Commissioners - Regular Meeting

Good evening. At this time, I'd like to call the July 8th Mon County Board of Commission meeting to order. It's been a uh hot, dry summer, and I want to thank each and every one of you in attendance tonight, and a special thank you to the Board of Health. Uh tonight's a a special joint meeting. and I think it's the first I've heard of in several decades. So, I want to send a sincere thank you for being here tonight. Um, any announcements, Miss Tammy? No, sir. Mr. Kade, I actually have a couple. Uh, there were a couple of employees from Transit that participated in the North Carolina Public Transportation Association vehicle rodeo back in the spring. uh Joe Talent, CL Hensley, Elaine Swimmer, and Tom Sock, and they actually placed fourth in the state. So, I thought that was a big accomplishment for those folks. Wonderful. Um and then one other announcement, we have a new application process. Uh we were using the NC Works PD 107 application, North Carolina application. Our application for employment is now online to make it a lot easier for folks to apply. It's an easier process to fill out. So that's new on our web page. So if anybody sees that and has any questions, let us know about that. Commissioner Braden, Mr. Mr. Shields, uh this Friday, July the 11th, um 7:30 a.m. and uh there's a program at the Chamber of Commerce called the eggs and issues. I was looking for somebody from the sheriff's department, but they have the program uh this Friday at the Chamber of Commerce. Uh I don't see any law enforcement. Also, that uh evening on July 11th from 1 to 3, Angel Medical Center is having a open house. You're welcome to come from 1 to

3. come to the angel new angel medical center and they're gonna be do a walk through and there are some interesting things that uh they'll point out to you. So I hope you can come. Mr. Chairman, u take me just a minute for this, but um I'd like to thank the town of Franklin, Franklin Police Department, Franklin Fire Department, Chamber of Commerce, Mon County Rec Park, Mon County Fairgrounds, Mon County Sheriff's Department, Mon County EMS, Mon County Transit, Mon County Fire Marshall's Office, Serve Pro, all the vendors, the food trucks, churches, radio stations, local bands, and to the many, many employees and volunteers and any other folks that I've failed to mention um for a great Fourth of July celebration at the park this year. Um I think it they said it's been five years since that event has been held at the rec park. And um and I'd like to especially thank the committee that worked for weeks organizing this event um and making it possible. It was great to see if you weren't there. It was great to see all the families and a lot of people went out there and they spent the entire day. They were there that morning. They set up tents. They had barbecue grills. They had coolers. Their families, their kids were down there playing soccer, football, baseball, life back in the park. And I'm just so grateful that um to see all the

families. So for everybody that uh had a hand in that ceremony and event, it was a great day. So thank you. Yes, it was. Miss Lori, Mr. Counselor, how are you? All right. Well, there's just something special about Commissioner Shields leading us in the pledge of allegiance and a moment of silence. Would you you'd like to stand? Please stand for a moment of silence and remain standing for pledge of allegiance. Again, while you're in this moment of silence, don't forget about the people in Texas, what they're going through. We're familiar with a lot of this, but the it is really shocking to watch it on TV. you definitely have a heartfelt piece of what's going on there. So, think of those people. Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. All right. All right. We do not have any public hearings tonight. Um, any additions to the agenda? Anyone? Go ahead. Chairman Young, I have an addition on the airport authority appointments for this evening. There's an additional name. The application came in this afternoon. It was at your desk in front of you. Um that is a current board member on the airport authority, Miss Schuler. She did not get sufficient notification to submit her application.

So she submitted it this afternoon, asked for consideration. She is on your ballot. And Mr. Shields and uh Lori, I believe, were at the airport authority meeting when they made the recommendation to reappoint her. All right. That was on June the 4th and uh their recommendation at that time was to reappoint Janet Scheler and Pete Hathcock back to the airport board. All right. Thank you. Any other additions to the agenda? All right, this time we'll open public comment period and we'll start off with Miss Susan Carpenter. Yeah, thank you. the community of not hail. We are proposing to put in a larger monument for our veterans. And I want to make sure that you're all on the same page as we are. I I want to Yes. Or yes, right hand to uh continue on with the project. Um the current layout you have in the picture there, it's just a small stone. Doesn't say anything particular. And then the proposed layout, two stones,

the old stone on one side. The uh new stone would be five foot, three foot high. Uh I think 8 in deep. It would look like a monument one. And also it would be on a uh base rock of 1 ft high. Very, you know, like a monument. So uh it'll be right in between the two flag poles. The flag poles are 12 foot apart and maybe one layer of um pavers right in the front. So, and the mockup that I have is the uh for our nature veterans to those who have given much for our freedom and to those who have given their all. And we list the uh there's about six or yeah, eight of them. We had also the Civil War veterans, but I'm not getting any response from the community to add some that their ancestors were killed in the Civil War. So, we only had two that were buried in the cemeteries. So, we we eliminated it. But, if they come through, then we'll we'll put them back in on onto the stone. But um the statement and to those that have given their all comes from one of the books on um after hail of yesterday year I believe it's called by uh Dece very plain and simple. So, we're going to go ahead with this, guys. What is the cost? Oh, yeah. Um, the old quote that I have using that with the placement by uh Bob

Barton from uh Western Carolina, he's over in Marble. Uh, the pavers would be about $7,100. That's installed. H that is installed. Yeah. Well, we're going to install it. Bob Barton would do the installation. One fellow says he's going to go drive down and pick it up. So, we won't have any shipping cost whatsoever and we'll just have labor in preparing the site. um taking the small river gravel out and I'm proposing that we use maybe the a slate that we can get over in Wessa, the Natala slate, which is a nice very very dark uh stone all around the uh both flag poles. All right, [Music] any questions? Any questions? What does that mean? And it's everything is is done by the community. The timer. Yeah, we'll we'll fix We're in the public comment. We'll uh we'll have Mr. K be in touch with you. At this point in time, I don't feel like we can make any commitments. We'll uh we'll be in discussion. Mr. Chairman, I will we had talked earlier. So, if you if you want me to research some options, we'll try and come back at the next meeting or at some point we'll try and come up with something presentation if you wish the next meeting. Thanks for making the got a donation from the VFW. And the American Legion is meeting tonight and they are going to vote on it or discuss it. They said and I think next meeting that they have is I'll give a presentation over there. You'd had a donation bucket with you tonight. You may have done well. Look at this room right here. Run over there. All right. Thanks for coming. We had a we had a mixup in um what was going to

be presented for tonight, but next next time I can do that with the with the um All right. Yeah, you're good. Thanks for coming. I'll follow up. All right, Matt Jackson there. Raise it up a bit. Hey everybody, how's it going? You all know that when I come up here, I do not come prepared, but um when I come in and talk about uh you guys are having discussions on dry county, correct? Is we are the last dry county in North Carolina, I believe. And I mean, obviously, there's tax benefits to having stretches like Georgia Road opening up to more business. I think we would see more business coming in from people who might stop at Clayton and Raven who aren't coming all the way up. we see Clayton and Raven growing exponentially. For some reason, we're not seeing as big of a growth that they are having. And I'm a licensed real estate agent, been here for 10 years. Um, and I live down Georgia Road myself. And I've seen a number of businesses go belly up, come back, belly up. It's a recycling pattern. And over the years, I've had a number of clients that are investor clients. Um, the only place I can ever sell them anything is for businesses is downtown or not downtown but town city limits. If I can't sell them here, they go to Clayton. And so I think we are missing a lot of opportunity of what could be beneficial by opening up the county. I don't know what everybody's thoughts are. I'm sure there's different opinions on it, but I think that as far as a tax revenue uh for growth, I think it is probably the wise option, but that's my opinion. That's why I wanted to bring it to you all. That's it. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Matt Jackson, Laura Pucket.

See? Good afternoon, ma'am. Hey, everyone. Um, yeah, that's Can you hear me? I'm Laura Pucket. Um, we're uh out of Scaly. Um, we own Fire Mountain Resort. Um, first of all, I'd like to thank Commissioner Breeden for bringing this to everybody's attention and getting it on the ballot. I called him about something else originally, which was Happy Hill Road, but um and then Josh, I guess, also signed off on it. Um we're we spent the last year building tennis courts. Um not really knowing exactly what the specification should be on them. There's nothing really clear. Calling the county saying, "Is this okay? Is this what kind of fence do we need? Do we need bathrooms?" Um 14,400 square feet of land um is what it takes to build a tennis court. Nobody's ever going to really use it, but that's what we have to do to get our license to operate. We have people coming to our resort. They can't get a glass of wine. So, um it really affects us. And then I'm here with my husband. There's a couple of the restaurant owners in our area. um Maglocas, um the Mexican restaurant, their their business is so impacted. I mean, arsonist courts are almost done, so it's not really gonna do much for us, but it's really sad to see them struggling when you go to a Mexican restaurant and you can't even order a margarita. So, and then there's the tax base here. I mean, you guys struggle to balance the budget and you could always use more um taxes, tax dollars to go towards worthwhile projects and I think you're really missing out because you've got the whole Georgia road there that you can't put in

Applebees or whatever. So, they're not going to go there. They're not going to build tennis courts. So, I encourage you to like put this on the ballot um for the next election season and hopefully it'll pass. So, thank you very much. Thank you, Laura. All right. Pardon if I mess this up. Is it Stacy Rivers? Is that right? It is. All right. Good evening. Uh my name is Stacy Rivers and I am um the general manager and one of the owners of Magaloka's Restaurante in Scaly Mountain. And just as Laura was reporting there, we're just having a struggle with, you know, the antiquated law of not having the ability to offer our guests a glass of wine with dinner because that's what they want. And I mean, we're an upscale Italian restaurant and people don't even understand why they can't. So, can't tell you how many times I'm asked for a wine list or having to give the story as to why they can't have it. And it doesn't make a lot of sense to us or them. Um, but in you know what it does as far as our revenue, we're successful to the point that we can be successful, but we're a 32 seat restaurant, you know, and that would just help us so immensely to be able to give our customers what they want. And um, you know, there is no progress here without change. And it's just something that uh we need to have so we can be successful cuz we're already looking at it as what we can cut, what we can do, you know, to get any further. And this would change our lives. It really would. It would really

put us in a place that, you know, would make all that hard work worth it. So that's all I had to say there. Thank you, Stacy. All right, Vicky Sanders. I think my voice will carry pretty good. I'm Vicki Sanders and I'm representing really the upper Burning Town area in regards to the Burning Town Iowa Fire Department. I have been donating for them for a number of years. Our area has burnt down. My barn burnt down. And I know for one thing the insurance is reduced by being within that fivemile district five mile area. If we change to the K cowi area we will be out of the district and our insurance will not be able to be included in that reduction. Um and I like I said many years a several years ago I had burned down probably two $300,000 worth of um our area and if it wasn't for the Burning Town Iola and Burnington Iola fire department and the Franklin and the Kawi our house would have probably burned down and we have close to about 60 acres up there and that is very significant if if it has to be moved. So my recommendation would be to not keep Burnington Fire Department as is and not join the K cow fire department. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Sanders. All right, that concludes public comment. Pass that down to Miss. All right, I'm looking for adjustments andor approval of the agenda. Do I hear a motion? Hear a motion by Commissioner Breeden,

second by Commissioner Shields. Any further discussion? All in favor, please raise your right arm and say, "I." I. All right. No reports and presentations. That brings us to item 10A, old business, uh, discussion with Mon County Board of Health and Mr. Jerry Hermanson. Um, at this time, would it be appropriate for you to call your meeting to order? Absolutely. You can hear me, right? Um, but they may not hear you. I'm sorry. People behind you may not hear you. Oh, okay. But, but yeah, you speak there and it'll go back there. That any better? That's perfect. Okay. Thank you. Um det after determining we have a quorum, I'd like to call a special meeting of the board of health to uh order and uh if it's okay with you. Uh Mr. Chairman, I'd like each of our members that are present to identify themselves and tell you what area they bring to the table. As you probably know, there are, I think, seven or eight skill sets that need to be represented on the board, like dentists, doctors, things of that sort. And I'd like you to know which ones they represent. I, by the way, represent the general public in that in that one of three positions. So that's okay with you. Please, we'd appreciate that. To go ahead and introduce yourself here. Just stand up, maybe. Yeah. Um, my name is Courtney Patrick. I am a clinical pharmacist by training. I have practiced for over 15 years and um have specialized in infectious disease and cardiovascular um and metabolism therapeutic areas. Good afternoon everyone. My name is Carlos Vargas. I'm a family physician trained inos medicine.

