City Council - Regular Meeting

Testing. Testing.

I guess we'll go ahead and call into order. We'll go ahead and call the meeting to order and welcome everyone here but have Reverend Gillespie to lead us in prayer. Everyone please stand up. Thank you.

Thank you Mayor. Here's a little scripture that I wanted to read, just one verse from the book of Proverbs. And it says these words, and I thank the mayor for just inviting me to pray. But it said, a nation that exalteth righteousness proclaims the goodness of God. That's from the book of Proverbs, and I just wanted to say that. May we pray. Our Father and our God, we thank thee for this day. We thank you for your son, Jesus, who died on Calvary's cross that we might have a right to the tree of life. Now, Father God, we enter this chamber to do the business of this city. We pray, O God, for our mayor. We pray for our city councilman. We pray for our city attorney. We pray for our city manager. God, we pray for our city clerk. We pray for our police chief, Mr. Carl Moore, who's done such an outstanding and wonderful job. God, we thank you for him, God. We thank you for his staff, and God, We thank you for all these people who have gathered here tonight to witness democracy in action. Teach us, O God, that we are a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. Teach us all to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with our God. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Welcome again. Thank you, Tom. At this time, we'll have public comments first. Anyone like to speak, just step to the podium and state your name and what you'd like to talk about, please. Anyone here like to say anything about anything going on in town or whatever? There have been no public comments at this time. If anyone has a public comment, you can go to the podium now if you'd like, if you want to. If you don't, there will be no time for it. This is the only time we have public comments for tonight. All right. No public comments. We're going to the next item on the agenda, adoption of the agenda for this meeting.

I make a motion to adopt the agenda. Second.

Any discussion? All in favor? Thank you. City managers, June 24th to July 9th report. I'm sorry. Approval minutes first. My eye is still badly losing. Approval minutes of July 14th to 26th.

On the motion, we approve the minutes from 7-14-2026.

Second. Any discussion? All in favor? Thank you. You know, thank you. Now, city managers report from June 24th to July 9th.

Mayor, that was just part of the minutes included from last month.

OK. All right. Then the resolution tonight, I'm going to let Mr. Goode read that on the celebration of the Threads of Freedom.

Sure.

Rob, would you like to come in?

So we're going to recognize you and the mayor for your threads of freedom

and this is a resolution acknowledging and celebrating the threads of Freedom Mural, whereas public art plays a vital role in enhancing the visual landscape of our community, fostering civic pride and celebrating our shared American heritage, and whereas the United States of America celebrated its 250th anniversary of independence, a historic milestone that inspires reflection on our nation's foundational principles of liberty and unity, whereas a new public mural titled Threads of Freedom has been successfully completed at the rear of the Lowell Police Department, and whereas this artwork was created by local artist Rob Massey, whose vision and exceptional talent has brought the wall to life, and whereas the creation of this landmark This project was proudly sponsored and championed by Mayor Larry Simons, demonstrating a steadfast commitment to community beautification and historic preservation, whereas the theme, The Threads of Freedom, mural beautifully honors the city of Lowell's unique history, deep-rooted patriotism, and community pride, weaving together the historic fabric of our past with the bright promise of our future. Now therefore, be it resolved by the City Council of Lowell, North Carolina, hereby officially recognize and thank Mary Larry Simons for his sponsorship in the artistry of Rob Massey to create the Threads of Freedom mural for all of Lowell, North Carolina to enjoy this landmark as one to be proud of. Adopted this 11th day of August 2022.

Rob Matthew is a true, true, true loyal citizen. We love him to death. And Rob, this is way beyond the college unit. To get out there on the 163 days against that brick wall and do what you did, we talked about it. There's no way we could imagine it being as beautiful as it is and how talented you are. Thank you. And the people of Appalachia State, I'm sure they're proud of you. We need to send all this stuff across the whole country, let people know that we have an artist. And listen, this gentleman had an original thought. He drew the thing. He painted it. And now it's on that wall forever. And all it might need someday is maybe some touch-up or whatever. But his family, his children, his mom, his dad, all of them from Lowell, his grandmother and grandfather looking down, the old last magistrate we had, The lady ran the ice cream place in the drug store as a child, and what a brilliant lady she was, and what a wonderful lady, and what a wonderful family you have. And you exhibited 100% in all matters, Robbie. I'm so proud. I call him Robbie. I don't know how to say this. Anyway, Robbie, I'm sorry, but I appreciate you, and God bless you, and thank you for everything you did. I'm so proud of you and the whole town. Thank you.

Rob, we'll get you a framed copy of the resolution.

OK? Yes, sir.

I appreciate it.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. All right. And the next thing is the resolution and knowledge. Oh, wait a minute. We had a vote on that other resolution. I'm sorry. Need a motion to adopt that other resolution. Sorry. The one we just had. Need a motion to adopt.

I make a motion. We accept the resolution and proclamation for Robbie Massey.

Okay, have a second? Second. Any discussion? All in favor? Thank you. Thank you again. All right. Our next item is going to be acknowledging our retiring police chief tonight. What a wonderful person he is. I tell you, it's kind of a happy, sad time, you know, to see, you know, things that come into our lives and have to see someone leave as gifted and talented as you are, Mr. Carl Moore. We love you, and we're going to miss you. And whatever you do in life is just going to go with you forever and ever, and you'll always have a loyal look back. I kid Carl all the time when he first hired him, We had to borrow money from Mace, because he'd mace anyone on here. But as he's gone and come on to be our chief and everything, and everyone's so proud of him. And anyone that would like to speak at this time on behalf of Carl Moore, anyone have any police officer, anyone that worked with him, would like to say something, we'd love to hear from you now. Anyone would like to speak.

I just want to thank Carl for his leadership. His commitment to the citizens of Loyola. And I appreciate everything he's done for me over my 22-year career. We love you, Chief. We love you, brother. Anyone else?

Everybody come in, please. And anyone else like to speak, you're welcome to.

Mayor, I do have a letter that I'd like to read for you.

That's fine. We'll just take care of this right now and let these guys come in if they've got anything to say. Because they've worked with him all these years. We know how wonderfully he's been here a long time. Came up through the ranks to become chief. All right. Okay, we'll go ahead and do the resolution. Then we'll have some time for you all to speak if you'd like. Let's do the resolution first. Go ahead.

All right, this is for... Chief Moore's service weapon, whereas the City of Lowell is seeking to acknowledge the Carl M. Moore, Police Chief of the City of Lowell Police Department as a devoted member of the City of Lowell Police Department, and whereas the Glock 45 model service weapon with serial number BTYB805 It was carried by Carl Moore, shall be declared surplus, and presented to him for his 30 years in law enforcement and over 26 years of dedicated work with the Lowell Police Department. Now, therefore, it be resolved, City Council of the City of Lowell as follows. The City of Lowell supports the City of Lowell Police Department in acknowledging that Carl M. Moore, retiring September 1st, 2026 as a police officer the city of lowell police department was a devoted member of the city of lowell police department the city of lowell supports the city of lowell police department in seeking that the block model 45 service weapon with its serial number btyb 805 carried by carl and more be declared surplus and presented to him for his years of dedicated work in the city of Lowell Police Department. This resolution adopted on the 11th day of August 2026.

I need a motion to adopt this resolution.

Make a motion we accept the resolution number RSO3-2026. Second.

Any discussion? All in favor? Thank you. Now if anyone would like to speak, Carl has his family here. If you'd like to say something, you're welcome to.

I don't have anything prepared, but I can say that I thank God for letting me take it these years. It keeps me safe, and I appreciate my family, my wife, my son, for putting up with me not being able to be home all the lonely nights and all that stuff. I appreciate the city of Loyola for... allowed me to be a place officer here for all that long. I appreciate all my partners. I met a lot of good friends and a lot of good people over the years. I appreciate these men out there.

they're my crew everybody people people in sheriff's department county police everyone even the highway patrol they send their best regards for you we talked to a lot of people during this time when you're retiring and they just wanted me to pass along how much they all respect you and how much they all love you and before you leave i got something for you i can give it to you now because you don't work here no more come here This is $250, and it isn't going to give you $250. It's called the 250th year celebration for a loyal car. Come here. And you take your family out to eat, and you take your daddy with you. God bless you. I love you. There you go.

Mayor, I have something I'd like to share with Chief Moore as well.

Go ahead.

Chief Moore, as I write this, I realize I've only had the privilege of serving alongside you for a short time. Thirty days is hardly enough to fully appreciate a career that has spanned decades of service, leadership, and sacrifice. Yet is it... been more than enough time to recognize the respect you've earned and impact that you've made. Law enforcement is a calling that asks so much of those who answer it. It demands courage when others hesitate, steady judgment when emotions run high, and a willingness to place the needs of others above your own. Throughout your career, you have accepted those responsibilities with dedication and professionalism. Retirement marks the end of a career, but not the end of your influence. The officers you've mentored, the lives you've touched, and the example you've set will continue long after you turn in your badge. On behalf of the city of Lowell, thank you for your faithful service, your leadership, and your commitment to protecting this community. We're grateful for all you've given. May the next chapter bring joy, rest, and the same sense of purpose that you've given so generously to others. Congratulations and thank you for a lifetime of service.

If anyone would like to speak you're welcome to at this time anyone like to say anything we appreciate it

Can we all come over here?

I don't think the room's big enough.

Everybody smile. All right, I took about seven.

That ought to be one good one in there.

Anyone like to speak before you leave, you're welcome to. We're glad to have all the visitors, too, to come support Carl. We appreciate that.

I have to say, he's my son-in-law.

I believe you got a good one. I believe you got a grandson right there. He's something else, isn't he? The whole family, we appreciate all of him. We appreciate you letting us borrow Carl all these years, I tell you. He'll enjoy retirement. And that's the way to go out, too, is being happy.

Chief Moore, as just a citizen, not as a city councilman, but I want to say that you... are one of the best law enforcement officers that I have ever met in my life. Not only did you uphold the law, but you did it with compassion and mercy. And I just thank God for you because I don't know who the next police chief will be. I have no idea. But I do know that he needs to follow in your footsteps because as I pray, do justice. These are not just words. To love mercy and to walk humbly with our God, that's what you have done. A lot of people are snarby, snarkish, and stupid. But you are wise. As Mr. City Manager said, you are respectful and you've shown leadership. And I will certainly miss you. But I know that the next police chief comes. He's got some great shoes to fill. And I love you. I want you to know that. Thank you. Thank you, Carl.

