City Council - Regular Meeting

Thank you. you

30 seconds.

Where is Robin's going away party at?

It's in Vail, North Carolina. Where? Vail. The town of Vail. The community of Vail. Between Hickory and Shelby. Here we go. All right, everybody ready? Good evening and welcome to the City Council meeting of the City of Lenoir for Tuesday, September the 1st, 2026. We welcome you here this evening. Thank you for coming out and those that will be joining us on our broadcast. Today is a very special day. September 1st, 19 years ago, the greatest football game in the world was won in Michigan. At least I get to say that on it, but it was 19 years ago today, and I was there, so it was a great time for sure. to be for that. And also another special day on September 1st. This would have been my parents' 88th wedding anniversary today. So I wish they were here to celebrate it. But anyway, I know they are in heaven together. So that's great on that. So thank you for that. As we go to our time of moment of silence and our Pledge of Allegiance, please keep our country and all the things that we have going on. There's all kind of... deals out there right now that we need to pray for and let people know that we're thinking about so many things and there's just so much out there right now that's happening in our world. So please pray for our community and all the things that are happening that we can certainly say good things about whenever we can. So please now join me for a moment of silence. Thank you. We 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. We get started tonight. We do not have matters scheduled for public hearings this evening, so we'll move on to our consent agenda items consisting of six items on here. Item A are the minutes of the city council meeting of Tuesday, August 18th, 2026. Item B are the minutes of the Committee of the Whole meeting of Tuesday, August 25, 2026. Item C are the minutes of the closed session meeting of Tuesday, August 25, as reviewed by the City Council, our City Attorney, and the City Manager. Item D is the capital project budget ordinance for Lenore High School campus capital project. This is phase one, approval of a capital project budget ordinance to authorize activities for phase one of the renovations to the Lenore High School campus, as we refer to it as the campus. The project will be funded by a rural transformation grant from North Carolina Commerce, two direct appropriations from the North Carolina General Assembly, community development block grant funding, private donations, local funding, and funds from the Lenoir Tourism Development Authority. The recommendation to the City Council is adopt this project budget ordinance for Lenoir High School Campus Project Phase 1 in the amount of $6,070,808.54 as submitted. Item E is this is an ordinance for amendments relating to Chapter 9. This is the flood damage prevention of the Lenore Code of Ordinances. The amendments to the flood damage prevention ordinance come came before or come before the council for consideration following the first reading on June 16, 2026, and the public hearing on August the 4th of 2026. Recommendation is approval of the ordinance amendments as submitted. And item F is a resolution. This is an amendment of the resolution accepting newly constructed extension on Prince William Drive for city maintenance GTE Construction and Realty has built 116 feet of Prince William Drive to the city street standards. And the recommendation is the resolution be accepted as submitted. Those are items A through F for the consent agenda items. And I will open it up for council for any discussion, motion. And I don't know, Hannah, did you have anything else you wanted to say to it at all? Or if you don't need to, that's fine. We'd be referring to item E, I think.

Sure, yes. I'm referring to item E, the flood damage prevention ordinance. Participation in the NFIP flood plain, flood damage prevention ordinance, it is voluntary, but it enables cheaper flood insurance for your constituents, as well as disaster assistance, post events, post flooding events. And our ordinance, it must be approved by the state, which is why we typically adopt the model, which is provided by the state. And it's very similar to many communities around. So that's what I wanted to say.

Thank you.

You have any questions for me?

Any questions for Hannah? And that is, Hannah is our planning director for the city. I should have just said that before, but anyway, thank you. It has been working on this part of it for that item E. Okay, I'll come back to council. If you have any questions of Hannah, please ask now or not. I'll turn it over to you for any motion considering the consent agenda items as presented.

Mr. Mayor, I'd like to make a motion that we approve the consent agenda items A through F as stated.

Okay. We have a motion from Council Member Stevens that we approve the consent agenda items A through F as presented. No other comments? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. All opposed? Thank you. That's 5-0 tonight. So we're missing two council members tonight that had... some things that came up. Thank you for that. All right, we will now move to on our agenda to request the petitions of any citizens. If there's anyone here that would like to address the council concerning anything that we're talking about tonight or anything else that you would like to consider, please come forward to the podium and give us your name and address and we will try to talk about it. Yes, sir.

Hi there. I'm Josh Lammy, 112 Glendale Street, Lenora, North Carolina. I've lived here since 88. Today, I just know we have a fair amount of concerned residents, myself being one of them. I did see on the agenda today that you were doing an abatement at the address WHERE THE HISTORIC THEATER, THE CENTER THEATER IS LOCATED, WHICH IS A NATIONALLY REGISTERED HISTORIC BUILDING. I WAS JUST WONDERING, YOU KNOW, WHAT IS THE PRIMARY GOAL? IS THAT TO BE RENOVATED HOPEFULLY OR IS IT JUST TO BE DEMOLISHED OR DO YOU HAVE ANY PLANS FOR IT OR ANYTHING AT ALL?

Yeah, we do have it addressed that it will be coming up on the agenda, and that will be discussed when we get to that point on that. Okay. Any other questions?

Not today.

Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. Anyone else that would like to address the council? Okay, thank you. We'll move on. We do not have any reports of our boards and commissions, so we'll move on to the report and recommendations of our city manager, Mr. Hildebrand.