I'm Gen. I'm the engineer on the board of professional engineer North Carolina and kind of handle environmental health water. Good afternoon. I'm a stone. I am registered nurse. nursing board. My name is Matt Corbin. Uh I'm a dentist here in Franklin and also represent dentistry on the board of health. Practic my first five years in the Air Force and the last practice. My name is Don Felman. 54 years in medicine. Start out as family practice, then have boards there at adult psychiatry and child psychiatry and a fellowship in pediatric and pediatric sleep medicine. For the last 37 years, most of my practice has been pediatric in Mon Georgia. Presently now I'm moving to North Carolina. Thank you. Good evening. I'm Steve Gryom and I'm just at large member. So I have no specialty like these gentlemen women do. Wow. That's that's pretty incredible. I must admit. Let me just say these are all volunteers. Yep. They serve on the board. They do a great job. They take it very seriously and we thank you all for letting us come and have this joint meeting. Perfect. All right. Well, I'll just kick us right off. I feel like uh some of the issues that I'm going to bring up tonight are at no fault to your board. I want to make sure that's clearly spoken. I feel like by design,

maybe there are some flaws in the system, and I think we're here asking for help. I think what's happening right now is we're receiving a lot of the complaints, a lot of the feedback. I I I took 19 tally marks from my email of complaints that I'd received in the past I mean this year this fiscal year and I feel like um we're kind of reaching out saying help you know and we want to reach we want to reach out to your board. we feel like your board maybe isn't getting, you know, you don't have a channel to the general public. And I feel like there has been, you know, kind of some issues going on in the in the past couple years with some environmental um backups and some other things that really have kind of, you know, hurt us here. And I think tonight's really an opportunity to meet face to face. I think this is a time to just kind of let the cat out of out of the bag, per se, and and really have some just good healthy discussion on what we can do to help each other. And uh I feel like we've had a lot of feedback with some kind of inter departmental conflicts. It's really not our business to kind of get in your business, but I feel like it's a little bit overwhelming. And so, with all due respect, I think that's kind of why we're here. I think uh there's some other board members that may have some comments that they'd like to bring up, but I think generally speaking, we're just trying to help make Bacon County a little better. All right. Does anybody have anything, Mr. Cheryl? Mr. Breeden? Okay. Well, I am one of the liaison to the U make county health board and um I feel really out of place when I get in there with all these professionals when I run a shovel for a living and dig ditches. But um the concern that I have and I'll just um I prepared this as an elected body

of the people by the people and for the people in my opinion it is wrong to have an appointed board by this elected board to be in complete control of Mon County Health Department. The appointed board of health should be an advisory board to this elected body. The board of health was not elected by the people and should not have sole authority over this agency. The board of commissioners and the county manager should be in control of overseeing this agency. Few years ago, I witnessed an employee of the health department tell one of the elected commissioners that he wasn't going to tell the employee what to do, when to do it, and how to do it. I don't ever remember as being an employee or a business owner of ever hearing an employee tell their boss that they wasn't going to do what they were asked to do. Well, here's the real issue. Turns out the elected official was not their boss, nor the county manager. their boss was the director of the health department and the board of health that we were elected by the people of this county to run this county and I don't I don't feel that um that you can operate this county if this elected body don't have control over what is happening in each agency of this county. Um, and so

once I realized what was actually happening, yes, my phone has rang off the hook with uh problems, internal problems, people out here in the community very upset. Um, and and some of this stuff you can believe or not believe. You can um you can you have to pick and choose where you're going with this, but when four, five, six people tell you the same thing, then you have issues. And it's not just people out here in the community that's dissatisfied with what's happening, but it's also internal with employees of the Mate County Health Department. And um and I fear that um some of these folks, we may lose some good quality people if we don't um if we don't step up to the plate and address this. Um and so when Commissioner Breeden had made the announcement that he thought that, you know, that this board should be the one in control of um and used the health board as an advisory board. It got me thinking back all this time since I've served on this board of commission as to what's actually transpired in my time. And I feel that we're we are we have no authority and no control over what's happening over there. So that's I mean I I I think this somehow um I don't know all the legalities or anything like that and it's nothing against the uh appointed board or anything like that but my humble opinion is we were elected by the people to represent the people at all costs. That's all I got to say. Yeah.

Go ahead. Would anybody like to reply to that jury? Um, yes. I'm I'm a little concerned that you've been receiving a lot of Please address the mic to I'm I'm a little concerned that you all potentially most of you maybe have received complaints about the operation of the health department. Yet, nobody has come to us with those concerns. I've had one person contact me that had a problem and they were referred by Warren's office and we appreciate that. That's it. And like I said, we're all dedicated to making sure things run well. If we don't know there's problems and we're not communicated with, we can't do our job to make sure things are run well. We have a confusing situation in my mind because we come under various regulatory limits. General statute 13A is the state public health law and that dictates that we have a health board, what we are supposed to do and what we're not supposed to do, what we're and and that's part of what we have to listen to. We don't ignore the county commission in any way. If you all came to us and we have two two rep liaison members now which is great they can hopefully pass on information and we can pass on information to them. Uh so we would like to know when there are problems going on. I mean I hear about them personally when there's a problem internally and I speak with our director uh which I do on occasion frequent occasion to know what's going on but if you're getting information about concerns we'd like to know it. Mr. Hermanson, let's go back. Let's turn the clocks back a little bit of time. It wasn't too long ago that there was a

serious backlog for permitting. Yeah. It took this body to take this under uh and get it under control. It took the people out here in the community to complain to this body Mhm. to get it fixed. So, so you're I mean, we talked about it. We talked about it several times, but nothing ever changed until this body here, the elected body, made sure that something happened. Commissioner Cheryl, I attended my first county commission meeting a little over 20 years ago, and on the agenda that night was the problem getting septic and well permits. And every time I attended this this commission meeting, there was somebody talking about the problem for at least 20 years. It's it's been an ongoing problem because of how it has to be done because we can't always get the people we need to do it. And we appreciate you getting involved in helping get it to where it is now, but it's still not where it needs to be. Uh and we're we're aware of that. And that's priority for us. I mean, when it takes when it takes five, six, seven weeks to get a permit for something, that's very frustrating. I'm in I'm in this business and uh and yes, I have gone for permits and uh and um waited and waited and waited and um it it it's not right. And whatever and we had this talk. Yep. Whatever we need to do to bring in additional help, that's what we need to do. This county is solely dependent upon construction, home construction, second and third homeowners, and everything else. That's what's the driving force here.

And if we can't get this right, there's there's a problem. And what what's the wait time right now? We have we have less than two week time right now. Well, that's that's a vast improvement over it was the last time we got involved in discussing this issue. Uh but it's still not the where where it needs to be. And we can talk about the individual reasons for that, but they they'll just sound like excuses because the the reality is we don't want to have make excuses. We want to solve the problem and we know how to do it. But we just haven't been able to do it because of Well, we won't go into all the issues. Well, it wasn't because you're probably aware of it. Did I realize that we had no authority over the the health department? It was not too long ago. So, I can only imagine the uh general public probably still don't understand that. And we and we do what you do at the beginning of our meetings. We have open sessions for public comment. Uh, and we hear from groups from time to time who are very adamant and concerned about issues and we listen to them and different than the way you do it just for your information is if they ask us a question, we answer it. We try to engage them during their public comment because we don't want them to go away saying, "Well, I talked and they didn't listen." We want to make sure they know that. That's another way that we should, you know, we should hear about issues or concerns. And to the extent that you all can can help those people that are concerned to know that if they don't already, we'd like to like them to know. We always compare everything to the surrounding counties. Where's Jackson County at now with their permits? Where is Clay County? I don't know where it is right now. They're not. They're probably really close to us if not less

than because I can tell you right now, Cashers, Glennville, all of that over there is absolutely booming. I can't um I mean, it seems to me like there's a lot more construction in Jackson County than there is county. We've run out of property. Well, County here for just a second. I'm sorry. Um, so I think that when we're talking about environmental health, I mean that's obviously that's been some somewhat of an issue, but I we have to address the other ones as well. Animal services has been an issue. Um, one of the things that's been brought to my attention is the morale within the health department and it's crossmart departmental very low. Um, and I just think that when I called this meeting, it it is a little frustrating and I think it's a little confusing and I think it's just not a good structure. I don't think it's anything to do with the board of health, the board of commissioners. I don't think there's anyone to blame and I don't think that's what we're trying to do here is lay blame on you or your board or anything like that. But I do think that the structure of it is difficult because we are the the funding arm of the health department. But we have no authority to make changes or to request. I mean, we can request all we want to, but um those things don't have to happen directly to the health department. So, we're kind of going through you to them, them to you, to us. Um so, when I initially we started talking about this, it was more of um you know, us I would say taking, you know, becoming the board of health. But with that, you know, that would obviously be we're not board of health people. That's not what we do by trade or anything like that. So, we would need, you know, the board of health to continue doing what they're doing in an advisory committee type role. That's I think that's what the general statute says. It would be an advisory committee, which is exactly what you've been doing the whole time. Um, because you didn't know about the

issues and you didn't know about the issues because the policy for the health department is made to where you don't know about the issues. I was kind of looking through some of that today and if you read through the board of health I guess manual book whatever they gave me when I became the leazison last week. Did you read the whole thing by the way? I didn't read the whole thing but I read a little bit. It's not that big. It's Yeah, it's not uh I read the first 10 pages. It's not that big. Um but we had to but yeah um you know it says that in the policy you know it's it's basically you know that goes to the health director whoever that is. those complaints go to the health director and it's it's similar to what we're doing with county manager. You know, we we deal with county manager, people complain to him, you know, what however that works. Um but I just think it's really difficult for us to sit up here and take all the complaints and and you know, try to be the problem solvers for everyone in the community because that's what they expect out of us. But we have no authority or no say in what actually happens inside of the health department other than payroll and you know the funding part of it. So I I just feel like that's something that we or I think that we need to change. Well, we look forward to you coming to our meetings by the way uh being our second liaison. Um we've never had two that I know of but uh two is two is good. Uh but but seriously, I mean, we are there to make things run well to the extent that we as a board of health can do. So again, I implore you when you hear problems, let us know. Or if you don't want to call call one of us directly, let Warren know and he'll be glad to let us know the concerns that are going on and we can work together and resolve. We don't want there to be problems. I mean, is this something that your board is this something that you guys want? I mean, we do this every day. Is this what you want to do as personnel

issues? I mean, these are professionals. Everybody has ultimately jobs. They work in hospitals. They do dentistry or whatever they're doing to the extent that we have authority, but we have a we have a health director who is on top of those things. We evaluate. I would I would challenge that because that's why we're getting complaints. I mean, if if if someone was on top of those things, we wouldn't be here tonight. I mean, so there's there's some issues somewhere. Well, don't don't hide them from us. The board, I mean, don't hide them. I don't think we can get into those right now. Let me recap kind of what he's saying right here. We've had some internal dialogue and to kind of recalibrate, we've got a pharmacist, doctor, engineer, RN, dentist, another doctor, pediatrics, and three professionals. And I feel like side of your building says Mon County Public Health. Okay. Mon County has 22 23 departments or thereabouts and I feel like this board is not health care professionals nor do we claim to be nor do we know anything about it. All right. That's why we need you. That's why you're here. I feel like what Barry's saying is we have an HR department. We help handle a lot of the issues that are currently going on right now at the board of health. Right. We have is you have a department head. We have 22 department heads, 23, but we also have a CEO of Mon County. You know, my role on this board isn't to worry about day-to-day problems, personnel issues, and why the toilet's backing up. That's not our job. That's his job. And I feel like that's Kathy's job, right? But this guy kind of talks to all the department heads. And I think we're just offering, right? If if it would be easier, if it would help, look, we can help with some of the personnel stuff. We can help with some of the day-to-day stuff. We don't touch any of the healthcare items, any of the, you know, the veterinarian

stuff. You know, we don't touch that issue. But I feel like we're extending an arm here and kind of saying, listen, we don't want our our board to catch your complaints. We want your board to catch your complaints. And that way, it's handled in house. And I think that's the problem we have right now is how does the public get a hold of your board? Well, they can go online to the county site and they I believe we're all listed in there with our phone numbers, aren't aren't they? I'd have to double check the phone numbers. The the members names are we obviously have public meetings. There's no phone number that I don't think our names are listed anywhere necessary. Well, mine sure is. I got calls from people. So, look, don't take this don't don't take this as as us sitting here putting you on the I feel like again this is a joint meeting and I think what I'm asking for right now is is some input, you know, talk to us help kind of, you know, let's iron out the wrinkles and I think we're extending a hand here. Listen, do you want us to handle some of the personnel issues? You know, we have duplication. You know, you have an HR department. Believe it or not, we come under different HR rules than the rest of the county. We have state rules that we have to follow and and all these things make it more difficult to manage and I don't mean the board the management level people makes it more difficult for them because they've got more than one boss and more than one set of rules. That was one of the hardest things I had to learn about the board of health is that we come under so many different statemandated uh regulations. It makes it hard for us to know, okay, what do we do if we've got this problem? Do we have to go to the state? Do we have to follow policy that we approve because they told us we had to approve it? Uh, or what? So, we want I think we want the same thing you all do. And what I'm hearing from you all is that you don't want to hear the complaints coming to you for something that you don't feel like you can do something about. I don't feel like that's necessarily the

issue. We don't have a problem taking complaints. I think the issue is we're taking complaints and have nothing we can do about it. Sure, you can. Let us know. Let the board of health know when you get problems. Do it through your executive or however you choose to do it. But let us know. We can't we can't start resolving issues that come up. We don't know. That's that's all I'm saying. Well, one thing Mr. arms and food. It's um you know some of these people especially employees u they'll come to us in fear of retaliation and they know that we will keep everything confidential and see how we address this and um and it's it's been ongoing and you know we had a talk in one of our meetings, you know, don't don't list your personal cell phones. Don't do this, don't do that. Um, I said, "Well, sure. I want to list my personal cell phone. I want people to call me and let me know what's going on. That's the only way I know that what's you can list mine." And so, all of those numbers. Uh, but some some stuff that people call about is is really uh not worth really I shouldn't say it's not worth listening to, but I can't go anywhere with what their complaint was or whatever. So, I just we're in a tough position. Um, um, I don't have a whole lot to really say about this, but I am curious for the rest of the board. Do you guys have any input on based on what you've heard from our board tonight? Yeah, please. Eva, it it sounds like most of the problem is