Chief Carl, I just want to say the same thing. Thank you for all your dedication to the city. Thank you for keeping the city safe. Thank you for your guidance, your being a mentor, just all the years of service, the great police department you've built, and thank you for all of your officers, and I hope you enjoy your retirement.

Thank you again. All right. The next item on the agenda is going to be the consent agenda.

I'll make a motion to approve the consent agenda.

Second. Any discussion? All in favor? Thank you. The next item is going to be the presentation of the Gaston County Tax Office regarding tax pre-appraisal of EU material on a new business.

We've invited the Gaston County Tax Office tonight to counsel the residents here directly about the 25-7 pre-appraisal. Ms. Chelsea Tarbush is going to be here and I'll turn it over to you.

Thank you. I'm Chelsea Torres. I'm the Gaston County Tax Director. Thank you all for having us tonight. We are here just to provide some general updates for the 2027 reappraisal. We have a bunch of information that we've passed out to the council, but we'll also be glad to pass out along the citizens as well. Natalie Pacehour is our reappraisal administrator. She is going to come up and do our presentation, and then we'll take any questions at the end.

Thank you. Thank you, Chelsea.

Hit the button. Okay. So this is just an overview of just some statistics we have. So we've had a 21% increase in population since 2010. So we have seen a lot of growth and we at this point roughly have 117 parcels in Gaston County. So the reason we do a reappraisal is North Carolina general statutes state that we have to do one at least once every eight years. Our board of commissioners adopted in 2015 that we do a four year cycle. And that's what a lot of counties are doing now. So in 2015, we started a four year, which is how we ended up on 27. How are properties assessed? So there are physical characteristics and non-physical characteristics. Some of the physical characteristics looked at is the size and location of the land, the building size, age, and condition, the property type and the way that the property is used, and then any additions or improvements such as a pool, a shed, a garage. non physical characteristics, just market data and sales data. When property sale, and then income and cost comes from income producing properties. So our tax rate and your tax value are separate. The tax rate is set based on the budget and the tax base. So When the Board of Conditioners is setting a tax rate, they view how much money is needed for the budget and then the total value of property in the county. And that's how they set their tax rate. The tax rate is then used with your property value to calculate your tax bill, but they are separate. And then this is just a chart to show you that the tax base with your tax rate equals the revenue based on the county's needs and property values. And then revenue neutral just takes the total amount of property tax revenue collected about the same after reappraisal. So should revenue neutral just means you're not it's not raising or falling any. All right. Communication plan. We have this QR code over here. You can visit our website in there. You'll have fun videos, different documents, anything about our 27 reappraisal. We do have some more public meetings scheduled. There are some video presentations. But if you know of anywhere that wants a presentation or anybody that would like one, churches, schools, you know, whatever, we'd be happy to do that. And here's a list of some that we already have scheduled. So in two weeks, we'll be in Bessemer City. And then we've got a few in September and in October. And then this is just a map of our areas, the township areas in the county. Okay, so this is one of the statistics we use when valuing properties ratio study is used to measure the level of assessment. And this graph down here shows you each gray bar is a month and that's how many sales were in that month and then where your median ratio falls. We plan to be at 100% of market value as of our reappraisal date, which is January 1st of 2027. But this is just a little diagram of those ratios by the months. Okay, so these are some sales that we received for our last reappraisal, and then these are what we're going into 27 with. So you can see that we do have quite a lot of sales to view, which helps us come up with our market data to value properties. We have it looks like almost, you know, almost 4,023 over 4,024 and 25. So we have plenty of data to review when setting values. And then these are some of our public facing tools. If you go to our website, Gaston gov.com and then go under tax, you can find all these websites. Spatialists, you can search your property. It gives you a lot of information on your individual property. You can look up your neighbor's property if you want to see you know, the comparison there. DevNet wedge is kind of the same thing, but there's a few different tools. It also gives you a diagram of the map. community does more sales base, it gives you a lot of statistics as well. You can find a lot of the same information on these websites, but each one of them does a little different. orthos is our aerials. We have flights that take imagery and so you can view your property and any property in the county with that. And then this is a comparable sales report. So you can use it and you can enter your address and then find homes around you that have sold to see if your value aligns with what people are paying for properties like yours. So it's a really good tool if you want to see if yours falls in line with what people are paying. So if you get your reappraisal notice in 27 and you disagree with the value that the county has placed on it, you can file an appeal. For reappraisal years, we start with an informal appeal. So you would just call, and then you would come in and speak with one of our appraisers. We would take another look at it. You would let us know if there's anything that we missed or something that might be on the inside that we don't see. And then we'll make a decision from there. You'll get another letter. And if you still disagree with that, we will schedule you an appointment with the Board of Equalization and Review. And they are a separate board. They're appointed by the county commissioners. And then you will come in and you will present your evidence to them. And then they will make their decision. If you still disagree, there are higher ways that you can go. But there is always an option and you can appeal your property every year. It doesn't have to be a reappraisal year to appeal. So you do have the option every year. All right. Things to remember, one of three things can occur when you file an appeal. The value can stay the same. It could increase or it could decrease. And that just means if there's something on your property that we didn't have listed, And once you appeal, we realize we don't. And then we listed it could increase. But it could do the opposite. If we have something listed that you no longer have, if you filled in your pool, removed the shed, and we still have that listed, once we remove that, it would decrease. So those are the three things that can happen when you file an appeal. And then you'll just receive your notice by mail. And then you can move forward if you still disagree. So the next few slides are a few of the programs that we have, starting with the present use value assessment program. This is for farmland that's in production. We have three different categories. If you fall under these categories, and it's a farm that produces income. It's a deferred tax program. So you're paying on the land as it is now, not the market value. But if you were to come out of the program, you would pay back taxes. Those taxes are just deferred. So there is that option. If you want to if you know anyone or you want to call in and see if you qualify, there is that option. And these are some of our exclusions. We have a homestead exclusion 65 years or older or permanently and totally disabled. There is an income requirement, which is 38,800 for the whole family. But if you or you know someone that meets those qualifications, it is 25% or no. Yeah, 25,000 or 50%, whichever is greater that comes off the tax value that you would be paying taxes on. disabled veterans. It's 100% disabled service connected. There is no income requirement for this one or age. You would just have to have the letter from the VA, but it is a $45,000 reduction on your tax value. And then the circuit breaker, we don't have very many at all. It's a I don't know how you describe it. If you fall within these limitations, the top one is zero to 38, eight. It's a 4% of your income is taxed, correct? Just 4%. But we like to tell people that if you fall within that and meet these qualifications, you're probably better off just applying for the homestead. It's the middle section here, the 38801 to 58200, which is 5% that most people would maybe use this for. But like I said, we don't have a lot of those. And that was also a deferral. So the taxes are just deferred. Okay. And this is how you can reach us. You can come visit us at our building. You can email us or you can call us if you have any questions about anything. We're open Monday through Friday, 830 to 5, and we try to respond to emails as best as we can, and we always answer the phones. Anyone have any questions?

Yes. Chelsea, what's the total value of Gaston County? We pay the property tax on for the whole county. What's the total amount for the entire county? the top of my head i don't know i thought maybe you'd have it on your community i don't not with me i don't have it um are you wanting just real property or you want all classifications automobiles the whole nine yards and this is this is where this is where everything gets so messed up not because you chelsea you do a good job you you're feeling you're following some great footsteps up there thank you sir we love you to death and every time i've ever called you ask you anything you've always been up front and i appreciate it we got a hell of a excuse my language we got a problem as far as this re-evaluation issue, because we've got the war going on, the taxes, you know, gas tax and gas itself, and taxes on groceries and the groceries itself. So this is one time that we really need to, the whole county needs to bite the bullet. We've got the sorriest county commission, I don't give a flip, I know you work for them, but I'm just telling you, they're the sorriest group of people we've ever had up there. They don't know they're above a hole in the ground, that's the truth. And they keep on setting this tax rate at 59 cents. Can you imagine that? 59 cents, and listen to this. This lottery deal, you remember the lottery came out, all this money going to go to the schools and all this thing. If you get a call right now and find out from the state of North Carolina how much they're paying in advertising for these idiots to get on and advertise the lottery, that's where the money goes, is advertising the lottery. The kids don't get anything. You see what a dilemma you have in the county right now with kids. They can't get their autism children and all the things that's going on in the county. They sit up there and they just turn their nose up in the air. They don't have a clue as to what's going on. And my council here, they work hard. We cut our tax rate to 35.5 cents out of respect for every citizen in this town because it had to be done. Because re-evaluation, they turned their nose up, didn't cut it nothing, and we had to bite the bullet. But thank God they got elected. And the tax rate went down to 35 and a half cents. I give praise where praise is due. And I give a kick in the hind end where it really needs it. And our county commission up here, they don't represent no one in this county, not even themselves. They're the dumbest people in the world. How can you sit there and raise your own taxes? That's the dumbest people in the entire United States of America. to raise your own taxes. And look at your neighbors and say, well, it's okay. We know you don't need that kind of money. And look at the millions of dollars they're spending for ambulances and things like that. It's just, everything's off the chain. We've got to reel it back in, or we're going to be just like Connecticut. All these people moving down here from up north, I don't care where you're from. They move down here and they put all this junk on us because up there, a four-room house, an 800-square-foot house, It's $11,000 a year for property taxes. If you don't believe me, look it up. And all the way up to Massachusetts, Vermont, all the way up to New York and all that stuff, people apparently don't even own nothing. They don't want to own anything. Just like the people here, they're better off to rent than they are to own because all they gotta do is cut the grass, the landlord's gonna take care of everything else. But it's not supposed to be like that. And when I was growing up, started a family, the first thing you wanna do is own a home and have something. Now your house holds you hostage. So we need to reverse this thing and let the house release you to where you can enjoy your home, right? Chelsea, you're smart. If you were our county commissioner, we wouldn't have a problem. But you work for them, and I don't want to cause you any problem. I'm speaking for me. And they are the sorriest bunch that's ever gathered on a throne anywhere in the United States of America at any time. They have no clue. And that one guy up there, I think he's finally coming. I forget his name. I think he's in the landscape business. But he's making some sense. Because all these years of, you know, like all this money they give all these companies that come in here out of the blue, don't even own a Coca-Cola on their own, but the government gives them free assets as far as we give them tax breaks and things like that. If you take all that out of the equation, listen, and make them pay their fair share, our tax rate would probably be 35, 40 cents for the county. But we have to take our money to subsidize them. And that's what's wrong, and that's what you need to take back to them. And listen, appraisers are a dime a dozen, and right now we're in a dilemma as far as what are things really worth? What are they really worth? What can you sell it for? Interest rates are what, 7%? I don't know, it's around 7% or something. But as interest rates keep climbing, you're going to have another 2009. It's going to be so bad that there's no way to recover. Eliminate these dummies coming from up north down here to tell us what to do down south. We know how to take care of our homes. We know how to take care of our family. We know how to pay our bills. We know how to maintain our property. But take that back to them and tell them what the mayor of Loyola said. Get off your derriere and do what's right. And I go to the meetings and tell them the same thing. Get off your derriere. Rise to the occasion. Do like my old coach said. Rise to the occasion and make things happen. You can't sit on your butt. You're going to get your butt beat. But anyway, God bless you. And any citizen out here have any comments for them to take back to the powers that be? Go ahead.

