City Council - Regular Meeting

One girl bought a trumpet and got busted up. Yeah, I'm sure that happened.

It was her first one. It's like Ralph said, you can always try it.

It was too expensive. Not happy with it, not happy with it, and feel uncomfortable with it.

And then you can go to an attorney and say, did things work enough so it cost me? I didn't think it was okay. And when I built it, she gave me a house. She just missed it so much.

She went out and bought a trumpet, and now she's going to play it again. What? I could see where it would be going. Is that something you've done, just like you've been teaching around music in Hawaii? It's just another part. Maybe that's a little too slang. I mean, it's like when you put a pinball machine on a dog. Especially something you give so much attention to. I've been considering going to... Probably, yeah. Let's look at your...

I'll do it.

90 seconds.

I'm here for Tuesday. How's that baby?

Was it Monday all over again?

It's Monday all over again. Until Friday, it'll be Monday. You know how that is. Mac's wide open, I tell you. Wide open. Giving samples?

Giving samples?

Yeah. Oh, man.

All right, everybody ready? We are live. Dang, boy. It's your attention.

Good evening and welcome to the City Council meeting of the City of Lenoir for Tuesday, August the 18th, 2026. We welcome you here this evening. Thank you for joining us either here in the audience or tonight or on our show broadcast, either one. We're glad to always have people here. As we normally do, we'll go in a few minutes to our moment of silence, and we'll remain standing to salute our country with our Pledge of Allegiance. Before we do, I do have a couple events I want to mention to you and say thank you to our staff and others for great work on it. We just passed our 52nd annual Harambee Festival here in Lenore, the oldest festival in Caldwell County. And it was a great turnout, great week of events. I want to say thank you to Kathy and Juliana and Phil Harper, our recreation director. His staff and all the people that were involved putting that together for some great events. Had a great recognition banquet on Thursday night. Recognized several people in the community for their service and work. and helping Lenore and Colwell County be a better place. So we're excited for that, and thank you for that. And also at the Mulberry Rec the other night, there was a back-to-school event that we were sharing with, I think, some group, and they gave backpacks and a lot of good things to kids in our community, and especially a lot of kids who really needed the help So we're glad to do that, and we appreciate, again, the Mulberry Recreation Center. Phil, I know, appreciate your staff being a part of that and co-sharing that with the group that wanted to put that together. So it's always good to do nice things for the community. So thank you very much for that. So please now, if you will, rise, and we'll do our moment of silence and remain standing for 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. Tonight we have a very special night. We have some wonderful special guests with us this evening. Thank you. uh we are uh honored to have some uh visitors from the wonderful country of italy that are with us tonight they're visiting our great friends john and kaylin ty horn time well how do we put that in there but we are glad to uh to have them and we're gonna uh bring them up in just a minute with a couple of little things that we want to give to them but uh let me tell you a little bit about sophia and noemi Napolitano. Get it close anyway.

You should have quit while you were in here.

I know. These are daughters of friends of Kaylin and John's, Roberta and Lucia. Did I get that right? Lucia. Luca, hey, I'll get something right in a minute. And they are all from Trieste, Italy, so we are glad to have them here. Sophia is in law school now and apparently studies all the time. I guess you have to to be, we want some good lawyers, so I know you have to really work hard for that. I'm just sitting here. No winnings? And Noemi is in her last year of high school and plans to study sciences or engineering at the university there. So we're excited for them. They love to travel, family and friends. They've been to the United States before. They were in Boston and New York, and now they have come to the real United States, and they've come south. So we're glad to have them. They're here for about 10 days on this trip to North Carolina. They have been to Grandfather Mountain, Valley Cruises, Blue Ridge Parkway, all over downtown Lenore. Been to Charlotte, the big city, to see that. Today they went swimming at the city's Aquatics and Fitness Center and enjoyed that. John got some red face there, I noticed, on him. So enjoyed it. Tomorrow they're going to Appalachian State, greatest university in the South. Mm-hmm. in Boone and visit Boone and Blowing Rock, and then on to Asheville to stay at the Biltmore, Lake Lure, and then we'll do some hiking at Hebron Falls over the weekend. They have tried a number of things, I understand, from biscuits and gravy, corn on the cob, fried okra, sweet potatoes, macaroni and cheese all this week, grits I found out they did try. We'll find out whether they liked them. had American handmade hamburgers, remain a favorite so far, and they will be going to have some North Carolina barbecue this Saturday. So a lot of exciting things are going to be done, and we welcome you here. So if you will, I would ask for you, if you will, to join me at the podium.

Come on, girls. This is a flag of the city of Lenoir that I want you to have to take back with you.

This one is yours.

We'll include those in the picture in a few minutes. We're very proud of our flag and this is also our city coin that I'd like for you to have as a souvenir which of course is our city seal on it and then our logo that she had a lot to do with when she was with us. So that's our logo for that.

Thank you so much.

You're very welcome.

And that's for you.

Well, thank you very much.

Is there anything you'd like to tell us or say while you're here? You're welcome to. The floor is open.

You don't have to make me speak.