communication, and that's generally the problem with most businesses. It's all about communication. What I'm hearing from y'all is there's 22 or 23 departments that answer to this young man, and uh this one doesn't. And so is there a way that our board can stay, commissioners stay? Just like when we vote on people to be on this board, that's brought to y'all. We we suggest you all make the the final call. So you do have to say so, but it's like, can we not have Warren be the answer for our board just like he does for every other division there? We're not going to ask Warren's opinion on that. Well, it just seems like that just I mean, if he's doing every other one, I'm just going to sit here for a minute. But it's like you are the mediator between the two and it seems like that would be a really good answer to our problem. And uh I think all of us are willing to take a call, but it's just like we're not getting them. So, we we're we're thinking everything's peachy king. And I think another thing that you have to consider is is that we are um you know we're elected so we take a lot of calls and this is every day. You know we communicate with Warren. I mean I'm I'm pretty new so I communicate with Warren on about on a daily basis but um but that's not something that that you guys are probably able to do. I mean, for the most part, you can't just go talk to to the director every single day and make sure things are going and and that's the issue I think that we have is it's not about all the things that you're doing as a board of health cuz what you're doing is great. I mean, you you're the professionals. You know what's going on. It's the fact that when there's an issue, it cannot be addressed immediately. You're meeting every other month. You know, we're meeting every month and sometimes more than that. And we're

talking to our director, our guy, our county manager on a daily basis. So when we have these issues and we're getting the calls, even if we call you, even if we were to reach out or they were to reach out to you, it's not something that you can just drop what you're doing and say, "Hey, we got to get in here and and deal with it." And I think that's another obstacle. It's a hurdle that without us being in direct control, it it just makes it really really hard to do. Um, and it and it has to be and I think our our council has some information on the um, if we were to go that route, an advisory type committee that I don't know what it's called, but what the board of health would become, it would stay the same. Um, it would just fall into an advisory type thing where you're still doing the same things that you're always doing and then we would be the people that are that are doing the personnel issues and the funding which we're already doing and um, the things like that. So, can you give us some information on what an advisory committee would look like? Yeah. So, it would um it would probably look a lot like it does now to be honest. Um, it would still require, in fact, the statute, uh, the statute's 1538-77 and it says when a board of county commissioners has assumed direct control of a local health board um, and does not delegate the powers and duties of that board to a consolidated health service board, which would be basically a combination of the commissioners and the health board. Um, it shall appoint an advisory committee consistent with the membership described in 138-35. And 138-35 is the statute that uh the jury was referencing early where you've got this composition of all the various professionals um who and and it refers back to that exact same statute. So, it' still be composed of 11 members. Uh, one physician, uh, dentist, an optometrist, a veterinarian, a nurse, pharmacist, and, uh, county commissioner,

professional engineer, and three representatives of the general public. Does any other board member have any comments they'd like to share? Other arms. Come on up here and address the mic. Yeah. Do you have other arms that currently operate like we do or are all of the other 22 are they do they all report to you unlike we're current is there anybody who's doing the way we're doing? Yeah, the DSS is similar. They have a a board that oversees their operations. Um, of course you have the sheriff's office which is completely separate that reports to you but they handle their own discipline. They pretty much handle their own stuff. It's it's basically the same situation with DSS. Yes. Planning board would be similar to what we're talking about or the one in other words. We like have a planning board and we have a that that that advises this board. Yeah. I'm sorry. I maybe I misunderstood Angie. I thought you were talking about departments like other departments that are similar to the health department. Of course DSS is and he's correct. The planning board planning board's similar because we have a plan code enforcement planning permitting development department have the planning board which is an advisory group for for them. Correct Eric? Yeah. Right. Not be similar to the school board. I mean I know they're part state part county as well. The schools are as well part state part county but they they have their own board that governs their own jurisdiction. Come on up Mr. Garrett. They're they actually exactly they're an elected body that's they run in in campaign. So I feel like it's you know where where your board's more or less appointed by this board, right? They're directly appointed by the people. Okay. But give us some feedback. How do you feel? I mean we I think we're just reaching out for help, right? So we had a subcommittee that uh

Jerry it was me and Jerry and Mr. Gryom. Um and we kind of discussed um this had come up the idea of you know discussion of the complaint process or how to take complaints as a board and um you know I don't you know I'd hate for us to have to you know reinvent the wheel here if it's something that can be as simple as us re-evaluating our complaint process and you know going forward with something that we can do as a board and function the same way that we have been. Um, you know, just to continue on that, you know, just re revise and relook at our complaint process like we had uh before and you know, attempt to help you all out and make this discussion between us and you and you know, whoever, you know, like Jerry had said, we can post our, you know, phone numbers that we can have, you know, be accessed and things of that nature and we could, you know, move forward with something like that. um or at least attempt to do that in the beginnings. Well, I think you could still do that as an advisory to this board um because this board would still be uh dependent upon the health board. Yeah. And I also think that you know the complaint part of it is is just part of it. You know, getting the complaints and fielding the complaints is just part of it. It's the action that happens after the complaints, you know, and again, if you guys are professionals and you're doing your daily job and I mean, it's just going to be hard to take the action. That's that's my biggest thing. We have the person in place that takes the action on every other thing that we do, every other department that we have. So, that's kind of where I'm coming from. The the the complaints are one thing, it's the action after the complaints. How how are we going to solve some of these problems? Because that's that's the issues. We have we

have issues. We have problems. Um, and that's why we're here tonight. We have we have problems. So, it's about addressing the problems that we have. Um, so I don't know that just changing the course of the way the complaint comes in solves our problems. I understand. And I'm not trying to be combative. I'm just saying this is Yeah, I understand that would be something obviously that would be the first step and then from there the board would then continue on on how how we address that process. And I don't know, there may be already things in place. I don't know if there's policy in place on how that works. Um I haven't researched into that part. Uh we were just on the subcommittee for the complaint process, but I mean that could be something else that the board looks into once we you know look into that. I don't What was your resolution? My resolution for you complaint department. What did what did the subcommittee come up with? So we had we had we we haven't had a meeting since we discussed the subcommittee discussed we had I what at the end of this month we're having another meeting to bring that back up. It'll be a topic of old business. The subcommittee met after the last meeting and we had kind of throwed some ideas around and we'd have to get obviously approval from the board and this you know obviously we could take this in this meeting that we're having into consideration on how we move forward with addressing that complaint process. So, another quick question based on Commissioner Breen's um issue that he brought up about the about the morale being low amongst the employees in the health department. Is that something that you guys are aware of? And if it is, like how did you guys handle that? Again, I think that was like what we we was talking about. You all have been getting the complaints and then, you know, kind of like Jerry had said, we haven't been being notified of those complaints. So, yeah. Okay. So, you guys weren't aware of that either. guided me. Matt, gentlemen, thank you for bringing this

to our attention. You know, it's um enlightening to understand that maybe some of the issues going on internally at the health department um that maybe potentially we as a board were were kept in the dark about. Um you know, we we did talk at our last meeting and uh it was an an open meeting and it would be in our minutes that we discussed the complaint process that we want to be able to be contacted. Um, and Barry, you make a great point. If we get that information now, what do we do with it? So, I think as a board of health, as as professionals in the community, as volunteers, we would need to to make a decision on whether or not that we would have the consensus, the collective consensus to address potential personnel issues or if that's something we may need to go through um general statutes to look at a different arrangement. And I think you you bring up great points and great things to discuss. Um, and I appreciate your acknowledgement of of us not having that information. I think that's key. Uh we did discuss in the meeting that several of us were open to having um our contact information listed again that those minutes are listed publicly and but we haven't reconvened as a board to discuss that and so you know maybe it's a a good idea to give us that opportunity um to discuss that as a board and and and how we might want to address some of these concerns that we don't know about. Um but I do want to appreciate you uh I do appreciate you bringing these things to our attention um and and calling the meeting so that we could be aware of it. Thank you, Mr. M sir, I'm new to the board and this discussion is new to me. So I'm sitting here thinking, you know, what's going on? Obviously, there's a commun communication problem. I hear that. As a medical doctor, I prefer to be an adviser and let you guys handle the other part of it. I don't have a problem with that, but I'm not sure how you would set that up organizational wise, but I as a as a

doc, I want to be an adviser. I don't want to be involved in procedural or structure of the health department or staff, that sort of thing. I would be lost if you asked me to do that. So, I would have to turn to you. So, if you want me as advisor, I'm fine with that. Thanks. Appreciate that. Uh, go ahead. I just have one um comment to Commissioner Cheryl. Yes, ma'am. So, I'm kind of new to the board also, but you I've been at the last three meetings with you. And if you were fielding concerns and problems from the people who are contacting you, why have those not been brought to us at the board meetings? Because one of the reasons is I didn't know that our other commissioners were getting these complaints as well. So, I was dealing with some of these people uh as an individual and thinking, okay, maybe we're going to settle this out and stuff like that. And then through what we have um we have actually found as it's just a waste of my oxygen to bring this stuff up because nothing I can do about it. We have but you could have asked the liaison, is that not your job to bring those concerns to us as the board? Well, these are things that I talked to my manager about. Um, and I and I actually have to ask you uh a question if I may. Sure. If you as a board got a complaint, do you address that with the person that did the complaint or do you do it with the director of the not any complaints? I understand the three meetings I've been there. So if I had brought those forth, where would they have gone? As a board, we would have discussed it and then discussed it with the director. I'm sure that that I mean that's how in my world that works.

That's you're exactly right. And um and so from that point, it's just like if I get a complaint with any staff member in the county, well then I have to go to the county manager. That's what he's hired to do. But if we get a complaint with the health department, we have no no authority to to go forward with that. And it's um it's very frustrating as a fractured. Yeah. And so um I think it's not completely broken. Um, but it's very concerning where we're headed to as a as a department. Hi guys. I am new to the health department. So, uh, these are all new to me hearing this today. What you're suggesting is very operational and around HR and I do agree that you probably have a little bit more expertise in that area. I think when I think about health care though, there's a lot of complexities to that and there are things like social determinants of health, there's access to medicine, there's rural medicine. Um, and I would I would hope that we would still have that ability to share our expertise in those areas to where you guys might not. Um, I I could see how a partnership could make sense. I also am hearing that there's like concern for retaliation and I would say to make sure that we're upholding the integrity of the department, we need to fix that now. Um there has to be a way that people can anonymously let us know what their concerns are. I think that needs to be number one thing we've got to fix. Um, I would be open to like further communications with you guys or even maybe sharing phone numbers or what we need to do. Public health is very interesting and um it's not for the

faint of heart and so I think the fact that we are all volunteering our time to be here is um we we are not getting votes, right? We're not doing this for anything other than the good of people and to make sure that we're taking care of them. Um, so I would just like that to be taken into consideration as well. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon and thank you for the opportunity to meet face to face. And to everyone here, I'm still trying to decipher the code speak that's going on here. I'm a physician and my job is to understand the truth. Kind of like a like a lawyer, you know, but um I'm I I'm stuck. I don't understand what's going on here. There when I sometimes talk to families when there's a big conundrum in palative care, I used to do that full- time. I tell families there are several truths and that's true. the patient's truth, the family's truth, the uh peripheral staff's truth, what they observe, what their story is, my truth, and then there's an objective one, one that's kind of out there that's probably more the accurate one. Little combination of all of these, right? I don't understand your truth right now. I don't I don't get it. I don't understand it. It sounds like you want hiring and firing authority. That's what it sounds like. But I'm not sure if I had complaints from the public about the commissioners. I wouldn't want authority to hire and fire you guys. That that's what it sounds like you want toward us. You see what I mean? That there's complaints. So I can't do anything. Give me the authority to do something about it to fix it. But that's not how it works. We have a director Kathy. There she sits. Have you seen her performance

reviews? Have you talked to her her employees directly other than the ones who have complained? Her record is impeccable. I've known her for 20 plus years. She has more integrity than most people I know. You're blessed to have Kathy as your director of this health department. To imply that she's not doing a good job to me is ludicrous. Uh if people if why do people have poor morale in any workplace? They're not paid enough. Somebody here said that you have the financial part of our authority. There's the answer. Pay them more. You said there's not that the wait's too long. Hire more people. It doesn't seem that complicated to me. That's not some uh stronghold problem that the world has to shift and the structures of boards have to change and bylaws and no, we we we have a process. Kathy's the person in charge of the health department. We support her. We show up. We listen to the agenda. We put in our our input and we move on and we we develop uh projects as needed. But she's the one here who's who who's doing what you guys are thinking about doing. It sounds like you're wanting to subvert her or override her authority. I don't understand that. If there are a few disgruntled people, tell me what organization doesn't have that right. I'm disgruntled at stuff that happens in my job. Doesn't mean I have to go to the highest power and expect everything I want to happen. Have you investigated that? Have you shared it with Kathy or or Jerry? I mean that that's what you do. You pick up the phone and say, "What the hell's going on?" Right? It's it's a simple process. This where this is not complicated like you're making it out to be. That's what's confusing to me. This is simple human interaction. It's communication.