Yes, ma'am. I'm not sure I can talk about this. You're welcome to. I have two questions.

So if you go to the DevNet Wedge program, and I don't know if there's an internet connection here. If I can hook up to a laptop, I'll be happy to walk you through that process. But do you all have a laptop I can hook up to, or can I hook my laptop?

Who's in HR? Can you help her get... She's going to get where she can.

Can I hook all that top up to the internet or do y'all have the internet where I can hook it up and show them where to look for the property record cards just by going to the Gaston County website?

This is where I'm looking for the actual footprint of the house. Yes, ma'am. Years back, I was able to access it online. Then they took it all away, so now you can put it back on.

Yes, ma'am, we did. So we had a... I have a laptop if I can hook up.

Well, it's on your website.

Yeah, so if you go to DevNetWedge, if you go to gasandgov.com and you click on actually pay your taxes, it's on one of the main buttons on every, on the main page in our page. If you hit pay your taxes, you can search by your name, your parcel number, your address. And then once you go there, um you'll click on that and on the right hand side they'll be able you can scroll down but there'll be a list of things now you'll also want to go to the year so it's going to default to the current year but if you want to go backwards you can um and you can so right now you can see the 26 property record cards that are out there but you can there's a drop down you can go back in here to see if there's changes or what changes remain but all the way towards the bottom of the right hand side you will see um i don't know if it says prc or if it actually says property record it says printing prc okay it says printing prc if you click on that it will open that in another window to an adobe and it'll be front and back and you can print it just like you used to be able to print it the condition of the property is as to average or yes ma'am all of that okay second question um let's just say someone buys a property in december of this year december 2026.

It's an arm's length transaction, fair market value. How does that impact you folks in determining the fair market value of that property as of January 1st? Do you take the sales figure and you do something else?

So we will have our schedule of values. What we do is we review sales and other market data to come up with a schedule of values. Those will be presented to the Board of County Commissioners later this month. And then we apply that schedule to the property. And we have a base property. It's a 1,500 square foot brick ranch, three bedroom, two bathroom crawl space. is your base property. And anything above that or below that, there's adjustments that are made. So that's how we will value that property. We do not go based off the sale price, but we do analyze sales as a way to look at market data, which is That is the market. When we say appraised property at 100% of the market per statute, the market is what properties are selling for.

So you're looking at it in its entirety. Yes, ma'am. You don't double back and look and see, like, okay, we valued this property in its entirety at $185,000. Well, that's too low these days. Let's say $185,000, but they bought it for $225,000. That would have no bearing.

That wouldn't. We would look at... what our values are, what market is, and we're doing it on mass. So you have to look at the difference. So you've got fee appraisal and then you've got mass appraisal. We do not do fee appraisal. We do mass appraisal for property taxation purposes. And so we are looking at like properties, similar properties in neighborhoods, and then we're appraising them in groups is what we're doing.

Do you ever run an error? Because I've seen this in the past and it's puzzling. Do you ever run reports as to... Yes, ma'am. Yes. All the time. Yeah, all the time.

And it'll actually, the report we have will actually give us our ratio to make sure that we fall within the state standards for those sales.

What is your standard? It's 85 to 115. So you have to be above 85 or between 85 and 115. If you go above 115 or you fall below 85%, then we, because of the population in Gaston County, will receive a letter from North Carolina Department of Revenue requiring us to do a reappraisal. Okay, so that's your range. yes ma'am and we're on right now we're at about 86 percent three years after our last reappraisals so we have not received so you're going to go above 150 higher than the last no so 115 percent above market now and then 85 that's the ranges so 15 above 15 below is the ranges for a department of revenue is there a way to show your property as to what that percentage is between that range so these tools if you go to the compa report the sales comparison report this if you go here you can put in your property it'll tell you what we have your property is at a base price and then it'll also give you other properties that have also sold you can see what those properties have sold for you can see the differences in those properties to yours this will automatically set you can see if y'all don't mind we'll show you right here you can automatically see right here that we've got some criteria already set. If you have a property and it doesn't return, then you can change that criteria. You can change that sale date. You can look as much as you want. This is...

Right. I'm familiar with that. What I'm saying is that when you do the revaluation and you have that range of 85%, can I find out where my house is? Is that at 95%? Is it at 105%?

I mean, yeah, you'll take your assessed value, and you can do the math on that. We don't do it for each individual property. We do it normally based on neighborhoods because, again, we're doing it in mass. But, yes, you can do that. John's right behind you.

He's going to answer a question. I'd say if it's sold recently, then you can use the ratio. If it hasn't, then it's important to use a time adjustment to turn it to the current market standards. So if you bought your house in the 70s, let's say, and you compare it to the assessed value today, it's not going to be the same. It's not going to be the same. It's not going to be the same.

looking at properties that are sold in my neighborhood, adjusting it for like siding versus brick, square footage. That will. That's I guess something new.

And if yours hasn't. If yours hasn't sold recently, but your neighbor's is very similar, and your values are close, you can do the ratio on theirs. And then that'll maybe give you close to a percentage of yours. Because if yours is like theirs and y'all's are valued similarly, you can do it based off their sale price and their value. And that'll kind of give you an idea. Can someone add to Jeff?

Let's say in 2029. Do you increase the value at that point or does that just roll into the next $3,000?

So it's anything that's on the property as of January 1st of each year. Yeah, so if you build it on February 1st, it wouldn't be taxed until the next coming year.

but it would be based on the last reappraisal values which would be the j so if you built it in 29 it would be valued based on the january 1st 2027 values so for that four years that schedule of values that we use is a snapshot in time and that's how we value all property in the county for those four years okay yes sir so piggy bank is kind of a deck thing or if you had a pool to your house you're going to up the value correct we're taking away if you

remove the deck or affiliate but in real estate when you value a house in real estate pool does not matter the pool does not add value to a home so why does it on a tax value well we're required to list everything on the property any improvements made to the property i understand that but that's not added to the value of the home itself and it depends on what kind of pool you got if you've got a above ground pool that's not a lot that's neither here nor there but if you got a hundred thousand dollars pool it doesn't add value to the house it does for tax purposes okay that's that's what we're having a problem with raising taxes that shouldn't be raised or paying taxes already and then also too where where are we going to figure out the shortfall from commercial property the last four years they went down drastically. And we're a shortfall for commissioners on taxes as a cost of commercial property.

So we fix this kind of rebound, all property will be valued at 100% or as close to 100%. When we do our sales ratio through do or we do not split out property by property class, they do a random sample and it's all property types. We were at 96% and 2023. on residential and we were at 90% on commercial and industrial in 2023. So the and as the farther away you get from that reappraisal date with sales in the market, then you will see depending on the way the market's going. If it's going up, then you'll see that that ratio is falling. If the market is going backwards like it did in 2009, then you will see that that ratio is going up. So right now, based on our ratios, the residential market has kind of stabled off. but the commercial and industrial market took off after it was really about second quarter of 2022, which is when we were setting our schedule of values for the January 1st, 2023 reappraisal. So we have sales for 21 and we were at 100% of market for commercial and industrial. When 22 came around and the market was picking back up after COVID, after businesses was opening back up, there was businesses that sat empty for a year or more, businesses that closed down because of COVID. So the commercial industrial market at that time was completely different than the real estate market. And now you're seeing more commercial industrial property and selling for higher than what the residential is at this point.

Chelsea, here's the thing. I'm sorry, just one second. Here's the thing. You're not old enough to even realize what we've been through in our lifetime. Here's how you're supposed to re-evaluate the property. When was the last time it was sold? That's how much it's worth. And every piece of property in that manner should be that way. And the county commission should set the tax rate appropriately, not on the backs of re-evaluation. Because all that is is a compound where they can come up there and say they can cut your taxes to 40 cents. And re-evaluation, your taxes won't have to be 25 to 30%. But you see, that's how you really get a true evaluation of what your property is. Whatever you paid for when you purchased it, that's what it was worth. Every piece of property today, whatever it's purchased for is what it's worth. And you total all that up together, Chelsea, and that gives you the total value The properties that were sold, the last time it was sold, you do it the right way and take re-evaluation out of it and tell us it's down in Raleigh. We don't need them either. What we need is local people up here setting their tax rate. You want to be able to feed your family. People have to have four or five children. Can you imagine the hardship they're going through? And all this crap is just crap. And what we have to do is come to the real world and say, this is how much it really costs to operate this county. Hold it up and then set your tax rate according to how much it costs to run the county. Not how much somebody tells you a property is worth and you couldn't sell it for what they said it's worth. No matter what they say, they don't know. They're down there and if you're coming up here trying to appraise things, you're not appraisable. You don't have to understand. It's so simple. If you just go back to the last time it was sold, how much you paid for it, hold it up, set your tax rate accordingly. It's simple. You don't need real money. Look how much money it costs y'all to reappraise all this stuff. Come on, let's think about the real world. How much does it cost to reappraise all this crap? We don't need that. What we need is the last time, just like this house, I bought down here. I gave $159,000 for it. I spent a fortune on it. They've got this house today. I'm paying... $700,000, $7,000, $543,000, $7,543,000 for a $159,000 house, but I spent $600,000 on it. They're putting all that into this house. How much it's worth, but I bought it for $159,000. And that's just ridiculous, because you take a dilapidated house, and you want to see things improve, and that's what people do. They make improvements to make their neighborhood or town look better and things like that, but you get penalized for it. And this is what the county does to it. The county tax rate is 59.9%. Boal's tax rate is 35.5%. Then we got a juggernaut 11.5% tax to pay for our fire department. And listen, we're all in Gaston County. This little town right here is in Gaston County. So if we just said, hey, we're the fire department, they'd have to come in here and we'd have to have a fire department. They don't understand this is Gaston County. But we get railroaded every way to the small and this small. In Belmont, Gaston, everyone gets railroaded. But their councils won't stand up and tell them, You know, how it should be, not how they dictate to us. We need to listen to what our constituents, our people here that vote for us and have a council, have a mayor, have a board, have a commission. And that's who they need to be talking to, the elected officials, and tell them the truth, stop the BS, and eliminate it. How much money do you think it's going to cost for re-evaluation for y'all real trades? How much have they got to figure for that, Chelsea, in the budget?

