franchise tax, that makes up 76% of the revenues we receive to operate the city and the general fund. You see solid waste fees as well, and then other fees make up a combination of parks and rec to ABC to a variety of things. So you look at the expense category of all the chunks that go in the general fund, over half our money goes to public safety, police and fire. If you add public works in, 75% of our budget, general fund budget, goes to those three areas. You see recreation, administration, finance, planning, and legislative there as well. If you look at categories, the big expense for the city government, most city governments is personnel because we don't produce a product, we have services. So you see that 74% of your budget's made up of personnel cost. Operating then in debt is a small percentage in capital. The general fund only has one borrowing in there. This year, as you recall, we've approved purchasing a 107-foot ladder Quint fire truck using a program through Blue Ridge Energy. It's a seven-year note, 0% interest. That truck's about $1.8 million. So that's in the budget included. The general fund budget has no fund balance appropriated. The downtown district maintains a tax rate there at $0.18 per 100, which is the current rate. The water and wastewater fund totals $14,523,270. That does include a 3.75% rate increase for water and sewer approved earlier back in March this year. That rate increase will equate to basically $2.12 per month for a family using 5,000 gallons of water. It also includes a 5% rate increase for bulk and resell water and sewer rates to our bulk customers, which is the variety of government entities we go back and sell water to. We normally base our rate increases on the consumer price index, and for water, sewer, and trash collection, as of February 2026, it says 25, but 2026, it was 4.4% inflation.

Correction, Joshua.

I keep finding one every day. If you look at our water and sewer revenues, mainly it's water charges, sewer charges, other interest and retained earnings. This year we do have a 1.6 million appropriation from our retained earnings. It was recommended by McGill Associates for capital projects, and I'll go through some of those here in a minute. And this is kind of the way the money's spent in water. Collections, distribution, production, the wastewater plants, as you can see. By category, a little bit different. The water is a very expensive operation, your facilities, your plants, your infrastructure. So that break down a little bit less in personnel cost, more toward operating capital and debt. We have a lot of multi-year capital projects that are not necessarily in the budget, but things we go back and fund for separately. That revenue comes from the American Rescue Plan, state direct appropriations, CDBG funds, as Jennifer mentioned earlier, numerous other grants, and private donations. And some of those projects include fire department sinkhole repair, the Finley Avenue water improvements that are underway right now, the Hospital Avenue sidewalk project, which is underway right now, gateway signs, which will be coming sometime this summer, cybersecurity infrastructure. improvements at the campus at the old Lenore High School, Harper Avenue streetscape project, and the Lenore Valdez Water Connection. Some of the projects underway that are not necessarily in the numbers I gave you, but still impact our budget process. Some of the highlights. Our core services are continued with revenue projections. We think they're realistic, conservative, and it takes into consideration our current economic climate that we're facing, and uncertainties, of course, with international conflict, trade tariffs, all those things as well. As you mentioned earlier, our number one priority was employee compensation. So this year, in order to go back and maintain our workforce and recruit and retain folks, we include a 2.5% cost of living increase for employees, plus a $2,000 increase to base pay for all full-time employees. So that goes back, and the lowest employees would make 8% basically increase, up to 4% for the hiring employees. But it focuses on our lower tier employees that have been hit hard recently with gas prices and those things. The budget also includes a continuation of our holiday longevity bonus program. We also have mandates from the state to go back and increase retirement contribution for law enforcement. It went from 16.10 to 17.10. And for non-law enforcement, it went from 14.35 to 15.22. The budget includes that. Our health insurance premiums went up 2%. It includes funding those as well. One new component of the budget this year, we propose providing our general employees, non-law enforcement, a 1% 401 match. Law enforcement gets a 5% by state law. So this is an opportunity for employees that are not law enforcement to go back and contribute to a 401 program, and we match that with 1%. Our insurance costs went up as well. Our liability insurance went up 8%, but our workers' comp did decrease by 6%, so basically a net impact there. Personnel changes. Overall, our full-time employee counts reduced from 275 to 273. Those two positions changes. One of our school resource officers will be eliminated due to the county taking over the Friedman Center. We will have a gateway in Horizons. The second one is the Parks and Recreation Aquatic Center employee. We're gonna take that position and make three part-time positions out of the cover. We need it at different times and that works better for that. Excuse me. Through this proposed budget, we fully fund our communications in the police department. However, you know, at some point this year, we think in the next 12 months, that will be shifted to Caldwell County. Per the consolidation agreement we approved a couple years ago. But we fund it, and if it happens, it happens, and we're prepared to go back and implement that with the county. The proposed budget does include a new budget financial analyst position to assist with long-term financial planning forecasting, analysis, research, grants, all of the above. We think that's needed with all the projects we have underway. In lieu of that, we're going to go back and get rid of the special projects director position and change some of those duties and probably hand those to another employee. Further, the budget includes a new Firefighter III pay grade to provide some more structure in that department for the Employee Development Program. Also, we go back and recommend increasing our tuition reimbursement for employees from $2,200 to $3,000. His tuition has gone up for our employees. We've heard a lot of that lately. We've got a lot of folks I know in police, in fire, and Mr. Harris going back to school and doing a lot of things to go back and continue the education to improve their service to the city. Street resurfacing allocates $430,000. That's a $10,000 increase from last year. And also we add another $150,000 strategic paving based on your priorities for paving. Downtown, fundings include to support the master plan, but also expand our decorations and add some more planters downtown. Code enforcement, that's another one of your priorities you spelled out earlier in our retreat. This funds more than $103,000 for demolitions, foreclosures, nuisances, and then $34,000 for assistance with part-time staff for the planning department to go back and focus on code enforcement. There's also a $10,000 increase in that as well to go back with commercial code enforcement. Technology, there's funding in there to go back and upgrade our technology throughout all departments and improve our operations and security. Environmental, as you know, we're part of the federal Phase II stormwater program. As such, we go back and use the Western Piedmont stormwater program in partnership with most of the jurisdictions in Collwell County and some in Burke and Catawba County, and that funds that as well. It funds all our debt obligations, as I mentioned earlier. The general fund capital this year is $1.649,400. That's an increase of $88,675 from this current year. We fund vehicles in the various departments. It's equipment upgrades and police and fire. It's a new sweeper truck, which I want to say that's a couple hundred thousand, 400,000 range. Pretty expensive. A new backhoe. Also include playground equipment at Rotary Soccer Complex near the splash pad that you referenced last year. You mentioned that. And also some more equipment at Mulberry Rec Center for playground. We also have funding at the Little Aquatic Center for dehumidifier in the indoor pool. We've had a lot of rust issues there over the years with improvements we're making. We need to go back and upgrade that. Water and sewer fund capital is $3.67 million, $500. That's an increase of almost $743,500 from previous year. As I mentioned, we have 1.6 in appropriations from our retained earnings for that, but we increased that. That's for renovations and repairs of the water treatment plant, repairs to the distribution system, replacement of several pickup trucks. a vacuum truck, I want to say that's $800,000 plus. That's an expensive vehicle. Also, it updates in the maintenance of our water treatment plants, wastewater treatment plants. Downtown, as I mentioned, $35,000 for additional decorations. In summary, the budget's balanced and I think addresses the priorities Council set earlier in the year and throughout the year. Focus on employee compensation so we can prioritize code enforcement as well. It's focused on capital putting back into our long-term items that have a long life for the city and it will maintain our current operations and hopefully improve current service levels. I want to thank Donna Bean. She spent, I would say, hundreds of hours, probably more than that, on this document. Joshua Harris, I think this is the 10th version of this slide show he's put together in the last three days. All the department directors for the work they do every day. Council for giving us direction on the budget. As I say, every year since I've been here, I think the primary goal each and every day is to lead an organization that remains focused on service and provides service beyond measure. And as we say, come create with us. You have a work session Thursday night at 6 o'clock, a public hearing on June 2nd at 6 p.m. The proposal's online live at citylenore.com slash budgetproposal. I'll take questions now. We'll go back and dig into it Thursday night, but please take time and read it, and we'll try to answer any questions you have.