It's problem solving in a mature adult way instead of is talking about problems that we haven't heard yet. I've heard two. Uh there's something else going on here with respect. And uh I don't see there is a problem. If you're filming complaints, give them to us. That's what we're here for. There's a process. Let's do it. You're creating some extra process where has to be solved by changing everything. I don't see that. I don't see that. We have everything we need. You've got an excellent director. If you have personal friends who work there who are calling you disgruntled, that needs to be handled appropriately, not by changing the structure and firing people. You see what I mean? We're giving you authority to do that. The process is intact. We have a good health department here. I think you have good people on our board. And by the way, you guys you guys approve our our our nominations. You have a lot of authority. A lot. So painting yourselves as these kind of helpless people. Oh, there's problems and we need we need your help. I don't I don't buy that. So, uh I wish you guys would speak more clearly, more honestly, so I could understand what's going on. I think it's communication and and just follow the processes that we already have. We have good dedicated people here and we're here at your service. Thank you. [Music] Anybody else? Can you explain real quick what that would look because we've heard from a couple that, you know, we'd wouldn't mind the advisory role. Obviously, Miss Patrick, we have to have you guys around um because that's not what we do. Um could you explain what that would look like, Mr. Attorney? Is that a I mean, are we would we be taking over

the board of health? Would it be a joint effort? How does that how's that reading? So, it can be there's a couple different options if you looking at the statute, it can be um under that statute I was talking about 1538S77B um in the exercise of jurisdiction um the board may either consolidate certain provisions of human services in the county under the direct control of the human services director appointed and supervised by the county manager. Um two, it can create this consolidated human services board having the powers conferred um within the statute which would be the consolidated the the blending of the two boards to for one separate board. Um it can do a a hybrid of that under three and then it also can assign other um human service services functions to be performed by the consolidated board. under A is the one um where you bring it under the I'm sorry, B1 would be where you bring it under the the purview of the county as a whole and it would basically be exist as a department within the county similar to the other other departments within the county and then that would then require that what I was talking about earlier that would require the um the advisory board um which composed of the exact same makeup that the current board is. And that would need a public hearing. Yes. So, if you were going to do that, there would you do a motion um to consider it basically. Then you'd hold a public hearing on getting further input um from the public about pros, cons, that type of thing. And before you'd made a before you'd make a decision, is it a consideration or a resolution?

You'd pass a resolution to consider it. And then um then you'd hold the public hearing and then after the public hearing you could vote it up, down, do whatever. You could put it off, you could not hold the vote. You could it would just be a be an item on the agenda for consideration after the public hearing. Can I make that into a motion? I make the motion. You can make a motion to consider um or to hold a public hearing on the issue. And if you were to do that, um, it would re there would be a 30-day notice in the paper. Uh, the paper wouldn't publish until next Wednesday. That would not allow 30 days before the August meeting. So, the earliest you could technically have that public hearing would be at the September meeting um, for consideration to whatever you all get input from the public on. Would it be possible for you guys to attend our next meeting and go into detail over these complaints and let us talk about this first before like we we move into the next step because at this point we still don't the issues. Yeah. Yeah. And I and I I understand you know what you're saying and where you're at. And the only thing that that I fear is is in the meantime, like if we don't go ahead and take action, I I really do fear that we're going to lose some employees. Um morale is is low. Um and I'm sorry. How do you say there's poor morale? How do you Well, the what I've been told by several different employees inside is it's a very toxic work environment. I don't know that I can get into a whole lot of that in an open it's personnel

it's tough so you can have discussions with them um privately um but um I don't think it would be proper if if we were to go into close session I don't think it would be proper for us to go into close session to discuss personnel um with this board just because you all are not the technically even though you even though you account for the payroll of the health department, technically they're not your employees. So therefore, I don't think it would be proper for you all to go into close session in joint session with the health board to discuss personnel issues. Um because I don't think I think that in order to do that, you'd have to have the exception to the um open meetings laws, which would require that that both boards have authority to go into cons close session. And in this case, I think it would be only the health department that would have the authority to go into close session to discuss a personnel issues um within their board. Um so they could, but I don't think you all could because they're not your employee. So that means there's complications on both sides. So I don't think, you know, and I'm listening to what you just said, Mr. Vargas, but I don't think there's a hidden agenda on any side at this point because we're just trying to get to a common goal. Um, but there's obviously complications on both sides and we're not understanding truly like first of all what our limitations are versus what your limitations are. And just even going to close session in my mind before this meeting I was thinking completely opposite of what the attorney just said. I thought it was a simple thing for us to be able to do with you guys. But because of the way the setup is, we can't even really do that. So I understand what that what you're asking, but it's obviously not that simple because if it was and we'd be able to do that tonight. It's not that simple. And just to address Mr. Vargas, so again, so we're not it doesn't seem like a hidden agenda, you know, picking up the phone and asking what what is going on um has

not worked. We have brought the director I know for a fact in front of this board and nothing has changed. Nothing has nothing at all has changed. So, I think where I stand is I would just like to make a motion that we um adopt a resolution to consider taking over or the board of commissioners becoming the board of health and the board of health becoming an advisory committee and that uh we put that on the agenda for a public comment at our September meeting. So motion for public hearing. Public hearing September public hearing. Sorry. We have a motion on the floor by Commissioner Breeden. I'll second that motion. Second by Commissioner Shur. Further discussion. Okay. Okay. I guess my concern is I do not know the job description of Miss McGaff. I I don't know where to find it. And I feel like that I have to have something that shows me what you can do and you can't do in your job description. And to me, you just carry that out. And if you're not carrying that job description out, the people right here should know that and come back to you and say, "These are areas here that you're responsible for within your job description via the state and we expect you to carry that out." And I think and if you're not doing that, then I think you have to have a chain of command. You have to change there. Something has to change. If y'all are not s satisfied, you're the

professional people. And her job description determines what her job is. I do not know what her job description is. And to take ownership of that with my lack of knowledge, I'll say this for myself, is insulting. because I don't know what it is. I've never read your job description what it is. So, I have a hard time making the decision, voting decision on something, then I don't know what your job description is. Uh, so if we vote to do something about a job description, I'd like to have a little time to see what your job description is and see what it is. And if it's there in black and white, then you're expected to adhere to that. Then if you aren't and the the complaints are coming to this board, then this board here has to have a knowledge of that. But it it pertains to your job description and the gentleman here talking about the leadership and that will expose the yays and nays that. it' be your board uh that then would have to make a decision if you need a leadership change or not. Am I right or wrong? I I I don't know. I do not feel Gary Shields has adequate adequate information and knowledge. When I look at Matt and I look at your doctors and stuff like that, I'm not that I'm not that person. I don't have that knowledge.

But I look at Miss McGah and say if you have your job description, that's what you need to follow. And and if you're not doing that, maybe it's time to say goodbye. I don't know. But that's something y'all have to and for that for that piece of information always coming to us and with Mr. Cabe worked with him. People, he's got enough on his plate without taking over another department. But you people are I'm going to call you the intellectual group because of what of what you are what you're doing. You're a doctor. You know, you are an intellectual piece of this. And I think it's your responsibility that your leader is carrying out their responsibility. But I think it's overflowing through some way that's coming to us. But we u I I don't feel like I'm the knowledge level of knowing what Mah your job description is. So if this group here knows, then they should have you adhering to that job description in my opinion and carry it out. And I think with that piece of information, if change comes, it can be in person or it can just be a change within the person. And that's fine. We've got enough to do without playing, without being the health department. I'm saying I'm talking for myself. Without being the health department piece, you got two leazison that's going to be with you uh on on your on your

board. They'll know right quick if what your do job description is and if you're adhering to that job description is. And so my feeling is that you people know what your jobs are just make sure you know what Miss Gah has job description is then hold her to that. And if and if that doesn't work then you know you may have to terminate or enrich the person's understanding of the job description. You people are the intellectual people and you've been around this business a long time. You're here to fix a problem and and you can or at least try and if it doesn't work then you know what happens after that. Time to replace somebody. Thank you. Mr. Chairman may Yes sir. I'm the only non-intellectual on the board. Uh but I've got 50 years of senior administration in healthcare. That's not in a very intellectual dealing and and dealing with employees and people and organizations and management is the second hardest job there is. I used to teach among other things. I used to teach on the graduate level young budding hospital administrators. And when we talked about that, I always say it's the second hardest job you'll ever do, managing people. And they always want to know what's the first hard job being a mother. The second hardest is managing people. It's a tricky thing. Uh she knows what her job description is. We know what her job description is. She's evaluated every year. We use a format

that's used at many of the local or the regional uh health departments. It includes things like did you meet the goals that were established at last year's meeting, what they are, uh, and then what we want you to do in the coming year. We do that every year. Can I ask who evaluates, sir? I'm sorry. Can I ask who evaluates her? Sure. Absolutely. We have we have a a subcommittee or a committee of the board that meets. It's usually the chairman, could be the vice chairman, it could be it's usually another physician uh that's on the board. They meet go through the process of of doing the evaluation with her present go through the whole thing. Then that that evaluation or proposed evaluation is taken to the full full board of health and they vote on a year or an A. That's that's our process for evaluating her. Her job description you're you have an educational background. Correct sir. Yeah. The job description for a teacher is totally different than for the principal. Not just that, you know, one teaches students in a classroom, one administers, but they have overarching responsibility for the organization as does the the director, the health director does. those are a little bit more challenging uh to manage and uh she takes she takes uh well I think she takes advice from me now and then when she has an issue that she wants to talk about and she'll talk about it at the at the board of health meetings also uh and managing a large organization I think we have about 60 or so positions in the in the health department that's not a huge organization uh The largest organization I ran had 3,500 employees, large hospital. Um, but it's still challenging because you have multiple types of professionals. Managing professionals is different than managing

non-professionals. It is it is challenging. Uh, I dare say that none of you nor I could manage that group particularly well because we don't know all the professionals involved and their their needs, their desires, what motivates them as a professional, but also individually. If you're going to do a good job managing people, you need to know what individuals also are are motivated by or demotivated, how their morale is affected. All those things are important and our board, the board of health holds her responsible and accountable for those things with a formal process. But I just wanted you to be aware of how we do that. Thanks. Thank you. Can I ask one more? Just one more. Miss Keyser, would you mind addressing I heard the HR part of that earlier about the difference between the board of health and I guess a normal HR with the state. Would you mind addressing what that is? Sure. So, the county has a policy that county employees fall under which includes a disciplinary action process, a just cause for dismissal. Um, county employees are considered employees at will in general, but there is a disciplinary process that if somebody's not performing their job, you go through with written warnings, conferences, um, corrective action plan, those kind of things. Health department falls under um the local government administrative code, which dictates what their disciplinary action has to be. It's very similar to what county employees fall under. Um but employees at the health department when they have been employed for one year they become a career status employee by general statute and that means that they have a property interest

in their position and they have to go through that disciplinary process before they can be dismissed except in grossly inefficient job performance. Something that's pretty severe that that could result in immediate dismissal. The procedures are similar, but you just have to make sure that you're abiding by that um administrative code, which has a few other little things in it, but they're very similar. And as far as their HR versus our HR, are they set up the same? Is everything um their the HR function at the health department is a little bit different. um they manage their interview process which is similar to the interview process that we do with the county. Once they make their decision on who they want to hire in a position then that recommendation comes to us and we have to approve off on that as far as the um that they have a position that it's budgeted that the salary is correct all of that. They're the employees at the health department by the state job spec also have to meet certain educational guidelines and requirements similar to what you have in county positions. They have to have delegated authority um or they have to send that person's application packet to the state to determine that that applicant meets the eligibility criteria for the position. And I believe currently uh Miss McGa and Miss Balkam have that deleg have that authority to determine whether or not somebody's qualified for that position. Um so they don't have to send a lot of applications to the state. But there is that piece that you have to have the documentation and proof that the person qualifies for that position. But once they do their process there, then that paperwork comes to us to approve and sign off on and the finance officer to sign off on.

Thank you. [Music] Yes, sir. We're investigating the We are investigating the process of how to basically fire Kathy and you've already made a motion to change the structure of our boards. We haven't heard the specific complaints yet. We haven't had a time to discuss it or anything and you haven't discussed it with Kathy or heard from her. I think all of this is premature. Thank you. So I I understand you have a motion on the floor and a second and this discussion has to be relevant to that motion. And I think my question would be I want to go back to something that Courtney had mentioned. She had she had asked is it possible for the we we are hearing that you can't talk about maybe personnel issues. Commissioner Breeden, you use the word cross departmental. You can't speak about them in an open meeting because they are personnel issues but we can't go into close session together because of a general statute. So I guess maybe my question for Mr. Riddenau would be is it possible at our next meeting that our two liaison could be at our meeting to present some of these concerns to us so that we're a little bit more wellversed about maybe what's going on? Yes, I think you could do that. um the liaison um at least I think I think one of them is actually an exeicio member and maybe they both do um now that we have two but at the very least you all can go into close session and you can take back anyone in close session that you think is relevant to the for the purpose that you're going into close session. Um you have the right to invite even if even if they didn't. I'm I'm shooting from the cuff here that they have the the right automatically, but at the very least it and I can look that up, but to be I'm positive that they can go back if you asked them to. So, you could um you could just you could bring them into close session is with you regardless and there would only be two. So, it wouldn't be a it wouldn't be considered a open meeting of the county commissioners because there's only two.