It's over a four-year process.

i'm trying to remember what we get i think it's 350 a year 350 000 a year for the reappraisal a million four hundred thousand you could say if you just went back to whatever man paid 159 000 court no matter what it is you paid for it and then everything adds up of what the whole total value of the whole county and then you set the tax rate accordingly and then and listen the school system is broken We need to privatize the school system. That way you'll know exactly how to have Christian schools. I know people don't like to hear that, but it's the truth. You need to have a Christian school. Gaston County used to be a Christian school too when we were growing up. You had a prayer in school. You read the Bible. All the things you needed to do. You got to get some good upbringing. You have to be responsible. Now, if you just go to school and they want the teachers to raise the children, take care of the children, it costs money. But we need to stop them and take care of them. Listen, we have handicapped children in school. They don't get any kind of special treatment they need. I've heard that place have about 40% of handicapped in school. We need to take all this stuff into consideration. Chelsea, I know it's hard on you. If you work for them, you have to listen to us. Chelsea, you're tremendous. You've got a strong backbone. People 50 years and younger need to get strong and say, listen, enough's enough. We're not going this route anymore. And I was just going to follow up with that real quickly.

You were talking about your property should be worth what you paid for, what it sold for. That's state statute, so we're just following state law. I understand. So just throwing that out there.

It should be simple that we don't have to pay all this extra money, but I'm afraid whatever the last time it was sold for, that's what it was worth at the time it was sold. Next time it's sold, it'll be worth what it was sold again. Simple. That's the way it used to be, right, Mr. Jackson, when we were growing up. That's the way when we first started out, that's the way it was. Now it's all about re-evaluation. Can you, what your property is worth rather than you, whatever they put on, can you really get that much for it? I don't know and I don't care. I don't want to, I do want to sell it now because I don't want to feel sick. But now, my wife hasn't been sick too. We've moved in the house. Now we've got to pay the taxes and everything else and all of us are in the same boat. It's not going to be good. Like I said, all the people up north, where the hell they come from, come down here and read the story of what we've had. And this used to be the cheapest county in the United States. You know, your family, your grandparents would tell you this was a wonderful county. Let me ask you this. Why is the tax rate so cheap, much cheaper in Lincoln County than Cleveland County? That's not a question I can answer. Mr. Jackson, you had a question.

Chelsea, do you guys do the reappraisals in-house yourselves or is it farmed out to an agency or a group? No, we do it in-house.

The only thing that we hire out, we have hired out some help in the past where we've got temp employees to help with data collection and stuff. We do pay vendors as far as some of the stuff that you're seeing up here, software and stuff like that, flights or ortho imagery. That's the majority of what we pay for out of that reappraisal budget. And we're not the only ones that use it. That's what you see on your GIS. That's what your police, your fire, EMS, they use this as well, but it just comes out of the tax budget. Yes, sir.

Yes, sir. I'm hoping this is a little bit more of a softball question, but so I guess based on the way you've explained revenue-neutral property taxes, I think the rate and the appraisal values can kind of be a shadow of the budget. I guess my question is, it seems like the budget is the real driver of the property tax values. Take, for example, if a county needs a million dollars in a budget four years ago, and then they need a million dollars in the next four years. If the budget doesn't change and property tax values go up, the rate is going to get cut just to match that and so like if i would argue that people are having issues with property taxes either rates or appraisal values it's really a symptom of an expanding budget ultimately right it depends um but yes in general so we appraise your property

We assess your property. We don't do anything with the budget or setting the rate, but they use the overall assessed value for the county to determine how to pay for services and the needs of the county. And then when they do that, they figure out this is how much money we're going to need. Is it the same thing that we had last year or is it more? Then that's when you're depending on if the assessed values went up or down. That depends on if the tax rate is going to go up, down or stay the same. So there's a lot of varying factors that go into that. And again, we just have one piece of that and I have some flyers up here on the tax rate. You know, your county commissioners, as Mr. Mayor Simons was just saying, the county has a rate, all municipalities have a rate, and then if you're not in a municipality, you have the unified fire district rate. There are three municipalities, and Lowell is one of them, that has the county, the city, and the unified fire district rate. So there are three municipalities that has three tax rates. But your councils, your boards are the ones that set that based on the budgets that those municipalities need. But I'll be happy to give you more information. We have some flyers up here as well.

Does that make sense? I guess I was just like my general comment on that is just that like People can be upset about increasing property values, and that's fine. That's just the nature of property values. But if I'm paying more just in physical raw numbers next year than I was last year, it's a function of property values, but it's primarily driven by more money being spent. Yes, sir. Because they are directly correlated. Yes, sir.

Well, and definitely in between rebows, because during non-reappraisal years, we can't change anything that's not a physical change. So unless you add it or remove it, we can't change it.

And that's only about a 3% annual growth in the county on real property in assessed values as a whole in non-revalue years.

So in between those, unless you do something drastic to your property, you're not going to see a very big change in the value of your property. But your tax bill may change every year based off what they decide the tax rate is, because that changes every year, or could.

how much it's appraised for. And here's a simple solution to everyone's problem. What you should pay is what it costs to run the county, like that young man said. But put it in the hands of re-evaluation and leave the tax rate the same. And if it goes up 3%, if it goes up 10% like it did, what, four years ago, like 50% in 23, some properties went up 50%. This city here did not cut the tax rate not one cent. And that was terrible. But this council here came in and they straightened it out, thank God. But you don't often have that happen to where you can get things straightened out that quick. But can you imagine the county tax right now at $59.9, let's say $0.60. And if the property goes up 3%, which is very nil, it's going to be way up because you can listen. And here's what you don't take into consideration. You do, Chelsea, because you see it every day. Every time a house goes online, every time a business goes online, whatever, developments come in, apartments are built and things like that, that's a natural increase in revenue right there if you just use common sense rather than just saying, okay, we'll put all this stuff together. Even though they just built these apartments a year ago, I just built this house less than a year, fixed this house less than a year ago, and the appraised value is over $600,000, which I don't care, it's worth it. But still, it's just terrible that the way that they treat people for trying to spend your own money, not get ARPA money, not get federal money, not get people to come in here and say, we're going to give you 25% break or 30% break just because you're building 20 warehouses that doesn't house no one. The warehouses are empty. Echo Park over here, for example, came in here with all the hype that they were going to hire 500 people. I told them the day they said that, that's bullshit. There's no way they could get 500 people in the building over there. And here's another thing. It cost us money because it's stupid. Stupid. Stupid rules the world. Stupid rules the world. Common sense has no place. If you have common sense, they'll throw you out. You shouldn't be speaking because two and two is always going to be four. 5,280 feet in the line is one mile. It ain't never going to change. And what it costs you to raise your family and feed your family ain't never going to change. You get a $20 bag of groceries now. You used to when I was growing up, seven years old, mama had to have a big station wagon to haul $20 worth. Now all you need is two fingers to carry that little sack out with $20 to two Coca-Colas and whatever it is. But we just, you know, we have to stop it. And Chelsea, I'm not fussing at you, honey. You understand that. I love you to death. But you just, you have to do what the powers that be tell you. And look at, here's what people don't understand either. The county manager makes a half a million dollars a year. How damn stupid are we? You got four assistant city managers making $250,000, $300,000. The people out there actually doing the work don't make nothing. It's like, it's just... It's just, it's horrible. That young man back there, if he only knew, you know what, if you could just go out and look at the whole, it's L line. You could, you get every, every piece of property in the whole county right now, tell you how much everything's worth and how much they're taking in a 59 cent tax. That's why I asked you a while ago, how much was the total value of the whole county? Had we known that, we'd have something to work with. I'm not fussing at you, but that's things we need to know. Our HR person here should have that thing up there running where people can ask questions, and we can have a little clicking thing here and ask questions. People need to be informed, and thank God that you're taking the time to go out to the municipalities. How many do we have now, 14 or 15?

We have 13 municipalities.

13, okay. So 13 municipalities, and everyone's going to be affected. And what you're doing is to be commended to go out and talk to the people and take the heat because they're going to sit on their butt up there and whatever happens, happens. They're going to reap the benefit of how much money they take in. And look at all the automobiles. Why do we need to have a new car every year for the policeman? Why do we have to have new this and new that? I wear the same shoes a lot of times. Four, five, ten years, they work fine. But all a police officer has to have is a pair of drawers and he's ready to go to work. They give them everything else. We've got to turn this program around to where everything's equal. You get a free car and a way to work it back, hell, we're paying for it. But they don't take it into consideration how much money they make. And that's the truth. We've got to come together. But thank you all of you. And if you have any questions, I'm sorry. I'm just upset with all of you. Yes, sir.

Mr. White. Yeah. So I'm curious to know what efforts the tax office has done to secure local market data for the schedule of outings.

So we have CoStar and MLS. We use that to look at sales for commercial, industrial, and residential properties. We have also, we have contracted with Tanner Valuation Group and they have helped some with some of our commercial and industrial property as well.

You say you contracted with Tanner. Is that a Jackson County company?

It is. It's Jimmy Tanner. He used to be the Jackson County Tax Director for over 10 years.

And you're aware that CoStar is not a reliable source, correct?

I didn't say that. We use it just like we use MLS. to look at sales to see the inside property to get data but we also verify that data because there's a lot of times that there's data on CoStar that's not accurate and that it may say that it was a one parcel sale and it's not.

Or that it's sold.

You're exactly right, but we also have the registered deeds, and everything starts based on the registered deeds and when that deed is recorded, and then that starts the mapping process for our department, changing the ownership, looking at the revenue stamps for that, validating a sale. There's many reasons why a sale would be valid or not valid, and that's what we look at for our sales ratio.

Now that's a true value. Whatever they paid for that property, let's use it 100% right. And that's what goes on when you pay the revenue stamps. They know exactly how much, when something's sold, how much it's sold for. And they can just tally it up and divide it into what it costs to run the county versus what these reappraisals come in and give them a big windfall of money. And you know it, Chelsea, it's the truth. Every time re-evaluation, they pick up a large windfall of money. at the taxpayer's expense. If everything was just revenue neutral, like this board did for us, we could afford, you know, just keep things the same. 59 cent tax rate, people don't realize how much it cost you. Like for a $300,000 house, that's $1,800. Then you got your city tax. If you just live in the county, that's fine. You got city tax and all the other stuff that you have to pay in the fire tax. It's overwhelming to a lot of people that's having to pay all three sides of it.