Any questions at this point?

Mr. Hildebrand, first I'd like to say to you and the staff, that's a fantastic job of hitting the priorities that we set back in January. I really appreciate all of this work. If this budget passes at our next meeting, the 2.5% cost of living adjustment and the additional $2,000 to base pay Would that take effect January 1st?

July 1st.

July 1st. Okay. I think our employees will be.

And you have the pay plan schedules on the back of that document, the full document.

You'll have that. That's fantastic. Thank you so much. Any other comments?

I want to say thank you for all the hard work that y'all put into this. It's a great budget presentation. All the priorities that we have talked about and worked on through our budget sessions, work sessions, are here included. Things that we're still working on and want to continue to work on are here, and we appreciate that. Obviously, our employees are very special to us, and we want that to be for many years as we put this together. So thank you for taking all that and putting it together and bringing it to us. We'll have time to study about it a little bit. We meet again on Thursday. And if there's anything that needs to be talked about, we can do it then. If not, it looks really good, I think.

What do we need to do tonight?

Do you just want to go back and schedule a public hearing date for June 2nd?

6 o'clock public hearing. Mr. Mayor, I'd like to make a motion that we do schedule that hearing for the budget on June 2nd.

We have a motion from Council Member Stevens for the budget hearing meeting to be scheduled for June 2nd, 2026 at our regular council meeting at that time. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. All opposed. Thank you. That's where we stand. Anything else for you? Okay. Thank you. All right, we'll move on then to any report from our city attorney's office. We welcome Mr. Sparks tonight with us.