If there were three, then that would be problematic. Can I ask one more question? Sure. Um, just trying to compare to what other counties do in the state of North Carolina. Do you have any idea um how many have adopted this practice that you're proposing tonight? I don't, but I could ask um chat GP. So, so eight out of 100, right? Fifth grade coming back to me now. Um, so I would say like the overwhelming that's probably consolidation. Consolidated that's probably the consolidation piece. I think it was more like I would say that like it would be interesting to look at these complexities of why 92 have decided not to do this. um and and really try to get down to why you need medical professionals on the health board and um sharing their expertise around different things. I don't feel like any of you guys would want to be making big decisions if there's a measles outbreak in Mick County, right? And so we need to think about maybe those really kind of highlevel pictures of, you know, who's going to be stepping in and who's going to have like ultimate control there. Also though, there are some issues that we need to address and I agree with Matt in the fact that we need to um learn them and see what the next steps are and what we can do to help in that manner. Um but definitely consider the fact that you know rather than rushing to a solution before we've even tried um if this is the minority of what most places are doing there there's probably an ultimate reason for that. Thanks. Thank you. Yeah. So

what's the theory where it states if you identify the problem, the problem is half solved. You know, I feel like that's a lot of the problem right here is your board is unaware of the problems. And I think that's kind of what this effort is tonight. It's hard to fix a problem that you don't know exist. And uh I feel like this snowball is moving really fast. When is your next meeting? the last Tuesday. Okay. And so your proposed public hearing would be September 9th. About right? You know, I feel like I'd like to have a lot more input from your board, your board of professionals. But on the same token, you know, public hearing isn't bad to hear from the people. You know, public hearing doesn't mean it it happens. It also sets a tone of urgency. you know that I feel like your board it would be easy for you to say look you know we're on the line right here and I think it would help create that tone in the department and it doesn't mean it's going to go through I think you can have more than one meeting potentially a special call if needed in between. So I don't have any problem supporting that for that reason. I think it' help your board say look our neck's on the line and uh what do y'all want to do? But in the meantime, I would like to have a list of your phone numbers. And I personally would like to hear from each of you individually and and just, you know, get some feedback and see what you want to do. I mean, to me, this is this is, you know, a 50-50 partnership and we're asking. I'm asking. All right. I feel like that's I want to hear back from you. So, that's kind of where I'm at on this. I don't have a problem supporting it for that reason. Um, and then I'll give you guys some time to meet once, maybe twice, and you could report back to us and we can do this again if needed. All right. Any other discussion?

Um, I'd like to restate the motion on the floor. Can we reread the motion? Does anybody have it handy? Okay. So I think the motion on the floor is to consider or is to have a public hearing at the September meeting for the purposes of considering whether this board would adopt the county health department. is a department within the county pursuant to NCGS 153A-77. It's clear. We have a motion and a second. Any further discussion hearing? None. All in favor, please signify by raising your right arm, stating I. I. Any opposed? Any oppose? Okay. Please let the record reflect 5. Tammy. All right. I'm sorry I didn't see your hand go up. My mind was all right up somewhere else. All right, moving along here. Um Oh, so then um the health department then would close their meeting. Yep. Thank you. I'm sorry. Any other comments from your board, Mr. Hermanson? Any other comments before we I think I'd like to extend a sincere thank you for you guys and gals making the point to be here tonight. And it's pretty incredible your list of uh professional skills. I have a motion to Thank you. Yes, sir. I I'll give a moment a moment or two so you guys can leave. Thank you.

Yes, please. Let's let's do that. All right. Let's let's uh let's let maybe you guys can compile a list. I can have a word reach out and we can number. Thank you guys so much for coming. [Music] Then this refrain I thought it was a style thing. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Take care of yourself. Thank you, Eric. I forgot about that. Thank you, sir. Thank you. What is that? He's cold. Are you cold? She better hurry. All right, I'm just letting the dust settle here. So, good to see Burning Town.

Um, looks like we've got an update, a progress report from the Burning Town Fire Department. Mr. Warren Cape. Yeah, Mr. Chairman, my name's actually on here, but basically I I think the deadline or there were some dates given the end of July and obviously this is the only meeting you have before the end of July based on the work session we had. So, we felt like it was appropriate for those folks to come up and talk to you. I know uh y'all been made aware I think if you've opened your mail yet the community meeting which is correct me if I'm wrong the 19th uh that they've invited you to so so basically Mr. Chairman I if you want an update for them I would let them proceed. give you a very short update. We had a inspection yesterday afternoon. Everything that was deficient reports are up to date. The two pumpers, which are our backup pumpers, but uh our backup pumpers have been pump tested and they passed with flying colors. So, everything is accomplished that we've set out to do. Uh we have currently on our roster 28 members. Some of them are are new and are working on this 36-hour requirement. This time we have 16 of those that will count with their 36 hours. And by the end of July, we have at least five that are getting close. So we should have by July 31st our required 19 plus a few extras. You have any questions? Mr. McCascal, the 28 members you're referencing, um, are some of those junior firemen?

Our with our roster, we have four. One of our junior firemen will turn 18 the seventh day of August and will be qualified also. So, that will add another one to that list. So, we have three juniors. 28 plus four juniors. No, no, no. Okay. That's including our juniors. 24 24 total members and 16 of them have training hours uh that have the 36 required hours plus many of them have many many more hours in that. Okay. You're required to have 19 members state. So right now we are three short but we will be over that number by July 31st. And we have four pending applications that have not joined the department right now. But those applications have to be voted on and have to go through our initial process. So there's potential for more members. So how long do you think it will be before at least three members will have their 36 hours training? Two of them will probably have it this Thursday. Okay. Um so as of this Thursday when you become back to 18 we'll like one right Thursday and that depends on some online training for the next person in line. Okay. So once you get the 19 that's required by the state. Yes. you will be sat it will be satisfied as Burning Town Iowa Fire Department and at that point how we will no longer have to run your calls. Is that correct? As I see it, yes.

Congratulations. Y'all come a long way. We told you to do it as a short time frame and the training hours we've had and I've got a whole bunch of people here. here if you all stand up and I got community members here too and board members if you all stand up. They have been busting at the month of June and you know I think we owe them a debt of gratitude. Absolutely. Thank you. where we are. Um, I mean, that's that's absolutely wonderful that you you guys were able to uh come up with this. Um, just something for you to um to think about. The sole purpose of your service is to protect lives and property. And I ask you and I asked you before and it's if you go into a burning structure, make sure that the members that's behind you, they have your back and whoever's running that truck can get water to you. They're getting information. We have a water supply class starting not this coming 17. And um and just one other thing um not really uh based on you, but you had made some uh uh comments about not being able to get training through SEC. We're working that out, isn't I? I mean, they sent us a list a mile long of courses that they offered right here. And um so just after that comment was made, we got the uh reports from SEC that I looked at their brochure. There were about four courses offered that they sent out. But congratulations. We've got a person working very hardly. We appointed a training officer and that training officer is working very closely with them to get the things we need. And

the first one we've got is water supply. And thank you. And at this time um I think Kowi Fire Department and their members deserve um an applause as well for covering this while you guys were having um hardship and everything else to get your department back up. I mean, they've spent their money, they've spent their time and stuff out of the goodness of their heart with no compensation. So I think that is an absolute wonderful thing that we fire. You know, I think it's very powerful for you guys and gals to show up in person. So I think that's appreciated. I know it's appreciated. All right. Thank you. Giving us the chance. So Mr. Mr. Chairman, let me let's just clarify to make sure they they were on a probationary status. So, is it the will of the board to remove them from that probationary status if they meet their membership requirements by the end of July? Is that we've we've never been past the eight-month mark. So, we've it's never been there before. So, if that's it might be appropriate to have a meeting next month, Mr. Cape. And uh would would you like would you like an update at the August meeting? Would that be possible? We're talking end of the month when the when the time, you know, I think it be appropriate. Yeah. Maybe the inspection team can do the final inspection and stuff like that and and just make sure everything is and and I think my biggest concern I don't want to take away anything right here is just the numbers spiking and then gradually tapering. You know, I want to find a way to keep them increasing. And I think that's the challenge and uh looks like you're doing a good job applications coming in. So I just I don't want to spike to get off probation and then we're sitting

here having the same discussion in December. So I think that's my concern. But if you don't mind Kenneth, maybe we can have you back next month. We've already got that inspection. All right. Thanks again for coming. All right. Moving on here. You going to let them ease out? Yeah, I'll let him get out of here. Get empty. way. So he does. All right. Old business. See consideration and approval of additional repairs at Mon County Library. Mr. Joe Allen. Good evening, guys. Hi, Joe. Uh, I got this email late this afternoon. Didn't have time to print it off, but if you give me this minute, I'll give us an update on where we're at. Okay. This is from the contractor. Uh, he should have the interior finished, uh, which is basically he's got some paneling to put up at the top where it was molded by July 11th. And he should have the scaffolding moved. Uh if you've been out there, Barry's been out there a pretty elaborate scaffolding system to get to part of that by the 18th. Uh which is what we've kind of asked him to do. The library has a planetarium exhibit there the 23rd. They really want to be able to use that room. So it looks like that

that's going to be able to happen. Uh exterior work um tying some gutters in some gutter drains and painting. Uh he's expecting to be done by July 4th. There's still some cleanup stuff there and some positive stuff to do. So, he's estimating complete 100% done in four to six weeks. So, middle August is the way I'm taking that. We should be done with the project. And I will uh try to go over this estimate with you and answer any questions you may have. Uh I did go out there today and and kind of break this down a little bit more. So, we got a little bit more. And I and I did have the contractor send me some receipts and some estimates on this stuff. If you guys would like those, I can pass those around, too. Um, and I give you some of the reasons behind some of these changes. Uh, the re I'll just start first if you want to just go down the list. So, the fascia board replacement and installing new facial board that was 176 feet of fascia board on that uh canopy carport type structure there uh that had the old square steel top gutter on it with seams in it that was leaking and it started rotting the facial boards. uh concrete. There was, if you remember, at the entry door, there was a some landscaped areas on each side that was holding water and causing some water damage on that wall, entry wall. Uh the demo of the concrete areas to get that water before we could get the water out of there. That was about 160 square feet of demo. And then to pour all that back uh would be was going to be about four 75 yards. The best I can figure. Uh those knife plates, we got four knife plates that were not in the original contract. There was actually four beams in that entry wall that no one knew was

rotting until we pulled that landscape back and it's rotting. Those kn off stick knife plate in attach it to concrete. Um so that's our knife plate changed there. uh gutter and down spouts. They had in the contract to replace the down spouts. We've got leaky seams in the gutter. So, we got if we don't want to have rotten facial board again, we're going to have to get that with some type of seamless gutter. So, this that's a quote for seamless guttering. Uh we won't have the the problem again of rotten facial boards. ceiling fans. That is so back up a little bit. Last month, we were going to do some exploration with roof to see what hap what was happening if we're getting water from the top or what was going on. Uh, luckily we're not getting water from the top. Roof's not leaking. Uh, architect, mold testing agency, everybody we talked to believe that there is a air circulation problem. It's a real high area there long way from any air vents. the air is just going to burn and stagnating and causing it to mold. They believe that getting some fans up there circulating there will fix this problem so we don't have moldy ceiling again. So that grand total was going to come to 52,280.95. And I will I will say that I I do not like the way that this con this proposal was written with the biller fees here. If you look at these estimates, he didn't add any markup to the estimates. These these estimates that I've got, and I'll be glad to give them to you, they're he just wrote down what they wrote down, and he's added his markup at the end on all of them. Any questions? Joe, you're saying that every one of these prices are actually subcontractors?

Uh, nope. No, the the removal of the facaser and replacing that's contractor. Okay. Uh concrete is contract is subcontract. Knife plates is contractor. However, he had to have a wel he's got to get a welder to weld those together. So that'd be a subcontracting for the welding. Uh gutter down spout subcontractor. C fans is subcontractor. So how many feet was the gutters and downspout? 120 120 ft of gutter and and then of course I've got the down spouts written down. Hold on. Give me a second, John. 60 ft of down spouts. So, 120 ft of gutters and 60 ft of down spouts. That's 180 ft. Yep. a little bit less than $15 foot gutters and down spouts. Uh, install the knife plates $2,500 each. Is that what you said? Well, pretty close. Yeah. 24. I mean, help me out. They're They've got this thing tore off, right? and here's their resolution to fix it. That's kind of where we're at. I mean, what's our other options? I I was going to add, Mr. Chairman, one of the things uh that we do still have to do, we we think this wraps us up, we hope, on the initial library project. We do still have to do the flat membrane roof that was in the capital improvement plan last year, but we held off on it because we didn't want to be up there working on the pitched roof and then turn around and damage the membrane that that we just put on there. So, that'll be following, but that's a different u it's a different project that was coming

out of the capital money from last year. So, we hope this will wrap everything up, but we still have that flat roof to finish sometime this year, very soon. Where are you looking to pull these funds from? So, if you agree for this, we would need to pull a budget amendment, pull $52,281 out of fund balance and amend the contract for Wind River Construction for that amount to complete this change order project. Commissioner Sher, you feel all right about it? In the contract for win. I rounded it up a nickel, Lori. So, we didn't have a 95 cents. I think it's something that needs to be done and we need to go ahead and do it. And uh Mr. Allen, you've done a good job of updating us what we need and uh through what you said here a while ago during this conversation that you feel like it's fair and it's professional. I I think it's I think it's fair. Uh there's nothing in here that's not needed. All this stuff is trying to prevent a building from rotting down and we have to upgrade we have to upgrade our facilities as we move through here. So and the problem is these guys can get it done in a timely manner. The time is the problem. You bid each of these little items to 2,000 3,000 8,000 and then you try to wait on somebody's schedule. Yeah. You know, I mean, there's a time,

but but they've got it all ready ready to go, right? Yeah. Well, four to six weeks he done. So, [Music] does this take a motion to Yes, sir. Uh, I'd like to make a motion to move this project onward that you've presented here at $52,280.95. Mr. C, is that do I say need to say that other nickel? Yes. $52,281 for budget amendment and amendment to the contract for Wind River Construction. Second. Okay, we have a motion on the floor by Commissioner Shields, second by Commissioner Antoine. Any further discussion? Thank you, Mr. Allen, for what you've done. Good job. All right, hearing none. All in favor, please raise your right arm and state eye for the record. I oppose like sign. All right, please let record 5, Miss Tammy. All right. Thank you, Joe. Update on engineering and design for phase 1A 1B of the Recre Park master plan. Mr. Kate. So, Mr. Chairman, uh yourself and Commissioner Cheryl and I had a uh conference call with McGill Architecture concerning a change order to the design fees for the pickle ball courts and part of phase 1 A and 1B of the recck park. Obviously the original design was for a limit to number pickle ball courts. We went to we added 11 pickle ball courts. We moved the tennis courts to a different location which changed some some elevation issues with them to do the design and then we also proposed including the shade structure the courtyard area making some modifications to that parking area for which is actually part of phase 1b of that process. So McGill and Associates is requesting a fee maximum not to exceed of $19,910.