And I completely understand that. I will say that the county did cut their tax rate 20 cents from the 2023 reappraisal. And there were some municipalities that didn't cut and some municipalities that raised.

The re-evaluation was 40%, and they cut it 20%, so they reaped another 50% increase.

They cut it 20 cents per hundred. Yes, ma'am.

They made a hell of a lot of money. And that's because of the re-evaluation. And they could have cut the tax rate even lower. But they don't know anything about what they're doing. Just like in any case, they turn it over to a city manager. They turn it over to a county manager. All they know is what the HR, what the finance officers give them, things like that. There's no common sense in anything. But they got the wrong mayor and law. I check everything verbatim. Every darn dot's got to have a little dot. Everything's got to be crossed. And then we know exactly how much money it should be to operate this town. And we need to know how much. It's like the $300,000 you helped us find for the tax on cars and things that our finance officer didn't have in the budget. And stuff like that, you tally all that stuff up, you're hurting your citizens. They get paid their salary. We got this new deal called Black Mountain, Brown Mountain, or some crap, I don't know what it is. They come in here, they don't even have a trial run on water bills, sewer bills, taxes, or anything. Whatever comes out, that's what they say, that's it. Every month, we have to have an adjustment in our finance department every month. No reason for it, Goose, no reason whatsoever. Money's there. It should be there. It should be appropriated at the time you set the budget. All monies. Don't leave $300,000 out and embarrass this council. That's not going to get it. It's not you. You weren't here. But these folks are still here, and it hurts. It's like in your department, Chelsea. You're responsible for everything you do to the dumb county manager, to the ignorant commissioners they work for. And if they ever have enough guts to say, let's turn this program around, you're going to work for us to save money for the citizens of Gaston County one time, one time. It would be worth our vote. Until they do that, they're not worth our vote. Everyone in this room and everywhere in this county needs to run them out as fast as they can. Get rid of them. They're dummies. Absolutely. They're dummies for county commission. We've got the whole group. But thank you. Anyone else have any questions? Go ahead.

So I've got a follow-up, Chelsea, according to John. So, yeah, so a benefit of those who don't know me or I'm Anna's house cat or whatever, I spent six years on the Board of Equalization Review, three years as a chairman during the 2023 reappraisal. I've been a commercial and industrial real estate appraiser for 31 years. I've lived in Gaston County for 21 of those 31 years. And I have never been contacted by a member of the tax department to ask about market data. And I'd like to know why that is.

That's a tremendous question. Thank you.

But we don't contact any appraisers to ask about market data. And here's the reason why. You can only give us trends, you can only give us what we can find out for ourselves, because if you start going into detail, you're violating USPAP. You can't give us any of your client's appraisal data, just like we can't provide you any income that we get off of commercial or industrial properties, because it's protected by public records law.

But if I have knowledge and information of a property that I didn't appraise,

That's true, but would you like for me to call you on all over 10,000 commercial properties just to see if you've got knowledge of it without paying you a dime? Absolutely.

on your actual proposed sales, or what I see in gross revenue multipliers, or what I see in expense ratios, or what I see in apartment rents, or what I see in management fees of different property types that I appraise. And I appraise commercial and industrial property only.

That's why we send out our income and expense rate.

But I would welcome the opportunity to at least be able to talk with local tax officials about what I'm seeing as a market participant within the market. And it's not like I'm difficult to get a hold of. I was on, you had access to me for six years as the chair before Maureen became chair, and I followed up Rudy, who was the chair before me, and he followed up Miles, who was the chair before him. I would just like to see and have a good knowledge and feel of understanding that the schedule of values that is going to go before the county commissioners is really truly representative of market data that's mined out of Gadsden County.

And we do send income and expense forms to all commercial and industrial businesses. they do not have to turn it back in they call us we get a lot of phone calls from them and from commissioners because nine times out of ten they're calling their commissioner instead of calling us and we explain why we've sent that form and why you know it's important for them to send it back to us so that's the data that we're getting from gaston county and that's the data that we can't share because it is income data you wouldn't want your income data shared with anyone You have my number just like I have yours. I'll start calling you if that's what you want. Rudy was before me on the board of ENR and so was Miles. I actually used to work with Rudy when I started in the tax office. I hadn't always been in this chair. I'll give everybody my cell phone number as it is today. And you're more than welcome to call and text me at any time. 704-691-8756.

I know, but I'm giving it to everybody else that's in here.

Hey, young man, what's your name, please? What's that? What's your name?

Brian Wyneth.

I'm sorry, again.

Brian, B-R-I-A-N. Okay. Wyneth, W-E-Y-E-N-E-T-H. Wyneth, Wyneth, Brian Wyneth.

Yes, sir. Nice meeting you, sir. What's your phone? What's your phone number? wait a minute y'all 704-999 thank you I'd love to sit down with you anytime and listen I love the numbers and that's what's wrong this whole county they don't understand how to do basic math and do it I'm sorry I'm sorry Mr. Wyeth nice to meet you thank you for your phone number anyone else have a question I'm sorry I'm sorry I want to make sure

that we get this warning here. I want to know, when is the schedule of values going to be available to the public, and will the public have the ability to comment?

Yes, so your first question, just so they get it for their records, you asked where our cost data comes from if we're using Marshall and Swift, and my answer to that was no. um the second thing we are presenting i'm presenting the schedule of values to the board of county commissioners august the 25th at 6 p.m it's a tuesday um they that's the first time they will see it it will be made public that same night anybody can look at it um that's just the presentation of it 30 days from there my calendar is down there i don't i think it's september something um the 17th or 22nd september 22nd there will be a public hearing on that and we're actually probably going to do an education meeting on the schedule of values on the September 8th meeting. Then from the public hearing, the board will vote to adopt that in October, towards the end of October. October 27th is when the board will vote to adopt the schedule of values. And then at that point, if anyone disagrees with the schedule of values and has any evidence as to why it is wrong, you can appeal that to the Property Tax Commission in Raleigh. You have 30 days to do so, but it has to be evidence-based.

Who takes care of it in the county when you go up there and you have a problem and you want to talk to someone? Who is the person you talk to?

There's a few of us in this room. Are we talking to the tax office?

Yes, when they evaluate something and you're not happy with it, even this house down here, who do I need to talk to?

You can talk to me. You can talk to Natalie. You can talk to John. Stephanie's here. She's one of our appraisal managers. We've got 10 appraisers. We've got four or five appraiser tax. You can talk to any of us.

Thank you. Like I said, if everyone just takes a little bit of time and just say, okay, this is what my house is, what I bought it for. And then when they come out and they tell you your house is worth $150,000, guess what? Here's what you need to tell them. My house is not for sale. I bought it to live in it. I'm not in it to make money. I want to have a safe place to live, a good environment for my family, and be able to afford to pay for what I bought. not what you tell me at my house is worth after I've already bought it and I'm paying your tax rate whatever you told me. Re-evaluation needs to be eliminated right now. If they did that and just went off the true values of how much the property's worth and how much it costs to run the county as a whole and quit giving all these deductions for these people to come in here that don't have one dog in the fight, all they have is a bunch of corporate money, those idiots up there, what's his name? Uh, What's his name, the guy that goes out and puts all this stuff together for the county? Hicks, Mr. Hicks, the dumbest guy that ever defecated between two shoes. He goes out here and gets all that money for these people. Don't give a damn about no one sitting in here at home in the whole county. And that's the truth. He needs to be ran out of here like right now, 10 minutes ago, whenever you can get a hold of him and get rid of him and stop giving away our county. Stop giving away your money to subsidize those idiots that don't have one damn dime of what we're talking about. And they don't want it. All they want to do is come in here and make the government pays the rent. You know it's the truth, and the government pays for everything as long as they meet the quota, all the stuff. Just like that idiot uptown that bought that building on Main Street. Some guy went up there and bought a building up there for like, they gave him the money to get it, and then they're going to help him rebuild, redo it. I mean, we're the dumbest people in the world. A business person stands on their own two feet. If they want to buy a piece of property, turn it into something, that's the way you do it. That's how this country was founded, on what it really costs to do something. And that's the way you do it, not based on what some idiot comes through here and tells you what your property is worth. After you've already bought your property, you know what you paid for. You wouldn't have bought it if it had been worth that much. You wouldn't have paid that much for it. In less than 12 months, it's going to go up 25%, 30%. That's crazy. Anyone else? I'm sorry.

Yes, ma'am. Yes, my county cell phone number is 704-691-8756. Yes, Mr. Brady.

Yes, sir. That same night. Yes, sir. We will make a vote. Can people make comments about it during that time?

Yes. So that's what I was saying to Mr. Ryan earlier, the public hearing. So I'll present it to the board. It will be the first time they see it on August the 25th. September 22nd is the public hearing. So anybody that has any public comment, you have 30 days to review the schedule of values. We will make it available online. It will also be a copy of it will be in our office, the clerk to the board county manager's office for public inspection. And you can comment on it at that time.

Okay, so you have to do it then. You can't send you a comment and say... Oh, I mean, you can call me.

Yeah, sure, call me. But we can't change anything. I'm going to be honest with you. I've never had to change anything. This is my second schedule of values that I've presented. So I'm not going to say that we can't. I don't know. But if you see something and you're questioning it, I gave you my number. Let's talk. Let's have a conversation.

It would be nice if they went in there and re-evaluated and cut the tax rate accordingly, but they won't do that.

And I'm not going to sit here and shoot you a wine if I don't know the answer to it.

I don't know.

Because if you do the public comment when people come in and talk, It's not going to get changed then. It's going to get lost in all the discussion.

But we'll be there, and it's not going to be adopted until the October meeting. Yeah, October 27th.

But you don't want the commissioner to make that decision. It would really come back to you guys.

yeah no no it would come back to us but i'm saying we will be there to take any comments at that time if there needs to be changes at work they have questions that they don't understand that they want um clarification on as well and chelsea i haven't heard i have a question i have a question for brian brian let me ask you this you you know this is the truth and nothing but the truth the whole country should be based on supply and demand correct supply and demand not printing money

Not hypothetical BS. Like Reagan said, trust but always verify. If we just come together one time, one time in this county, and everyone go to that county commission meeting like they did 30 years ago, the one time they had the whole place filled up, down the streets and everything, they didn't raise your taxes not one penny. But they did change these dumb commissions you have now that told you they're going to do something. But they depend on re-evaluation. And re-evaluation doesn't help no one. The true fact of the matter is how much is the property really worth if you're going to sell it? But you don't want to sell it. You buy a home to keep it, right? You're not looking to sell the house. You're looking to live in it. And Chelsea, it's not your fault, honey.