We're a little bit shy. Oh, that's okay. That's okay. So we're fine. Okay.

Anything that you've really enjoyed since you... Everything.

Everything? He loves hamburgers. I love hamburgers. So it's my favorite place. Yes, so far. Yes.

That is great. And you're going to love barbecue, I think, too. Yes, we will. I hope you do. Anyone?

We will.

That'll be exciting. I like you going to the mountains so you'll get to see some good things up there again.

Go with all the ladies tomorrow morning for brunch.

Oh, nice. Okay. Well, thank you for being here. Thank you for coming to visit with us tonight.

Thank you.

We don't have a real long meeting tonight, but we want you to see how we kind of operate. That'll be fun. So let's get a picture with everyone, the council and everything, and we'll have the flags, and we'll have the Italian flag out front for that, and John, you and Kaylynn, too, if you will.

Okay. You just send it to us. We're going to be here. You have to send this to us. Share this with Jonathan.

I mean, not Jonathan. Josh. Josh was not here, right? You can be in this picture. For sure. How are you?

That sounds like you.

Why don't you get in the picture and I'll get... To say cheese, it's famaggio. Linda or Hannah, will y'all come shoot a picture? So we got Caitlin in too.

Yeah, we need you, Caitlin.

Whatever you say.

I did it.

Thank you so much.

Oh, you're very welcome. Nice meeting you all.

Everyone, I want you to know, opening this and passing it around. Yeah, please. We won't see it if you don't open it there. If you don't get me there, there's nobody.

Here we are. Again, welcome. Thank you for being with us and coming out tonight. So we're excited about that, as always, to have guests and visitors. We have a lot that come from different countries, and it's always fun to share cultures together. All right, we'll move on into, we do not have matters scheduled for our public hearings this evening, so we'll move on to our consent agenda items. This consists of minutes of the City Council meeting of Tuesday, August 4th, 2026. Item B is a revised capital project. budget ordinance. This is for the Lenore Valdez Water Interconnection Project. The recommendations for council to adopt the revised capital project budget ordinance for the Lenore Valdez Water Interconnection Project in the amount of $24,796,000 as submitted. Item C is the capital project budget ordinance. This is for the Lenore Fire Department. This is the Building Foundation Stabilization Project And a request is for the council to adopt the capital project budget ordinance for the North Fire Department Building Foundation stabilization project in the amount of $2,993,000 as submitted. And item D. is the design-build contract. This is for the Lenoir Fire Department Building Foundation. Stabilization recommendation is execution of the agreement between the owner and design builder on the basis of a stipulated price. This is an EJC DC Documents C-520-2018 with GEO Specialties LLC for design build services for the Lenore Fire Department Station Number 1 Building Foundation Stabilization Project related to stormwater repair with a total contract amount of $1 million $880,000. Following a thorough review and evaluation of vendor statement of qualifications submittals, Geo Specialties LLC was selected at the July 28, 2026 council meeting as the most qualified vendor to provide design build services for the project. All right, that is your consent agenda items A through D. I will open it up to council for any discussion, question, or motion when you're ready. Mr. Mayor, I'd like to make a motion that we approve except consent agenda items A through D. All right. A motion from Mayor Pro Tem Perkins that we approve the consent agenda items A through D as presented. No other question. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. All opposed.

Thank you. That carries unanimously.

Okay. Next on our agenda is request and petitions of any citizens. If there's anyone who would like to address the council, this is the time to do so. If you will, please come forward. Give us your name and address and please.

Serial number is all I give you.

That's whatever is fine.

We'll take it to give it to Steve Huntley, Basil Stephen Huntley and address nine 14 South view place, Lenore, North Carolina. Thank you.

Go right ahead.

Most of you I know have worked either with you or for you. But I've been having some really terrible visions in the last few years, all related to our country. And since I've retired, I've decided, particularly if it's with children, that that's where I have the most passion. For those that don't know, I've been a foster parent twice. Basically, family members with drug issues. That's why I moved back to town. But right now, we're going through an ICE issue. And I would like to request that the city council members make a statement of the fact that ICE is disruptive and a danger to our community. And I'll be glad to discuss why if you want to. But it's a place children going to concentration camps are not anything that you're not going to find me here yelling and screaming every day about. See, I get angry at it. I'm not angry at you. I'm angry that it's happening and that I have to live through it. It should have been gone by now. But now I've got to go out and fight for my grandchildren, my children, and the best of this country, not the worst of this country. And that, regretfully, is what I'm seeing. And I'm usually pretty good about this. I talked about our profession 15 or 20 years ago that it was going to die if we didn't do something about education. And what did they do? They just added more education to it. So it's sort of as a fraud, waste, and abuse auditor. I've been that for 50 years. That's a new term. But we called it A133 and single out it. And I look for fraud. I'm skeptical. My profession requires it. You know, I'd love to go right around here and ask each one of you what you think about the 2020 election. Was it fraudulent? That's the only way I can get a straight answer from a politician these days. They just... If anybody starts meowing, hawing about that answer, then they're just as good as saying, yeah, I believe it was fraudulent. Do y'all have any fraudulent elections in Caldwell County? Are you going to let ICE hang around here to mess with our voting? Because that's exactly what his partner and the state want. They're turning this county into a MAGA county. Our education system is losing students to private schools. And I don't mind private schools. But if you want your kid to go to private school, you pay for it. We need those tax dollars at the school system. And why it's getting moved off? The Republicans. Now, I was a Republican for 40 years because I was proud of them for what they did. during Watergate. But I am ashamed of them. I couldn't vote for the man I was the proudest of, John McCain. Why? Because he had that woman running on the ticket with him. And it's just gotten worse. I don't know where we're going. but I don't see anybody fighting for it as hard as it needs to be fought for. So I ask you to make a resolution. It's not binding. But I got to looking at this a second ago, and I was told I probably couldn't get a resolution, and now I kind of know why. You've got several million dollars coming in here over the next two or three years. I don't know where it's coming from. Coming from Raleigh? So now you're worried about whether our Secretary, our Speaker of the House, is going to jerk the money away from you because you vote against something that he's brought here? That makes me a little unhappy with you all, if that's your food. If it's not, make a resolution. Thank you all for your time.