Um so if you're so inclined after discussion, we would need a budget amendment for $19,910 not to exceed from fund balance and an amendment to the contractual agreement with McGill and Associates to uh complete these design phases. Uh, and I will say you you two are familiar, but for the rest of the board's uh, information, this has decreased by 75% less, I think it roughly in my head, from what it was originally. So, still a lot of money, but it it was $80,000 plus when we first started talking to them. So, this time, Mr. Chairman, I'd like to make a motion. We do a budget um amendment amount of 19,000 not to exceed $19,910 from McGill and Associates for phase one A and 1B recart master plan. I second it from the fund balance. Yeah, fund balance. I have a motion on the floor by Commissioner Shur, second by Commissioner Shields. Any further discussion? Hearing none. All in favor, please raise your right arm. State I. I. Any oppose. All right, Miss Tammy. 5. All right. Consideration and approval of lease agreement with October Fire and Rescue. Mr. Cable, Mr. Chairman, in your packet, you have a revised lease agreement that we originally had on the June agenda, and there were some concerns about uh making sure the community club was aware of the lease. This is the lease so that Mon County EMS can house an ambulance in the uh the fire department and Otto. Remember we did include some extra staffing in the budget this year. We've been we've been having one there, but it's been a gentleman's agreement with them to let us be there. Uh this is the official agreement to make that happen. We did work out some issues with the community club. uh they were concerned that they

were added as a the verbiage was they were a lease or as well and they were concerned basically because of limited financial abilities on themselves the contract or the lease agreement. If the fire department failed they'd be responsible for maintaining the building and they just weren't comfortable with that. So we we changed some of the verbiage with that. Uh we addressed a community issue with them as far as the name of the community. uh they did take that back to the their board and and the reason the community club's involved it I'm sure if I made that clear they own the property where the fire department sits and they've had a lease agreement with the fire department prior so that's why they have to consent to this agreement um they did have a meeting um on I think it was last Monday uh I do have the information from Tom Tom Young who is their chairman of the auto community development cor community development organization. Uh he said they did approve the uh the lease. So at this time I would like to ask for your approval of the lease between us and Mon County Auto Fire and Rescue with the consent of the Otto Community Development Organization. And that's an amount of $2,000 per month which was budgeted this year in our budget. I make a motion this be accepted as presented. the lease agreement and I have a motion by Commissioner Shields. Second. Second by Commissioner Antoine. Any further discussion? So, Warren, um, what is the completion date for their new station? I don't know the exact completion date, but they've actually got the steel up, the structures there. Um, obviously, I'm sure it'll slow down some. Kevin did tell me a date and Jimmy actually left. I I can't remember off top of my head. it it's roughly a year somewhere in that neighborhood a little over a year. Um so

at that time we will we will work with them as far as moving buildings and changing locations and working that out. So that's the future plans is Mon County EMS is going to house their ambulance in the new station or we're going to lease the the fire department at the time we discussed this they did say that they would like to have us in the new station. And a matter of fact I think in one of their budget discussions we mentioned that and said if you're going to build a new building we'd like to be there. I I'm obviously open that when that time comes we can evaluate that space and we can decide if if that's the best option or not. the the community club. I did discuss that with them. I met with with them. Uh they're they're concerned about what they're going to do with the building if the fire the old building if the fire department's not there. Um so if we stayed there, that would be a source of income for them possibly. But if we go to the new building, they might have some other uses for that building. So So I think they're open to either option. I think we just need to get to that time and see what works best for us and what works for them and then we can we can readjust this when the time comes. I had a few of those uh members contact me as well want to know what that I would ask and and I would I would be okay either direction. I think we just we wait to that time and see where we're at. There you go. Thank you. We have a motion on the floor and a second. Any further discussion? Hearing none. All in favor, please raise your right arm and state I. I. Any oppose? 50. All right. New business. Item A, discussion and update of Highlands Playground. Commissioner Shur. Mr. Chairman, at this time uh Mr. Still was uh uh Mr. was willing to come down the mountain to give us a complete update. So, I didn't uh get everything twisted up. So, this time I'd like to turn it over to you. Thank you, commissioners. I appreciate

you guys having me and Mr. Cheryl, thank you for having this put on the agenda. So, um, give you a little update on the playground. Back in 2022, we had a donor in the town of Highlands come forward with $50,000 and wanted to start a campaign for a new playground. So, our playground right now is I don't I don't know if that's what you even call that thing that we have at the recck park, but it's a it's a um uh a small I we have one, you know, one piece of equipment for kids to play on. So, as a commissioner in the town of Highlands, I took the lead on this and I was a member of the recck committee at that time. So, to this to this day, y'all have been um generous to to uh contribute $350,000 to that project. The town of Highlands has contributed $250,000 to that project and I personally have raised $747,000 uh $711 from the local community. So right now we have one $1,347,711. Um to finish this off, we've applied for two grants. So um two years ago, or actually I should say a year and a half ago, we applied for a part of grant. Um we were not awarded that grant. Um, so we kind of postponed the project another year and I tried to get a um a um um I'm sorry, an inclusiveness in park grant through the state that was just announced um last month. We did not get that. So I'm back here. Um we're about $150,000 short and I'm going to go to the town of Highlands and ask for $50,000. and I'm here to respectfully ask for $50,000 more from the county. Um, this this this uh past week I've raised another $25,000 from Citizens in Highlands and actually just got a commitment for $50,000 from an individual. So, if I could get 50,000 from y'all and 50,000 from the town of

Highlands, it would close that gap and I'm 30,000 short and I I know I can raise $30,000 um from the local community. So again, I'm here respectably asking for um $50,000 from Mon County for the Highlands uh uh wreck park playground and happy to ask any qu answer any questions y'all have. And Laura, this money would come from Funbound. And in your budget package, you'll see a budget amendment where we're rolling money over from one fiscal year to the next. the $350,000 that was in this year's budget is actually rolling over into this year. So that we you'll actually vote to appoint approve that shortly. Well, when's uh I guess start date is contingent upon the funds, right? Yeah. So when we get the funds, we'll start on the uh the grading of the site and then um order the equipment. So, I'm I'm hopeful by the fall we can have the funds in hand and start the grading process and um hopefully by next uh spring open the playground. Commissioner Sher, what are you thinking? I'm thinking that um well, it's been a you guys have done a a tremendous job with the community raising money and um and I think it is a um project that is very worthy um for the community and the county as a whole because we have many many many residents that live outside the city limit. So, um, this time I'd like to make a motion that, um, we, um, commit another $50,000 out of the fund balance, um, for the Town of Highlands playground. Seconded. I have a motion on the floor by Commissioner Shur, second by Commissioner Shields. He beat me to it. Any further discussion?

All right. And this money is coming from fund balance. Is that what we established? All right. All in favor, please raise your right arm and state I. I. Any oppose. Thank you so much. I appreciate that. Thank you, gentlemen. See, Brian, be careful going home. All right. Discussion on expanded access to alcoholic beverages through regulated on and off premises sales. Commissioner Breeden. Uh, yeah. So, I've had a few conversations um over the last few weeks, month um about this and spoke with our legal counsel about the options to do such a thing. Um it's just it really it's just up for discussion. Um I think that it would be a you know, you look up and down the Georgia road. I think somebody mentioned that earlier, Mr. Jackson maybe, you know, and and just back in the, you know, when I was growing up in the '9s down there, there was a lot of things happening. But as the years have gone on, everything's kind of falling apart and falling down. And um I just think it would help obviously with some probably some tax revenue and maybe some new businesses. We've talked about on the EDC, you know, how to bring in new business and things like that. I think this is probably one of the one of the first steps to to do such a thing. Of course, this would have to go to a we'd have to have a res resolution drafted, I think, and brought to our next meeting, and then it would have to go to the the ballot for for folks to vote on at the next election. So, well, um, as one of the liaison to the Make County Economic Development Commission, we've had numerous meetings and conversations about positive growth in our county. I hear people people saying all the time, we don't have anything. We don't have big restaurants. We don't have hotels. We don't have a bowling alley, etc. Four reasons that come to mind right off the

bat. The county don't have water and sewer, affordable housing, lack of labor, and alcohol sales in the county. It is extremely hard for a restaurant business to survive out in the county without alcohol sales. Whether you drink or not, the business in Franklin serve alcohol. Not all. Why would a person stop one mile outside the city limits to eat that wants a drink with their meal and stop outside the city? Most of them don't. I guess the question I would ask folks that are against alcohol sales in the county, how many of you don't go into a business because they serve or sell alcohol in the town of Franklin, town of Highlands, or any other business locally or any anywhere else that you may travel to. Just because I don't drink doesn't mean that I will not shop at a place that serves alcohol. I never thought that I would see the day that Cracker Barrel would serve alcoh alcohol. However, their corporate recognized that the stay to stay afloat, they would need to add the sales of alcohol to their menu. I don't know if it helped them or hurt them. I haven't heard, but they did it. And I still love to eat a Cracker Barrel. Um, so, um, I think if if honestly if you want positive growth in this county, that's what it's going to take. Um, and I I think it's absolutely it should go on a referendum um in the U 26 general election. Um and um and let the people decide um if that's if you want alcohol sales

in the county, they're the ones that I represent. Um where I stand. I mean, I think whether you're for it or against it, there's no doubt that we're lacking in Mon County because of this. If you look at so many of our citizens, everyone's always traveling outside of Mon County just to go do basic things and that has a lot to do with it because we cannot bring those businesses here. So, um I think it's something that's absolutely should be on the ballot and let the people decide, you know, if they decide and I mean I've heard what you guys have said about your business and I mean I've been here for a long time and I've heard the same complaints over and over again about the fact that we don't have anything. But the problem is if we don't take the steps to get things here, that's all we're going to do for the next 30 years is keep complaining about it and watch businesses come in and out over and over again. And I think it's unfair to our citizens here that we're not providing these things for our citizens and they're going to all these other counties and paying into all of their taxes and we get absolutely nothing for it. So I say I'm fully I'm fully in favor of putting that on the ballot and let the people decide. Any other discussion? I think there's more discussion to be had with what gets put on the ballot and aren't they different levels of uh alcohol and what kind of alcohol and I think there needs to be another another meeting. What is the uh what's the time frame to get that on the ballot? Does it have to be at a certain time or Well, and I think I guess it depends on which one you're putting it on. I think you can put it on the 226 prelim. Um or you can put it in the general. Um and we I'd have to confirm with Malan. Um but I think it would be I think 3 months is certainly sufficient, but we

can confirm that with her um when it needs to be done. We have um we've discussed with her uh briefly and um actually here she says um might be 40 well I'm skimming through this legal notice but it may be 45 days that's off top my head don't take that for gospel. I feel like at some point could you provide us, you know, a breakdown of our options and maybe what surrounding counties have done and Yeah. And so you do have the options of on and off premise beer and wine. Um, and you also have on and off premise liquor. Now the off-remise liquor I think would entail forming an actual ABC store that you all would run. Whereas if you just did on premise liquor, then it would be liquor in restaurants type of thing. But you could do the beer and wine without forming an ABC board um for that. So could we do the beer and wine and just the on-site liquor without forming an ABC store? That way the Mexican restaurant can serve a margarita. I believe that's correct. But yes, we'll I'll specifically look at that issue in mind. Okay. All right. Well, Jackson County, they don't have NBC store. They're partnered in with Silver. Correct. Yeah. Theirs is kind of peculiar in that in the 80s in order to the county when they first passed theirs um in order for the town to pass a resolution to get the ABC store, they had to have the county had to sign off on it. And so that was kind of one of those things that was just done where the county said, "Yeah, we'll sign off if you give us 50% of your revenues." And so the county signed off on it without any discussion. Um and so it was the it was an ABC board that