I do not think it's personal.

It's 100% our fault. We're the dummies that elected those people. We're the dummies that elected them. I apologize right now. I would never support that new guy, whatever his name is. I don't even know his name. AJ something, landscaping. But he has got no sense to ask questions about the values of commercial property and things like that that's been just set to the side. They don't care. And we're having the poor people out here living week to week, month to month. They have to pay the difference. But thank you again. And anyone else have any questions? I apologize.

Mr. McCracken. I only know y'all's names because y'all are on the board. Is this a test? I'm just kidding.

Go ahead. Property record cards for 2027.

They'll be out there when the value change notices are mailed in February.

The property record cards will be made available at that time.

It'll probably be middle of February. We're looking at probably the second to third week of February value change notices for the 2027 values.

Anyone else have any questions? And I appreciate everyone being here. And Brian, I really appreciate you being here, son. I'll tell you right now, I'm 71 years old. I don't know how old you are, but I appreciate it. Young people, y'all need to take the bull by the horns and kick our butts out of the way. Because we're the ones that let all these things happen over the years. But we can turn around. But you've got to vote. You've got to be at those county commissioner meetings and run them out of here as fast as you can. And God bless each and every one of them.

And we'll stay until the end if anybody's got any questions. And we have plenty of brochures, information, and cards if y'all would like that, if y'all do have questions. Thank y'all. We appreciate it.

Thank you, Chelsea. Thank your whole staff. Thank you, Brian. That's it. Thank all the citizens too, but thank Brian for being here. He's got some comments there. The next thing, the next, excuse me, y'all have to get in order. We got to have order. The next thing on here is going to be the consideration of budget amendment every month. FY something. Go ahead.

Thank you, Mayor. Good evening, Council. The first budget amendment up for consideration, budget amendment number one, this is actually to receive money from our insurance company for damage to one of the vehicles, and then that money would be used to repair that vehicle.

I'll make a motion to approve budget amendment number one.

I have a second. Second. How much money is it, please? $4,326. $4,300. All right. Any more discussion? All in favor? I'm sure you've got a place to put it. What's the next one?

Consideration for budget amendment number two. This is to receive sponsorship funds from Back the Blue in the amount of $1,500.

I'm sure you've got somewhere to put it. You have a motion?

I'll make a motion that we approve of the proposed amendment number two.

Second. Any discussion? All in favor? Thank you. The next thing is going to be the control policy for federal and state grants. Go ahead, Mr. Gooden. You just skipped point 6D.

We're going to do the cat bill water.

Okay, yeah, go ahead. I want you to explain that to me. Is that down here where that water, where we put that expensive water tap in down there?

So they've come to us to request that we have an emergency agreement established with them. And we have responded to their request. One of the things that I talked to you about at the last meeting was they wanted us to sell water to them at our wholesale rate. And I think everybody had consensus that we probably need to ask for more than just that.

They should pay like everyone else. On the outside, they should pay twice as much. That's where you get some money without raising taxes here.

Yes, go ahead. And we could discuss what rate that is, but I propose to them a 25% distribution factor to recoup our costs, which sold the water to them at about... $5.28 per 1,000 gallons, which our wholesale rate is like $4.22. So it's about 25% more. And again, that was just a negotiation. Obviously, the council is who's going to decide that in terms of what that rate actually becomes. A couple other things that we were concerned about in the process was defining the emergency. so that we would know exactly when they would be able to get water from us and then also asking about their assignment of the contract typically contracts like that aren't able to be assigned but in ours they ask to be assigned and As we've learned, that's largely due to their interest in being able to assign it back to two grippers if they ultimately go with them for their water service, so they want to be able to sign the contract.

That's another way to keep hedging and hedging until you get a two river. Listen, what do we charge everyone else on the outside? We charge twice as much. Where's the meter going to be? Where's the meter that's going to meter this water? How much is it going to use? Common sense, Mr. Guth. We charge everyone else on the outside twice as much. Why should we give them a discount down to 25%? Gaston, the city of Gaston, if Gaston didn't give us a discount, we'd pay the damn rate we pay for it every citizen of the town. And we've got a chance to make a little bit of money without raising taxes. Let's go for that. If they need the water, let them pay what they need.

Don't let them use your own water. That's certainly the council's prohibitive. That's right.

I agree with you 100% in the council decision.

I've looked into this, Mayor. The 25% rate increase, I agree with. Our side of the meter will be locked. Only the city of Lowell will have a key to that lock. And this is only for emergency use. Justin, Thad, whoever would literally be the one to unlock that meter to allow to use the water. And they would only be paying for water that runs through our meter.

Yes, and what do we charge people on the outside now? We charge them twice as much as people on Oakland. People like that. Now listen, it's business. This is for emergency use only. It doesn't matter. They should pay the same rate as we charge these other people up here that barely make a living. That's a big corporation. They can write it off their tax.

I'm right here, Larry. I'm right here, too. Mr. Guth, did we ever find out what Gastonia's percentage was going to be on emergency water for the city? Yes, sir. Not yet.

Common sense tells you to charge the same thing you charge everyone else. Why should they get a break? Hell, they're writing off their taxes. These people up here need to go to school.

They're getting a 25% increase.

Yeah, an increase of 25%. It should be twice as much. That's what everyone else pays on the outside.

That's a matter of opinion.

That's the truth. And is that not the truth? Lisa, outside people, they pay twice as much, correct?

I don't believe it's twice as much, but I don't have the ratio right in front of me. It's on the website, though.

No one knows anything, but they come to these meetings. Mr. Good, he's the chief chairman here, and you don't know either. I'm sure you don't know what we charge outside, right? But you can come up with 25% on your own.

No, sir. We charge, I think, $10.18 or something real close to that.

Yeah, we pay $4. We charge more than two times then. We're paying $4 and charging $10. Pal, that's more than two times as much. So I recommend that they pay the same thing as any other citizen on the outside of us. They don't get no paraphernalia treatment. What the hell do we get from them? What? Nothing. They tear up our water. They tear up our lines. They run up and down the roads. It's a mess.

Where? They're going the bridge, our bridge that's in Lowell, if we refuse to pay for it.

Well, listen, that bridge out there is the state of North Carolina. It doesn't belong to Far Yard. It doesn't belong to the state of North Carolina.

It's in the city of Limits of Lowell.

Listen, whatever they do is great. But as long as we don't have to spend money, that's tremendous. We're not responding to that. City of Limits of Lowell. We cannot. How can you look those people in the eye up there and tell them they shouldn't be paying $10 for their water, and you're going to let them pay $5.85?

That's not right.

They're paying for the bed.

How the hell can you do that? I wouldn't pay it. They should pay the same thing as what we already got on the books, twice as much or whatever it is, $10, like you said. That's what they should pay. Why should they get any preferential treatment? Why? Why did you come up with 25%?

Well, they started off with that they just wanted us to be a pastor, and then we looked at what our cost would be.

I tell you, man, when you get a chance to make money without raising taxes or hurting yourself, use your head. Use your head.

I respect that.

thank you what you're talking about it doesn't matter what i'm talking about i'm talking about the rate if they use a thousand gallons of me and out of no gas i don't care but whatever the rate is for them up here should be the same for this cat down here and i will add to there is a very high rate that this water meter will never be used well that's that's it is simply an emergency should be the same no matter what if you're going to charge them that why can you charge them less unfortunately that's not your decision I've gotten used to how to live here. I speak my mind. You can vote your way. But right is right and wrong is wrong. Too wrong, never make it right. I understand that. How can you charge them what you charge those people there that just barely want to get by? It's a corporation. They can write it off their taxes. They make money.

It's a city just like where it's a city.

It doesn't matter, son. We're providing our service. They should make us money. Why would they be willing to pay you anything more? Pay what you're charging everyone else and be fair. They're paying for our use. Be fair and don't do nothing. They're paying for our use.

Be fair and don't do nothing. I'm ready to have you ejected out of here.

I ain't going to be ejected out of nowhere.

You have a motion, no one second? Are you on second in motion?

Mr. Griffith, this is not something that has to be voted on tonight. Oh, damn mercy.

Mom and dad is dead. I would like to have a follow-up after Mr. Russell gets the final agreement and

discuss it further when we get there.

I'll be happy to also look at what other cities are charging each other through other inter-level agreements if you'd like.

I would like that myself.

On myself, I would like to at least start at 33%.

Why don't you charge everyone else? That'd be the nice, fair thing to do. You got a motion? Anyone second that motion? There's no motion. I thought you made a motion. I'm sorry. Let's move on then. Let's talk about something that makes sense. Go ahead.

Well, you just need some direction from the council on some of this. I just told them what I wanted. Okay, that and then the issue of assignment. That was another.

And I was... If you could get it specified for council, my comments that there is going to be a lock on the meter that only the city of Loyola has the key to, not McAddenville.

Well, that's where you're wrong.

The two, Mayor, I believe I know what I'm talking about. Oh, you're wrong. I believe there would be two public works directors that would meet to unlock that key.

This is how stupid we are. Mayor, I'm not finished. Go ahead. I want you to hurry up.

And that this simply is an emergency use that I would almost, there's probably not a way, but I would like to know the odds of this actually being used. I know that's probably impossible to find out, but just for the future reference.

Thank you. This is the truth, nothing but the truth. Right now we have a meter right in front of Lowell Elementary School. that we don't even read the meter i don't know when we read the meter how we read the meter and how we keep it locked we don't and right now they can tie into that same meter it's like i got good to give me the information on how much uh water the school's been using they used what was a fortunate amount of water and the school's been out for two months and here's the thing about they can tie in they've already got it tied in down there where is it where is that how you gonna put the light you have a meter there now why is it not locked in front of the schoolhouse They put the new water line in. They go out there and they do whatever they want to. If they want to tie into it, they do. They're just trying to cover their butt. But it's not going to happen under my watch. I live right there at it. And I got to tell them all the time, Pearson knows it's the truth. We need to get rid of him and get someone here who wants to take care of Lowell. Not try to turn us into two rivers overnight. That's crazy. But we need to have locks on our meter, just like up here in Gastonia. We sent two of our highest-priced employees to go read a meter up here in front of my car lot because Gastonia furnishes us water. Do you think they're going to know? Then we have to double-check how much water we're using. Right now we're losing 4 million gallons a month each month.