Mayor, council, couple items for information this evening. You've got coming up this weekend, you've got the Carolina Tattoo and Arts Gathering will be held Friday, September 4th through Sunday, September 6th. That'll be held at the Harper Room, and that's located at 1016 Harper Avenue Northwest. Monday, of course, is the Labor Day holiday, so city office will be closed. The Economic Development Advisory Committee will be meeting on Tuesday, September 8th at 8.15 a.m., and that's going to be held at J. Boyle Hill Civic Center. Then you have Lenora Business Advisory Board will meet on September 10th. That's Thursday at 6 o'clock, 3rd floor City Hall. Then coming up is the 40th Annual Sculptural Celebration, which will be held on Saturday, September 12th from 9 to 4 at T.H. Boyle Hill Walking Park. Also, you've got a city County service committee meeting on Monday, September 14th, and that's going to be held at noon at J Hebrew Hill civic center. Uh, the planning board will meet on Monday, September 14th at five 30 in these chambers. And lastly, the ABC board will meet on Thursday, September 17th at two o'clock. And that's items for information. If there's any questions, I'll excuse me, move on to items for council consideration. Any questions? Mr. Hill brand.

Okay. Thank you.

Your first item tonight for consideration is an abatement ordinance for 507 Finley Avenue. City staff requests adoption of an ordinance directing staff to abate the non-residential structure for building violations by demolishing the structure. Again, that's at 507 Finley Avenue. The subject structure is unsafe for any use and attempts to achieve owner abatement have been unsuccessful. and that's before you tonight, and Planning Director Williams is here, and she can comment further. I think in your packet you've got photos of the structure and attempts that have been made to go back and correct the problems with that building. And I'll try to answer questions, or Ms. Williams can as well. It's mostly just walls. It's mainly just walls left, yes. There's not much left. It's open to the elements, yes.

All right, you heard a consideration for the abatement ordinance for 507 Findlay Avenue. Any other discussion at all? I'll entertain a motion whenever you're ready.

Mr. Mayor, I make a motion we approve the abatement as presented.

Okay, I have a motion from Council Member Beal that we approve the abatement ordinance for 507 Findlay Avenue as presented by city staff. No other questions or comments. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. All opposed. Thank you. Mr. Hildebrand.

The next item before you. is an ordinance to vacate and close 1011 West Avenue Northwest. Planning staff requests council adopt the vacate and closure ordinance, directing staff to abate the non-residential structure violations by vacating and securing the building located at 1011 West Avenue. The city, over the last several months, has met with the property owners, attempted to go back and get the building secured. because it's unsafe and after a period of 90 days and with no corrective action they're requesting this ordinance be adopted this evening I know plan director Williams can speak to that because she's worked on this for several months but the intent is not to go back and demolish the building, the intents to go back and secure the building, make it safe, and hopefully in the next year, two years, month, that work begins to go back and renovate and bring that building back into productive reuse. But I'll let Ms. Williams speak on to that, the process so far.

Hey there. Yes. 1011 West Avenue. We are requesting this ordinance to vacate and close the building. Vacate and close means make sure that nobody is in there or staying in there and to close it so that no one can access it. It's also to make sure any immediate dangers over public space, public sidewalk, anything that could Harm the public by brushing up against it like broken glass Make sure that all of those are secured there have been attempts to close the building. We just want to make sure that Everything is closed about it And there appears to be a gap at the top that we want to make sure is secure to make sure that that marquee is also secure If do you have any questions in particular about this property?

Obviously we want to see this usable at some at some point you know that's where i always been the goal of that but it's got to be made safe at this point until we can get to that level is what yeah absolutely um i believe everybody in lenore wants to see productive use at this property active use at this property we believe that

The building is an asset to downtown. It was part of the reason why the National Register Historic District was expanded in 2013, this building kind of being pretty iconic to downtown Lenoir and West Avenue. And we just want to make sure that it is safe. This ordinance does not prevent repairs to the building. It doesn't prevent the owners from making repairs to the building. It doesn't prevent transfer of the property. So it's just step one in the right direction.

Try to keep it safe as we can for anybody out there. All right. Any other questions for council? All right. I will turn it over to council for any, if you have comments, questions, or whenever you're ready for a motion on it.

Mr. Mayor, I think as a longtime Lenore resident and having seen Star Wars in that theater for the first time, whenever it came out, I remember that quite vividly. Love to see this property and all of our properties in uptown Lenore back into service. That's really the goal of all of these ordinances is safety, but hopefully to get things back into service. So this does allow some time for the property owner to to find the right path for the building. So I make a motion that we approve the ordinance to vacate and close the property for safety reasons as much as anything else. OK. Thank you. Any other comments before we go to the motion?

All right. We have a motion from Councilmember Beall that we approve the ordinance to vacate and close for 1011 West Avenue Northwest. as we hope it will continue to move forward from this, but we want to make it safe. So, if nothing else, I'll call for the vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. All opposed? Thank you. That carries unanimously. Thank you very much. Thank you, Hannah, for your work on this and your staff and for what's going on there. All right, we'll move on to report recommendations. Our city attorney, Mr. Ward.

Nothing to report, sir.

Okay. And I don't have anything from the mayor's office this time to report. Like say we have a lot of good things coming up over the next few weeks. And I hope it will come out and support them tattoo gathering. I don't forget not one number we're all there that's been coming. It's been a quite a few. But it's always a fun event in downtown Lenore and they enjoy being able to come here and be a part of it. So and then next weekend is the Arts Council. Sculpture. Sculpture Fest. Thank you. Sculpture Fest. So I hope everyone can come out to that. That's always, and that's been around for quite a number of years. 40. 40. That's right. 40 years.

One more thing, Mayor Joe, is the Happy Valley Music Festival is coming up this weekend. Okay. That's right. That's, I think, always a great event.

It is. That's another thing that's been around for a long time. So a lot of fun things happening in September. So anyway, I hope everybody can get out and be a part of that any way they can. Any reports from any of our council members? Come up. Okay, seeing none. Any of our staff, anything else you want to throw out while we're here? Thank you. If not, we stand adjourned.