was owned technically by both counties but it was only in Silva. Then in oh 12 15 years ago or whatever it was. The county did form their own or they were going to form their own and they were going to put up a liquor store in cashers and they said you can either join us or lose out. Um and so what they did at that point was they kept the Silva County um ABC board. They changed the split so that the county can now gets more than 50%. But the town still likewise gets town of Silva likewise still gets some of those sale proceeds from the cashers ABC store. So, it's um kind of one of those things that was done through the legislative and it was in the 80s and there was apparently a lot of maybe the way things were done in the 80s um was maybe not as that's the way I understand it. Can you can you bring us a couple resolutions to our next meeting? uh maybe the one with you know if if it's possible to do the onsite for to to get a liquor license and then the on and offsite beer and alcohol or beer and wine you know something like that maybe just the beer and wine just whatever we can do obviously I don't think we want to start an ABC store so um but if these restaurants are able to sell onsite and you know um as far as a liquor license or whatever they need can you just bring us a couple resolutions I just don't want this to get too far down the road and and miss an opportunity and um and that way if we need to adjust we can adjust and kind of go from there. Yeah, there was and I say that you can do that but there my recollection is there's some is some issue that you have to buy that the rest that they would have to buy from the local ABC store. So it might be that they can do a liquor sales in restaurants within the county

as long as they buy from the any ABC store within the county itself. So it might just require liquor sales from the town of Franklin's ABC store. But I'll look into all that and I don't think the folks in would mind to come down here and buy their liquor. So maybe Well, I think if they were selling a restaurant, I think the ABC's up to We don't vote on it. The state ABC may require that. That's my recollection. Again, I'm talking off the top of my head. Yeah. I just I would like to see a couple resolutions, different ideas, and if we need to work from there. Um, we we've got time. Do a little researching and find some loopholes where we don't have to go into liquor store business. Right. We can join with uh I'm going to move us on here. All right. New business item C. Um, discussion regarding use and occupancy of multi-use room at Nana Community Building. Mr. Kade. Yeah, Mr. Chairman, I'll get us started. Uh, Mr. Steve Bigos with Nanoo Community Club is actually here with us today. They had approached us uh about an agreement to an official agreement to use the community room there at the Nanahala Community Building. Obviously, there up to this point it's it's been a a scheduling process back and forth between the people that wanted to use it. So, they they wanted to have a little more official agreement. So, I'll let Mr. Rego come up and if it will put our presentation up the one pager there he'll have a little information to u to advise you about it and we can go from there and then after he talks if if you want to pursue that I can walk you through the process depending on the term of the lease if you want to consider that what we have to do on our end to to facilitate that. Thanks Warren and most of you have I've met most of you over there at the facility several times. uh you know last year the county was uh fantastic in

turning the facility over to us. Half of the facility, half is the library and we all did what you suggested. You know, we moved into the facility. We're taking real good care of it. Um but I want to just some background first. Uh so our our club was actually formed in 1978, so it's it's fairly old. Uh we're we're really a we're completely legally compliant. We're a real nonprofit corporation and a 501c3. So everything we have set up is is very legal. Um I don't think I need to go through the list of everything we do, but um just want to point out that we don't spend money on ourselves. It's not a social club. Uh we really do a lot for the community. We all of our money basically spent on giving back to the community. So last fall again you all approved the facility for us. Um, we've used it about 50 times so far and we felt like you all gave us the responsibility to take care of the facility. We clean it. The county doesn't clean it for us. Uh, unlike many of the other facilities, we maintain the inside of the facility. We've had some private events in there and we do charge a fee for that. It's it's we it's a minimal fee. We looked at what the other community clubs in the areas do. We're actually uh at or below what those fees are. And we're only doing that now for very private events like a a private party, a wedding event, something like that is the only thing we would charge for. We would never charge anything for the county. Uh we have an agreement now with the library. We're not char charging them anything. So, um I think we're we're really moving forward on there. the fac the fees that we would charge they'd only be used for the maintenance of the facility and buying supplies things like that and those funds aren't mingled with the other club funds have separate and a completely

separate checking account. So, we're requesting from requesting from the county that you formalize the agreement uh formalize an agreement to continue the way we have been already, but with a with an official lease and we used uh I took the lease provided by Warren. It was the Kawi school lease and I modified it for the community club. Warren has a copy of that. Um, and again, you know, the county would always be a priority use user in there. For instance, we'd love to get the NHLA voting over there. You know, in the new county facility, that's one idea we have. It's right now in the old uh EMS building that's pretty much run down. So, that's it. We're requesting a lease. Has our attorney seen this or can you see this? Yes, I probably One one of the things we do need to discuss if you do want to enter into a lease, the term obviously we have to depending on any kind of a term that you want to uh proceed with with them. We have different advertising requirements. Um if it's if it's one year or less, we can do it at the night it's presented. If it's up to 10 years, we actually have to advertise the lease publicly 30 days. Unfortunately, because the way the calendar falls, that means it would be the September meeting because we'd hit the same same thing we talked about with the health board stuff there, Eric. Um, we have to advertise that to the public and then we'd have to approve it at probably at the September meeting and then if it's 10 years plus, you have to do formal it's a formal process to solicit the lease. It's a little complicated because of the government, but depending on if you want to entertain that option, there's there's a process we have to go through.

Yeah. Um, thank you, Steve. Um, I just, you know, it's it's kind of one of those things to me. It's it's a community room and a small community. I don't necessarily think we need to enter a lease. Um, you know, I don't is it is a calendar right now? Somebody's holding a calendar. Um, you know, another thing that we've talked about is we enter a lease. You know, there's just a lot of things that come up with lease. and we're in leases with with some others and you know there's just things and I don't know that that's a that's a thing that we we have to have um I think that there needs to be a calendar that's kept it needs to be open to the community for them to use you know on a on a calendar basis um the fees if it's going to be charged it's it's a county owned property probably needs to go back to the county just like the rec park does or you know any other room that we we lease out for birthday parties or anything else um all of the alarm system I think is on that side the fire pan on that side. You know, there's just a lot of things if we enter a lease. Um just limits the access. I think it's I just and I just don't think it's needed. Um it's a small room, a small community. I think it was built for the community to use um whenever they need to use it. And I think we need to establish a calendar and whether the library keeps it or the community building keeps it or Rick Park keeps it. Um that's just my my thought on that. We have a calendar. I think we've done most of what you've talked about. You know, the county has access to the fire panel all the time. The one time that they could not get in there was nothing to do with our community club. The county folks know who to talk to. The one time they couldn't get in, they did not talk to the right people. Well, and again, I don't know that there I mean, it's a it's a county owned property. I don't think that there should ever be a time where we have to talk to anyone to get into if our maintenance guy needs to go right. They have they have the keys. They can get in. So, they have the same they have the same key. Yeah. I just don't What's your fee schedule? I think we need it. Say it again. What's your fee schedule?

It's uh $20 an hour for the first two hours and then $10 an hour after that. And that's it's actually quite low if you look at what other facilities are charged. And we actually we came to the county before, you know, when this started last year and we said, "What do you want to does the county want the money?" We were told no. We were told they don't want to deal with it. Now, we don't have to charge, but I mean, you need to know that we have an investment in there as well. You know, we're trying to pay that back. We spent about over $1,500 to supply the building. So that's that's where that's coming from. It's it's a very low amount of money. I think we made uh to date $340 on I don't I've never seen I mean let me just blabber for a minute. I think I hear both sides. Pros and cons in my opinion. There's a pro for us the county not to have to worry about the schedule. But it's a con if we hear complaints about a building that I think the taxpayers purchased, you know, and kind of sent the name ahead for a community building. So, it's kind of hard when the county doesn't handle the scheduling and the fee structure for somebody to have a birthday party. But that 20 bucks 20 bucks an hour probably buy us toiletries and make sure the trash is taken out and the floors are clean. And you know what I like is having local, you know, investment that looks after the building, but you know, I don't I just want to make sure that, you know, I mean, would you be opposed to a one-year lease? I just don't think we need a lease at all. It's working right now. What why would we even enter into Who would run it? Who would who would They're running it now. The ladies at the library are they've been able to get in there and do the things that they need to do. That was one of the one of the big issues. Um, however, it's

running right now. It's perfectly fine. And if and if it's a county run thing, then obviously probably the library would be the ones to to do that because it's a county, you know, funded entity. So I just don't I don't see the benefit of having a lease for the only community room in the community that has a kitchen. I mean, if so, if if now it's under under the control of a club and if they say, "No, we don't want to do that," or, "No, we we don't we can't put you on here because we I mean, it just it muddies the water." Right now, I think the library and the community club are communicating. It sounds like from what I've heard, everything is moving along like it's supposed to move along. They get access to the building when they need it. And I think the lease just limits what we, you know, what we're able to do with the building. Well, let's back back up just a second. Why are we talking about a lease if everything's running smooth and everything's being I think it just started running smooth. Oh, okay. Real let me say something about where the lease came from. So, this is going to sound kind of odd, but some of the folks in the community wanted to do bingo. Okay. We think it's a great thing for the community. The folks were so excited about it. We just we couldn't believe it. I mean, you know, it's like a bygone days thing. People just love it. In North Carolina, you have to pay you have to have a North Carolina state license to have a bingo. It's $200 a year. You have to provide a lease for your property. So, that's where this came from. So, we we started talking about a lease. Now, we don't have to do that. I mean, we think it's a great thing for the community, but that's it's required to have a to have a lease. Ma'am, saw you raising your hand back here. You did. I'm the treasur of the

community as for many, many years as well. We work very hard as a 501 to raise money. We have approximately 12 outreach programs and it is very hard to raise the funds that we need. this lease is going to help with bingo. When we shared with the community club we wanted to do bingo, the upro and clapping and everything was just unbelievable. And we went ahead and got a little ahead of ourselves and invested in minimal investment bingo stuff that we needed. investigating more, we determined, oh boy, we cannot be arrested, taken to jail for gambling. If we don't have this done correctly. So, we went the proper steps, told everybody at the meeting, we're not going to be doing bingo, and this is why. The disappointment was really, really huge as much as the excitement. So, this money that comes in is going to help support our 501 with our outreach programs. $1,000 goes to a senior. I can give you a breakdown list. The nursing home, the things we do, the veterans flags with the cemeteries, things are needed, things are replaced, the upkeep of the building, which the rental fee is minimal. I go to the CDR, CDR, whatever they are, the Mon County meetings for all the community clubs and I talked to the other clubs and the officers and I said, "Could you all send me a copy of what your agreements are for rentals and they did send them to me and we looked at them and we were very surprised how expensive compared to what we had come up with our rentals were

going to be. We've had no problem with those six rentals. People were more than happy to pay the minimum fee. Um, we've had no issue with them doing what was required for them to do. And again, that money maintains what you all have entrusted to us to oversee. And we take that extremely seriously. Some people say I can be a little too serious about it, but to me it's a gift. to give to the community. And it's just incredible that we are able to have that building and do the things that we can do. Put gift bags together for the nursing home. All kinds of things. I mean, I I it's just incredible what we do. The ladies are using it for their exercise. I'm glad that we were able to get through all of that and get it taken care of. and you know the pot lock on Wednesday afternoons. Y'all have been invited. Mr. Breen, you've been invited a few times to come over that way. Mr. Cave, I know you have been over that way as well. Mr. Cheryl, um not Mr. Cheryl, you live, you know, you've been that way, but Mr. Shields was over there for I believe it was our flag raising ceremony. And uh we we take things very seriously and we just want to be able to have this lease so we can raise the funds we need to continue with our outreach programs because as you all know the price of things go up and up and up. And when we had a budget for something for 150 three years ago, it's close to double that now. So, you know, I'm not a spring chicken, but I'll get out there and do whatever I need to do to make sure those outreach programs are taken care of. So, that lease will be a benefit. It's just not enough thing. It's an important thing

for the community club so we can continue. I I don't see why we couldn't negotiate on the time period. You know, the 10 years we put on air was just a I think we copied from another lease. I think a shorter term would definitely work. We don't need you guys getting arrested over bingo up there. Do you guys have cops in Nana Hayden? Just kidding. U here's where here's where I'm at with this thing. I don't want to get in the weeds and I understand you have a nice outreach and I think you're doing a lot of wonderful things with it. I feel like ultimately the taxpayers funded this. I could support this if you cut your fee schedule in half. Okay. Right down the middle. And we did a year-to-year lease. And I think my intent is if you're going to have an anniversary or a birthday party, you know, $10 an hour. I think I know the rec park used to be about that. I know it's not a lot of money. It's not supposed to be a lot of money. It was a gift to Nana Hala. And I don't want it to kind of have the appearance of a certain group discouraging. It's not saying you do that, but that's kind of where I'm at. I think the fee schedule needs to be cut in half and we need to go year to year. If you could come to those terms, I think I could support that. No problem. Okay. Could we compare [Music] these other community club buildings and stuff and what their fees are and and at least make sure that I think ours is $10 an hour war used to be. I think I think Seth told me it was $10 for the small room and 15 for that big room back here in the back. saying it's not it's but if you have an anniversary or a birthday party and you want to go a couple hours early to set up, you know, and you reserve five or six hours, that's 50 bucks versus a $100 bill. And I think that money can go back into the I mean, you know what I mean? And I absolutely do. And we we've actually been discussing in our board about lowering the fees. I mean, we'd be perfectly happy with that. I think John had a question.