Mr. Mayor, we're discussing an emergency with McAdamville, not other areas.

I'm discussing what you said about a lock on the meter. Where is it?

Where's the one that there will be a lock on this meter is what I understand.

And then that's good in charge of what you charge other people and you're 100% right. What's next?

The internal control policy.

For federal and state grants.

That's exactly right. This is a policy that the folks at DEQ and asked us to pass so that we'll have the proper verbiage regarding ethics and other internal control controls. And I think that packets in your...

I'm glad you brought that up about DQ. Up here behind Chitwood's house, they're getting ready to build those warehouses, and that was a brownfield. So when they bought the property, when that guy took it away from the car starving down there, the guy, the guy that sold the property to them, now, is it still taxed as a brownfield, or is it taxed to be used as commercial property? That's something you need to check into for us and find out about that and report that to the next council meeting. If it's still a brownfield, if it's still a brownfield, how are they going to be able to put anything on it? And the value needs to be what it should be before it was declared a brownfield. You're going to be able to use it for commercial property.

I don't think that has anything to do with what we're talking about.

He just, he just brought it up about DQ.

Yes, yes, yes, yes. But he mentioned the name DQ who controls brownfields. Yes, sir. Thank you very much. I listen. Renewal on call.

I would like to make a motion to adopt. the internal control policy.

I'll second.

Motion second. Any discussion? All in favor? Unanimous. Thank you. Now move on to the renewal of on-call engineering services contracts. Go ahead.

This deals with all of our planning contract renewals and all the infrastructure that is dedicated over to the town. We have all that evaluated prior to accepting it. We have contracts believe there's like eight or nine different firms that are in your list of in your packet that we have a master agreement with and then based on what their expertise is we choose them to evaluate projects we have a couple that are in the process right now Spencer Ridge Withers Ravenel is our engineering firm to review that and we'd like to get them back under contract. Mabella is one of our engineers as well. So this is what I'd like to happen is for you all to authorize myself and John to just renew their existing agreements or make any changes to their existing agreements that are necessary to bring them back online.

Do we need a motion for that? Not yet. Yes, sir. I'd like to make a motion that we renew the engineering contract services with the company that you have mentioned

um labelling uh rather rather with mail under discussion listen that that that deal is going on right now on spencer mountain road down there who's engineering it right now they were there okay then what are you talking about you're already using it and the money's in the budget the money's in the budget that they paid themselves to engineer this stuff correct no sir withers is on our team and then the mcadams is the engineering firm that works for the subdivision subdivision okay but who but they put money into our budget to take care of those problems out there and oversee what needed to be done to protect the city of law that's that agreement now who is protecting the city of law right now who withers ravenel is on our You just said another company representing the other people, right? So both of those people are doing the same job.

No, sir. We have the McAdams as an engineering firm. For the subdivision. Doing the work for Lenar. For the subdivision. And so they design that. And who's doing it? Withers, Ravenel. reviews those plans and then also reviews the work that they do to make sure that it's up to what plans say.

You're 100% right, but they're supposed to be putting the money up to pay for any of these. Okay, put all that in your statement. Don't leave bits and pieces out.

permitting process.

Yes, but the money is paid by that company that is building the subdivision. That's the way we did it. That's the way we implemented the whole thing so we wouldn't be the assets of the county. We'd make sure our time was being paid back. And that's the way it should be. So why do we need a motion if it's already being done?

Mr. Mayor, I believe you have a motion and a second.

That's good. We're having a discussion. I'm asking him, why do we need a motion if it's already being done?

So the Withers contract expired in July of 26. So they're not doing it.

So they're not doing the job. That's what you're saying.

No, they need the contract renewed because there's additional work that needs to be done on that project. So they need to send the city a scope of work so that the city can then pass that on to an R to pay for that.

Mr. Attorney, this is a legal question. How much money have we spent down there? It's been reimbursed by them. How much have we spent, Mr. Good? Can you give us an up-to-date report?

No, sir, but I'm working on getting that for you as well.

That's not what we need. That's not what I need. And I've asked you several times about different things. Everything I ask you for needs to be brought to this council. and a matter where everyone can understand what it really cost. We can't keep doing what we've done in the past, Mr. Russell, where we go out here and make sweetheart deals for people that owns property besides another piece of property and let them have the water tank property up here for these same people. All this stuff's in together. You speak up as a legal attorney, and I respect that, and I want you to be a legal attorney. I want you to represent the people of Lowell. not the dummies down here making money off the subdivision, but everything that's spent down there should be recouped by the city. No expenditures whatsoever. And also, Mr. Good, you need to make an advertisement to the news media. Let them know when these streets are stopped and where they can go another way. And that's what this is all about, about being city manager, is letting people keep them informed. All of us. No, I'm not. All the citizens and the board itself need to know when the road's going to be closed so they can go a different way. Every morning on the news they let you know. You should let them know we've got a problem down here. Go another way.

We did that just today, actually.

I know, but you've seen all the complaints of people falling in the holes out there. And people stopped out there for three hours, can't even get gas or food. Well, get on top of it.

I appreciate it.

Thank you very much.

Can you call for a vote?

Yes, when I get ready. Any more discussion? Thank you, Mr. Mayor. One day you might be, I hope. Anyway, motion.

I didn't know you could go up there to the county commissioner so you could get up there and talk about that.

Anyway, so you got any more discussion? All in favor? All in favor? All opposed? Thank you, Mr. Goose. I'm glad to see you motor and get busy. All right. I got a city manager report, right?

No, sir. We're on the recreation center manager.

Oh, my God. What a problem that is. Go ahead.

So this position is already funded in your budget, and the city council is responsible for establishing which pay grade they're at, and they're suggesting that that be graded. 17 and that hiring range would be $52,000 to $66,000.

I hope and pray that this is a joke. I hope this is something you're just dreaming of and praying about and hoping or something. We need policemen. We need three policemen. We need three policemen. Recreation can go, you know, go take care of itself and do the best you can. We got these people out here paying a fortune to do the recreation. Then you ask for more help and more help. Listen, turn it over to the YMCA. I don't care. Just get out of the recreation business. Two hundred and some thousand dollars and you're asking for more money. And we got people out here risking their lives trying to protect our city. We can't even hire them because we don't have the money. They haven't even been given a raise, and you ask for crap like this. It's up to the council to do whatever they want to do. So my recommendation is to throw this away, take that money, and put it in a proper place to where we can run our city and keep it safe. Recreation is not going to save no one's life. It costs the hell out of us. They go out here and they hire these different contractors to come in here and get bands and everything. Look at that recreation center that they spent a half a million dollars on when they had all that music in there the other night with all their darn feet. water three feet of water you know public in there and we just spent all that money we have to have common sense and that's all it is in this whole world is common sense i personally would like to think thank our parks and rec for all they do and mr guth

What is the current salary grade that our parks and rec director is at?

Do you know this? This is not our parks and rec director. This is the decision. Senator, the center manager. Right. One that you've already you've already put. Right. I understand that. And we just have to have it approved because we did not establish the salary grade. And that's your your responsibility to do. Right. So this is the the amount that you all have budgeted for that position. And it just corresponds with grade 17 in in the scale.

And then how many times was that being recreation now?

I think that would make two permanent employees and two full-time employees and two part-time employees.

We've got to come to our senses. This thing is getting so far out of hand, it's unbelievable. We cannot keep throwing away money. We just can't open the door and say, listen, yeah, we love recreation. Yes, we do. We love to see softball out there. We see the kids playing. But we don't need to furnish money for people that don't even live in law. Look at the itinerary. The people that are using our facilities, they don't even live in law.

This was discussed for three, four, five months during our budget retreats. This is the decision that council came down to. I make a motion to approve the classification of Recreation Center manager.

Well, I was trying to make a statement, but I guess. I'll make a motion. Make a motion. Again, second.

Manager at salary grade 17.

OK, there being no seconds, so we'll just move on. All right, what's the next thing?

Wait, wait, Mr. Chitwood said he wanted to make a statement.

He can't make a statement unless you get a second. He didn't get a second, so the motion dies for lack of a second.

Mr. Mayor, I think you're in rare form tonight, and I don't know what's going on as far as any of this, but you need to calm down and let us get through this. I know you've got a lot of issues. with stuff going on. I can understand that. But at least let us get through this meeting.

This meeting is... Did you second the motion? No, I did not. How can you have a motion?

You don't have to continue to yell at all these people in here.

I'm not yelling. I'm just... I can't hear. I can't see. But I'm here because I love this place.

You sit there and yell. And look at his head. I can't hear. I'll be honest with you. I'm sorry. I'm sorry if I'm loud.

I want you to hear this. If you don't second, it dies for lack of second.

I understand. Okay, well, thank you. I believe I know a little more about the meetings than you do, because you don't do it the right way. Listen, son, I... No, don't even try.

I just wish you had some experience, and I understand what it costs to run this place. Stop spending money and take care of your police department.

What was your statement I'd like to hear?

What was your second? Nobody's second. How in the hell can you keep talking?

Somebody's got a second or it dies like a second.

That's right, it dies like a second. Thank you. No more second.

All right, what I was going to say... I guess I was the way I was reading this what a way I I see it at our budgets because you wasn't here that doesn't need to be a manager's position working underneath the director this player that person I don't remember what we talked about figure wise the way I'm reading the description is making it sound like what's the director going to be doing. That's the way I...

I agree.

I'm sorry. Can I finish? Yes. I don't feed any eruptions. Carry on. That's the way I see it. I do not agree with moving to grade 17. The person needs to be working under honor. We need one director... You have a full-timer and you got your part-timers. They work under 100, and that's the way I see it.

That's tremendous.

All right, so they're dying for a lack of seconds. If you would like to make a motion for a different grade.

Well, I don't know all the grades. I mean, obviously all I got was grade 17. Okay. And that's what I said during the budget. Like I said, you weren't here, and I told that to Tyler earlier. No, it does not need to be. It was supposed to be just a full-time person.

That's what... Somebody's opening and closing the doors.

And doing other stuff. It's not... I understand that that person's not going to be opening and closing the doors of the respect center. They're going to be doing other stuff. But it does not need to be a manager. Or it's not be a title. It should be title.

Is your problem the title or the pay? Because the pay is what we discussed in our meetings.

I thought the pay was around 50. I couldn't remember. But I was thinking around 50. But I don't think it needs to. He or she does not need to be titled that high. If that grade 17 is high, then it doesn't need to be titled.

So you're saying like an assistant?