Thank you. I sort of appreciate it. All right. Is there anyone else while we're in this time of talking with citizens? Anybody else that would like to address the council? All right. Seeing no one, thank you. We will move on then. We do not have any reports of our boards and commissions this evening, so we'll move on to the report and recommendations of our city manager, Mr. Hildebrandt.

The mayor canceled a couple of items for information this evening. Uh, this Thursday evening, we'll have the employee appreciation day. It's going to be held at the Lenore aquatic and fitness center from 5 37 30. It's a chance for you to come out and honor our employees and appreciate them for that day. We'll have a food and, uh, and swimming. So, uh, I hope you get to come out and celebrate our employees Friday night. We have a Friday night live concert featuring news at 11, which will be held on the down at the downtown stage from seven to 10 o'clock. Again, news at 11, and we'll have something probably on the city's Facebook page. You can go back and find out more about that band. The Committee of the Whole will meet on Tuesday, August 25th, 830 a.m., 3rd Floor City Hall, and the Foothills Airport Authority will meet on Wednesday, August 26th at noon at the airport. Tonight we have one item for council action, that is a vacate and closure ordinance for 397 Willow Street. Planning staff will request that council adopt a vacate and closure ordinance directing staff to abate the non-residential structure violations by vacating and securing the building located at 397 Willow Street. Hannah Williams, our planning director, is here if she wants to comment on this at all. You want to go back and, if you want to, to go back and kind of let council know what you're voting on. I do.

Yeah, to discuss 397 Willow Street and the vacate and close ordinance, Council has made the public safety and commercial corridor improvements a priority. The building at 397 Willow Street has formally been found unsafe and unfit for any use, with structural and fire hazards confirmed through inspection. The owner was given a administrative hearing and 90 days to comply, but the building remains unsecured and passing this ordinance will allow the city to legally secure the structure and post it as unfit for use and protect residents from ongoing safety issues. Willow Street is right between downtown, going through an industrial corridor and into the West End neighborhood. And having this structure with broken windows, open doors, siding falling off, it just, It doesn't align with the priority that we've set for that area. And so we find this ordinance necessary at this time.

Okay.

You've heard the vacating closure ordinance explanation from our plan director and the city manager. Any discussion or question concerning this?

What was the last business that occupied that building?

I wouldn't be able to say. If it wasn't Greer Labs, I don't know what it was.

And Mr. Mayor, I'd like to say something. I appreciate your work on this property. And as we have discussed in budget and things like that, the priorities, this is definitely a priority, not just for cleaning up the city and putting things back into service. But when I think about these properties, I really think about our fire and PD. because they have to go into these places sometimes and it's not a safe place for them to walk into. And especially if there's a fire and they got to go clear that building and it's already damaged. So I appreciate the work that your department does on this particular issue, not just because it's a priority in the regards of making the city a better place to live, putting things back into taxable service, but also protecting our other employees and what they do for a living. So thank you.

Thank you. Absolutely.

Any other comments, questions? When you're ready, then we'll entertain a motion concerning this ordinance.

Mr. Mayor, I make a motion that we approve this as presented.

I have a motion from Council Member Beal that we approve the vacate and closure ordinance for 397 Willow Street Northwest as presented by planning staff. No other discussion. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. All opposed. Thank you very much. Thank you, Hannah, for your work on that.

I'll mention we have several more coming before you in the next few weeks and months, so it's first of many.

Good.

Great. And that's all I have.

Okay.

Thank you.

All right. Any report from our city attorney?

No, sir.

Thank you. I do not have any report from the mayor's office other than we did talk about some things that we've been doing. We'd encourage our city leaders of the department heads and encourage everyone to come to our employee thing this week. I think it's great to all be together and be a part of it. It's just good for camaraderie and good feelings. So I'd encourage all of our employees to be there if they can. It's always a lot of fun to be a part of that. All right. Anything else from any of our council members that need to come up at all? If not, we're going to stand adjourned early tonight. How about that? Thank you, everybody, for being with us. We are adjourned.