Yeah, I've actually got a presentation.

No, I'm just kidding. Another report, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, sir. Thank you for being here. That was good. Filling in for the infamous Mr. Rohr tonight. All right, report from the mayor's office. I do have some announcements for you for upcoming board appointments and reappointments for all of our boards. We do that always in June for the July as we make the change. I will present that to you tonight. This will be, these boards will be placed on the June 2nd City Council agenda as well for your consideration of approval. Maybe we might have, I still have a couple others that we'll maybe be working on, but right now we're almost, all these boards will have seats except for one or two. Anyway, the ABC board for three-year term, reappointment for Dr. John Tye, on that one. And then a new appointment this year, Mr. Jerry Brooks, who has been on the ABC board for 22 years, is stepping away. We will miss former Mayor Brooks on the board with health reasons and other things, but we thank him for his service there, and we'll be getting something to him for his long-time service. If you see Jerry, please tell him how much we appreciate that. But Recommendation will be Mr. John Blair to come on and fill that unexpired term for Mr. Brooks on that part of it. And he will, I think, will be a good addition. For the Foothills Airport Authority, two-year term, Mr. Tom Smith. Tom has served as the reappointment to that. Tom is doing a great job there. For Norah Housing Authority, this is a five-year term. This is a reappointment for Mr. Pete Kidder on that. And he also is doing a fine job at that. Business Advisory Board are three-year terms. reappointments, Dr. Dana Clark and Mrs. Glenda Wilson on that, and some new ones that are coming on. Mr. Hunter Greer. Hunter has returned to downtown Lenore as the manager in the First Horizons branch, and we're excited to have Hunter, and he's been wanting to serve for some time. He's talked to me about serving, so glad to have him. Mrs. Katie Brummett, you know, that runs... Liquid Roots, thank you. I appreciate that. And we're glad to have her always. And Mr. Alan Hall, who will fill an unexpired term. Alan, of course, the Central Barbershop, the oldest business in downtown Lenoir. So we're glad to have Alan that wants to serve with that. Do have one unexpired term to fill on that, and we're working on that as we speak. The Planning Board and Historic Preservation Commission three-year term re-appointments to Mr. Michael Carreccia and Mr. Kyle Case, who both serve and are doing a great job with that, and Ms. Tammy Green, who is also a re-appointment as well. The Board of Adjustments, these are three-year terms. Re-appointments to that are Mrs. Lucy McCarl and Mr. Kyle Case. On that, we have retiring off of that a board was... Oh, gosh, what's his name? I don't have it in front of me. Tim Scobie. Tim Scobie, thank you. Tim Scobie is retiring from the Board of Adjustments, so we'll ask Mr. Michael Korechia to come from an alternate on the board to become the full-time member of that board at this time, and then his replacement as an alternate, Mr. Edward Terry, would fill in as the alternate on the Board of Adjustments. That would get us up to date there. On the Recreation Advisory Board, which are four-year terms, Mr. Charles Pilkington and Mr. Darren Faudrell would be reappointments to that board, and a new appointment, Mr. Dylan Laws out of the Attorney's Office of ROAR and LACI and all that. And Dylan is very active with our recreation program as well, so he'll be a new appointment. And then we have one other seat that we will be working on for the Recreation Advisory Board. Illinois Tourism Development Authority, also four-year term, reappointments with Dr. Dana Clark, and this is Glenda Wilson to the Tourism Authority, and a new member that we will ask to be appointed, Ms. Samantha Riley. Samantha has some experience in the tourism business. She is a graduate of Appalachian's tourism classes under Dr. Clark, by the way, but she has served actually all around the country in different different tourism uh goals even in montana and several other places and now living in lenore and uh working it here so she has agreed to come on and i think will be a great addition to that and we still have one seat that we could fill to our uh tourism authority if we if we can so those will be the recommendations that i will make to you in june for those and then hopefully maybe the others will be filled in at that time thank you

The unfilled seat, a required seat?

Yes, it is. It's a required seat. So that's what makes it a little bit tougher for that kind of thing. So it needs to be someone who is involved in the tourism and taking the business money that comes in for collections. Thank you on that seat. And anyway, that's my report. Any reports from any of our city council members tonight? Yes. Yes, sir.

They add great color to the downtown.

I've had a lot of comments on those. We have. Very pretty.

Yay.

Nice. And one last comment I will make. We want to say congratulations to Mr. Presswood, who was inducted into the Caldwell County Schools Hall of Honor this past week. Congratulations for that. Mr. Presswood, a proud graduate of Lenore High School.

142 years ago.

Anyway, we are proud for him. Along with him was Mr. Skip Downs, went in from Hudson and the deceased was Wayne Keller, who was over Blue Ridge Electric for many, many years. So that was the inductees to the school, Caldwell County Schools Hall of Honor. So congratulations to them. Anything else to come before us tonight? If not, we stand