Two on the full time person. That's no assistant to no assistant director, no assistant manager. It's not going forward.

It's going to keep three, right? Let's ask you a question. I hold all questions to the end of my statement.

So I got said director, full timer and the two part timers. That's what they're classified. That's the way I say it. So how many other employees is that? That's what we were boasted for.

How many?

Two full-time, two part-timers.

That's crazy. You weren't paying attention to the budget? Where do they have the money? Listen, I pay attention to everything.

But anyway, are you going to go back with that, or do you need a motion for me to make it just a full-time person, two part-timers?

We probably would need to have the salary grade, since that's actually what we're... trying to establish, so we'll probably have to come back. Okay.

I thought it was 17, still 17, but just changed the title of the job. Like, not to be a manager.

I mean, if you... Just leave it like you got it. If salary great...

He wants to get that last word, doesn't he?

If salary grade is 50, whatever that starting pay is, 50 to whatever, then that's fine. No title. And they work under director.

So what you're saying, what you're recommending is two full-time employees and two part-time?

No manager title. It's a full-time or whatever. He's a recreational worker, coordinator. I don't know what you're going to call it.

You just need to remake the motion with the change in the title.

I mean, because the... The way the job description was shown, what's Andre going to be doing? The way I read it.

I see what you're saying.

I guess you have time to drive a school bus. Hell, I don't know. That's what she was doing. We need to stop spending all this stupid money. So how do you need it?

What do you need? What do you need from council? Or do you want to come back with it?

Why don't we just come back with it? Then we can make sure that everything's all right.

That's a good idea. Table. That's great. All right. Save us money. Thank you for tabling it. Thank you. Well, it's not going to save us money. The money's still there. I'm just talking about we can table it. We can talk about it and come to your census. All right. What's next?

City Manager reports. Just quickly, we had some discussions about wastewater treatment plants. We had a wastewater treatment plant operator and his business partner meet with the engineering firm and they discussed the different design aspects of the facility. Dan and Ron have gotten Joel their comments and Joel is reviewing those. So hopefully we're going to meet at the end of this week or maybe next week to hash those changes out. I think I shared with everybody one of the things that I saw that was different from what maybe you all had been presented was that the twin plant wasn't quite a twin they were a couple thousand hundred thousand gallons smaller from being 600 000 like our current plant is to being 300 000 and so that's according to the engineer all dealing with cost And so we're going to work on trying to value engineer the facility. And we have some other funding opportunities from the state that state folks have shared with us. So we're going to go back and look and see if there's some additional funding to build what we had initially thought we wanted to build.

And like I asked you the other day, how much money have we spent so far for these people that are down there working? In terms of design? Everything. How much? We need to know. I ask you, and I've given you plenty enough time to let me know, but you don't know. And I'm not mad at you. I'm just upset with you because, hell, if this is money, and they cut the plant from $600,000, $300,000, how damn crazy do you think this outfit is? It's not, we've got to stop being stupid. If you're paying for $600,000, you should get $600,000.

Mr. Goof, what else you got with your report?

So the Ryan-Oakland Lift Station project, we had our initial bid meeting, had six contractors come, and that was a good group of folks, and we'll have some bids on that, which is next week, bid opening. Harold Rankin Park, we're still working with engineering firm to do the value of engineering for that we've discussed with the group that we're going to be moving the splash pad up towards the street so we don't have as much underground infrastructure cost for that and save some money on moving the ball field fences where that was going to go so We were looking at saving some money on those elements. Development projects, we're still working with Spencer Ridge and moving forward with those. And that's the extent of my report. Any questions?

Yes. How are you coming on the police department?

In terms of police department, the mayor had asked us to look at washing the awnings, and we've gotten that complete, and also replaced the front sidewalk. You replaced the sidewalk already? No, sir. That's in the process of being replaced. So we've got folks scheduled to do that.

About the paint and the lobby and all the tramp stuff.

I know that the... Police Chief and Justin have talked about that.

That's on go. We're not going to stop. We're going to finish it, right? Yes, sir. Okay, and also, I want a phone in there. And where people, if they walk in there, they can pick it up and they can get some help. It's not against the police department. It's just to help us, to help the citizens have a way. If someone runs in there and they don't have a phone with them, the phone's dead or whatever, they can pick up a phone and the county will pick up and send someone out here to help them and notify our police department. And I don't think no one will be against that. And so that's what you've got. And also the trees. that you don't realize what the overhanging trees on all these streets, where they're hanging over 30 feet, some 25, 30 feet, dropping down to where schools are getting ready to start, the sidewalks for all the grass and things like that, all the coverage, all the signage, all down there where Scott lives, down through there, all those signs and things like that, filthy, nasty, and people flying up and down the road. Mr. Burns might pass away this morning. Yes, sir. And there's been a request to put a speed hump down there. And also, as you well know, people have requested up on Oakland. I'm just talking to you what they've requested in front of me that you know about. In the end of Oakland up there where Mr. Knight lives, all that debris and stuff coming out of those buildings cutting tires down and people getting flat tires and on down at the railroad track putting a speed hump down there where it's a racetrack. And they probably don't know how to go about But you know the citizens you talk to in Lowell, I'm sure, and they can help them fill out whatever they need to do to get through the process to where they can get it. And I think that would be good, and that would be a step in the right direction. Yes, sir. That's on your deal, but I appreciate that. And say, now, who's going to be next? Go ahead, Mr. Chitwood. I'm sorry, Mr. I don't have anything. I apologize. I'm tired. I'm old. Go ahead. I'm good. How about you, Mr. Smith?

Coming out all about being late. Things happen and appreciate you.

Go ahead, Mr. Smith. Thank you for the citizens that came out. Thank you guys from the county that came out to explain to our citizens the tax process. Police admins, workers, everybody, thank y'all.

Go ahead, Mr. Westman. I just want to thank Mr. Councilman Smith and the citizens for coming out because without the people, you don't have a government. And I want to thank you all for coming out. And also, too, I want to say that one of the citizens, Cecilia Benoy, lives on Church Street. And some other citizens asked me about a blood drive. And Mr. Goof got me the information. And thank you so much. And here's what the...

I'm saying this so the citizens will know by YouTube what we said.

Andrea said that they don't have a blood drive scheduled at the moment. The last blood drive was held on April 9th. We usually schedule a couple throughout the year with the blood connection. She says, I've been contacted by the Masonic Lodge to possibly have one with an upcoming event in November. Hope this helps. Thank you, Andrea. Thank you for that information, Mr. Goof. Now, Cecile, you will know that it's in the works. The second thing, the only other thing I have is that I want to thank the LCC. We have some members here tonight from the LCC. And for being participants in the 250-year patriotic celebration, I thank the mayor and all the people who really love America for that. And we represented well, the LCC did, in Dallas. And I just want to thank your group, Ms. McKinney and all the LCC people thank you

I've got a few things. Things that, you know, Mr. Goode, you've only been here for a month, but you see a lot. I'm sure you've seen a lot. You've got employees out there doing two jobs, and you're up here trying to increase a budget for another position when you've already got people down here busting their hind end to help us and zoning and all sorts of water runoff stuff. We're only paying that person $65,000 a year. And they should be paying at least him because they're doing the zoning and the water runoff. It should be at least $85,000 because look what you're paying the water runoff before what this board was paying and also his own person, and that the person has taken the effort and initiative to do this for us. So they should be making at least $80,000 a year and then look at it again next budget year, where we can keep these fine, tremendous great employees that love low and our low. And that's what we need. We don't need to lose employees. We don't need to keep bringing people in. that can't pay their way. And we got one here that pays their way, and then some. But the council needs to take this to heart before we lose people that's valuable to us, that does their job. That position, from doing two positions, zoning, we're paying like $85,000 for zoning and $60,000 for a water runoff. That's $145,000. So $80,000 is saving us money. But by next meeting night, I want that on the agenda for this board to vote on, up or down, because we've got people out there that cares. And also our police department. And listen. We are lucky to have the person in line to be our chief. And like I sent you the email on July the 14th, this town has to promote from within in all departments and the positions out there that we need. And listen, with all the headaches and all the traffic and all the infrastructure problems we got and all these idiots coming off 85 and you've seen the wrecks out here on Main Street the other day is a bad wreck. You got people out here that just, you know, we need policemen on the streets, and they're doing their job. This is going to be a different chief, and I hope we promote the one that we have because he deserves it. He's done his due diligence. He's worked his ass off for us. And all those people out there under him, and same way in public works, when someone leaves, why do you want to waste the talent and go out here and pay money to do a study on something crazy? but i would recommend it immediately that uh rather than go out here and just belabor the fact that we already have a person in place to do it and what is your what is the status right now the chief just quit what you haven't given us any major what's going on you run the city under this council what's going on we haven't done anything yet who's running the police department the assistant chief and that's has that been reported to the council the council accept that and he should accept it better than be full-time all the time we've already got his salary and things like that i don't know why do we need to belabor and go out here and study when everything is already here but i i recommend that we hire him go ahead and make him full-time please okay well after september the first and you can you know we could go ahead and put his motion that's My goal is to see Mr. Harrison become our chief because he's worked his ass off and he deserves it. And people out there that stay here and work with us and fight for us, that's the people we need to honor and respect. And I love Carl. And Carl has retired, and we understand that. But we need to move forward. But we need to move forward in a fashion where everyone can be happy and not destroy ourselves. And look at that police department. It's already improving and cleaning up and getting everything working together. and a camaraderie and we we're lucky to have what we got and add three more to it and we we shouldn't have no more problems you know we get this town taken care of but that's my recommendation so you study that and give us a report that'll be after the september meeting so by then if you have to call a meeting or whatever we have to do but let's don't go out here and be crazy mr bates he had the position he was assistant he was tremendous chief he did his job and we know that mr harris can do his job so i'm not looking for no one else except what we already have But thank you and thank all of y'all for being here tonight. And don't let us down. This town has an opportunity it's never had, Mr. Goode, like I told you. You can either make it or keep it like it is or pack your sack and roll on. But I'm in favor of you staying here and getting this damn place straightened out. And thank you. And good night. Y'all got executive session or something? Go ahead. Y'all want executive session?

Or y'all going home?

Yeah, we do have an executive session.

Okay. Y'all need a motion to go on executive session. I'm going off. Go ahead. You got a motion?

I take a motion to go ahead and close the session for personnel matters and real property records. Okay. The bill is statute 143-318111, 85 and 86. Okay.

Any discussion? All in favor? Thank you. It's unanimous. Thank you. I'm going to get my minutes.

Good night, everybody. Good night. Take care, man.