Josh, I just wanted to make sure that you were clear that the library doesn't get charged anything. There are no fees to the library, right? Well, and here's what else. I mean, we don't this board, I'll speak on behalf of the board, doesn't like noise, problems, conflicting. It's kind of a here you guys go. Nala's kind of the stepchild of the county. I mean, not being mean about it, just you're out there and we're trying to help show support. And I feel like when there's just a lot of noise and from Nana Hala, the county says, "All right, we'll we'll handle it, you know, and I'm I feel like it's a good faith agreement, you know, handle it. Take care of the community, you know, accommodate everybody, including the library. It's a one-year agreement. I I believe I could support that. And then I'd like to see, you know, report card on year two and it'll be up for renewal again, you know, but it's hard. I get why you're here. You guys drove down here. think you guys are, you know, very strong community members and that's where I'm at. I just think the fee schedule, if you could work with that and be be friendly, be friendly with the scheduling and the fees and try to accommodate everybody. That's really all we ask. Yeah, we we have we've got there. I think we've settled everything that that caused the disagreements. Um, there has been several disagreements. We've all been called about a couple of them and it's kind of the, you know, and I I still don't think we need a lease, but if we're going to entertain it, there needs to be some language in there about the the fee schedule and the access to the room by county, you know, department such as the library and things like that. So maybe we could um if we're going to do a year, not do it tonight, just put it on uh for next for the August meeting and and possibly have it ready for Well, I was I was going to say, I mean, you have some folks from the library here. I actually talked to Abby today and and she did tell me that the relationship's been good. They after we had some communications the last time when I met with both y'all and then

y'all actually met together. So, so I will say that they've they've been trying, I think, to work together to to make sure that room's used effectively. Um, so I guess our direction would be we'll we'll bring back either a revised lease with a fee schedule. We need to make sure that that you're okay with that fee structure and how those fees are handled as far as because typically if we have a fee structure, they come to us, but Eric and I will have to figure out how to word that so that those fees can return to the community club since it is a a county building depending on how the lease is worded and or we'll do some research on the bingo uh process to see if there's another way if it has to be a verbatim lease. or if there's anou or there's some other type of agreement. I'm just grasping the straws there, Eric, that that might meet those statuto requirements. So, it's not technically a lease. It's some kind of other agreement, but I I think we can I think we can do that next meeting. We can come back. Uh can the library folks say something, Mr. Chairman? Of course. Peggy. Peggy. We have folks in the community that will go to the EMS building and use it for their birthday party so they don't have to pay for the community. And I don't think there should be a lease. I think the library should have birth priority. We fought for a year. They wouldn't even let us in that room. They were going to charge us to use that room for a year and we didn't use it. and we were having we have exercise class three times a week and sometimes that our little library is

small and sometimes we don't have room for everybody like we had 14 the other day and if they hadn't let us in there we couldn't have had it because we wouldn't had the space and we have to call them every time we need to in the room because we don't have a key and I don't think that's and and those are the issues that's the issue I mean, those issues are going to happen either way. If a county has the building or if you guys have the building, you still have to make the phone call, right? Cuz the door's locked and it could be on reserve, right? If there's a schedule for that room, I don't it doesn't matter if community club has it or the county has it. I feel like somebody still has to check in unless we've set up a monthly Google calendar. The Sharon Crosby, who is a boss over there at the library, has said she's good with it. And I understand Abby said she's good with it. So, I don't I don't know where this is coming from now. I mean, there's no phone call involved. We sit down. We made the schedule for a month. So, how do people get in? If I wanted to book a birthday party over there and I put it on the counter, how would I get in? I have to call you. I have to call someone to get in. Agreement. They let us know what time they want to be there and somebody's there ahead of time to open it for them. Most of the time you're waiting a little bit, but that's fine. And just quickly in reference to what she said about the EMS, we have EMS people that have rented it for birthday parties and they are thrilled with very some of this history that you're hearing about with the library. Okay, some of it absolutely did happen. Yeah, we only had one request ever from the library to use the space. We responded. It was for the exercise class. We responded. we'll take the rental down to a dollar a person and they said no. Said okay. That's the only official request we ever had. And and y'all said no.

Nobody ever asked us. Nobody Well, that was when Randy was calling. Nobody, nobody ever officially asked the club for large. Well, the my take on it is if it is for a community and they'll book it for every day by the taxpayer organization or any type of exercise class. Anything that the community is using that for should supersede a private entity using that facility. It shouldn't be that. I mean, I look back at your library and your community center at the school and it was rotted down and everything else. Now you guys have what I call a super duper upgrade to what you had um in hopes that um you guys can work work this out because the government has a uh has a way to messing up a lot of things when they get involved. If you it would be better if y'all could figure it out. But going back your lease in order to play bingo, I understand that. But if we can work out something aou that you don't have to have a lease then by all means you guys should um uh really respect each organization and understand that if they have the community over there wanting to use it for a community event, not somebody that's just wanting to have a birthday party. I I don't think that a privatized thing should be over a community group using this. I I understand and I I agree with the exception that so somebody has a say somebody wants to have a wedding Mhm. birthday party, they're going to play that plan that months ahead in advance.

So are you saying somebody comes up at the last minute with a community event? No. You don't provide it to them? No, that's called planning. That's and that's what we that's what we do. where but most of your weddings are going to be Saturday Sunday. Yep. I mean a lot of them are Saturday Sunday. So if that's the case then most of their exercise classes are going to be Monday through Friday and we already have them on a schedule that way. So I don't see that that's going to uh impact you having a wedding on the weekend. I would just say let's investigate the need for a lease in bingo. Right now it's working and let's just see what we come up with the next meeting because it's your community. I mean u it's our county but it's you know ultimately you know y'all spend every day of your life over there and please work together and and get it. Um I think I think we're there now. Yeah. I think it's important to you can agree with this with me now and I say now we have anything that we try and arrange as far as we have guest speakers or anything like that we know what the library set schedule is Monday Wednesday for their exercise class and anytime we try or we go to book something and I've said this over and over and over again in our community meetings that our goal is not to interfere with Monday, Wednesday, Friday for the exercise class and it's just a given because we know how important it is to the ladies and we've been able to climb that mountain and get on the other side of it and so it's working together you know I mean we have the schedule of who's opening who's closing what events are going on so on and so forth so I feel very comfortable

in what we have come Peggy even shared with me she was good with it. Sharon has shared she was good with it and I'm happy to hear that Abby is now as well and everything takes time and everything is a process and things evolve as you grow. One other thing to I agree. So, we should let our legal counsel and county manager investigate that um you know the lease option or whatever it would be for the bingo portion of that and revisit it at the next meeting and and we'll talk about the fee structure or lack thereof and figure out what we need to do with that. Yeah, because I don't and in that lease I don't think there's a any fees doesn't break down the fees. So, we don't even know what you know. So that was kind of what we were talking about was making sure that we have all of the information in the lease structure, you know, comparing to other facilities like Peggy mentioned that some people might be going to the EMS. Well, okay. The county totally maintains that. So our community club half of the building, these two ladies here do 95% of the cleaning and the facility. The county doesn't come in here in there and clean it. We we even take the garbage out. So, you know, that's we're buying uh we're buying garbage bags, we're buying the paper towels, we buy all the supplies for the facility. That's that's what we want to do with the rental fees. So I I just have a I have a quick question and I don't know how far you've researched it but I I think what what I'm hearing the board might be concerned also is that if you all have the lease and then um there becomes some sort of conflict between yourselves and the library then all of a sudden then the lease you know trumps because well we've got the lease. Well, and I guess that the qu my question is is what I'm wondering is if you've had any discussion with the bingo people at

the state if we leased it. In other words, if you all leased it for the second Tuesday of every month and you had a lease for one day a month from 7 to 9:00 on Tuesday, the second Tuesday in every month or whatever that is, but you actually have the lease. Do you know if that would require if that would satisfy the state for having the written lease you need to conduct bingo and then yeah you've got at least for two hours one time a one day a month. I don't know. I'm just saying I'm just inquiring if that's something that you have looked at. I think that I researched the statute and everything. I don't think there's any delineations of it just so you're you're thinking that might be something we could look into is a possibility. The application says you have to provide the lease with the application. Okay. That's pretty much the extent of what it says. Doesn't say Okay. All right. Well, any more discussion? So, are we coming back next month? Is that Yes, sir. I'll get with you. I'll get with the library folks. I need to involve Mr. Wal back there with maintenance. We'll we'll try and get a plan together for something present to the board in August. So, and then we'll research the legality of what they need. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you guys for coming down. And u Mr. Chairman, I do have one out of order comment. Um actually have two just because the people that are watching on YouTube or online are probably way ahead of me on this um AI and I'm probably and I'm saying off the top of my head while they're like googling it or AI in it. And so, um, while we're in here, just

for clarification, it looks like according to C-Pilot, just for clarification, according to C-Pilot, the number of counties in the state of North Carolina where commissioners control the health department, according to C-Pilot, is at least 26 counties. Those include Meckllinburgg, Wake, Guilford, First for Scythe, Durham, Cumberland, Bunkham, New Handover, and Cabaris counties. Um, and then on the second issue that I've been asked about, um, and I, this was me just having a brain spasm. It does appear that we have to have either have an ABC county-owned ABC store or that issue has to be on the ballot at the time we vote for on premise liquor sales if we're going to put the liquor sales on the agenda, I mean on the referendum. So anyway, I'll look it up to be more clear cuz I'm can't rely on AI that exclusively, but um for clarification on those two issues. That's what that's what co-pilot is saying. Thank you, Eric. All right. All right. New business D. Consideration and approval of Dogwood Health Trust saving lives from substance abuse grant application. Mr. K. Mr. Chairman, we would like to apply for funding from the Dogwood Trust. This is imitationonly funding. Uh it's in the amount of $300,000 to help us develop the strategic plan and provide educational and training money to assist us as we go through the process of trying to figure out how to manage the opioid funding that we've been receiving. uh you have to in order to facilitate the expenditure of those funds meet the guidelines that are attached to them. You have to have a strategic plan. There's reporting requirements that you have to develop. You have you have to

develop your priorities. You have to get public input, develop your priorities, follow your plan, and there's some intensive reporting requirements that you have to submit to um in order to expend those funds. Uh Dogwood has made this available to counties in western North Carolina. we've just never applied for it. Uh there's no match. Um so we would like for your consideration to apply for that for that funding and then at that time we'll bring it back to you all. You can you can hire a contractor or a company or an organization to work with to help us develop the plan and then you can develop your spending priorities on what you what you want to spend that money on based on public input. Love it. Haven't had the opportunity to uh sit in with Mr. Cave and a couple other people. Uh this is a $300,000 grant in my interpretation that saves making county taxpayers $300,000. And I I feel pretty high about us receiving this grant towards the uh opioid part there. I also I want to thank the Southwestern Commission. They helped us apply for the grant and they based it on the format that they've applied for other counties. So, it's it's consistent with what other counties are doing. So, if you'd like to have that into motion. Yes, sir. Um, I I'd like to make the motion that we have the approval for the invitation only grant funding from the Dogwood Health Trust for funds to hire a consultant to develop a strategic plan and needs assessment through public input and evaluate strategies to utilize opioid fund monies um effectively at a at at a local level. That's that's at a local level. A motion by Commissioner Shields. Second. Second by Commissioner Breeden. Any further discussion? Where does that uh $300,000 come from? I

know you say Dogwood Trust, but where does Dogwood Trust come up with $300,000 to give to make county? Those were the funds that when HCA bought the mission hospital system, they were required by some statuto uh limitations to set aside those funds uh to be based in the western North Carolina region to address healthc care issues. So those are the I'm I'm assuming they're interestbearing funds where they've invested the money that they acquired, but it it all stems from the sale of the Mission Hospital System proper to HCA, which is a for-profit hospital. And it's one of the requirements for them to invest back in invest back into their community with those funds specifically for healthcare type issues. And I think to hire a consultant uh to tell uh to to develop a strategic plan when we talk to the people that's key uh in order in getting this grant is having someone there that uh a consultant that's been approved through dogwood health. Uh we're not out here on the street doing something by ourselves. This is a professional done. All right. Have a motion in a second. Any further discussion? Hearing? None. All in favor, please raise your right arm and state. I Any oppose? Can you please let the record 5? Thank you. All right. Consent agenda. Commissioner Sher, consent agenda. It's your favorite item. Oh, yeah. Nope. You good? I'm good. Make a motion we approve the consent agenda. A motion by Commissioner Freeden, second by Commissioner Shields. All in favor, please raise your right arm and state. I I All right. Appointments. Uh, Town of

Franklin Planning Board. I do understand we have ballots. We have two seats and I believe what, three applicants. Is that right? That's correct. [Music] Question. have this and um two of the if you got if you all remember from the June meeting this item was taken off of the agenda because we hadn't advertised these vacancies. The town recommended the reappoint of their two members uh Janet Green and Debbie Talent Talent. That was their recommendation. And who was the other chairman? Richard Brady is your third applicant. Okay, I got you. And Eric has the ballots. And remember, we added that other one on today there. Uh Janet, not for the not for the town of Franklin. No, that's for the airport deal. Okay. So, I've got the um ballot uh for Town of Franklin Planning Board. There are three applicants and we're voting for two. There you go. On down good, sir. [Music]

[Music] [Music] Okay. Uh, tallying the votes for Town of Franklin Planning Board. Uh, Commissioner Antoine have a vote for Richard Brady and a vote for Debbie Talent. Commissioner Braden, we have a vote for Richard Brady and for Debbie Talent. Commissioner Young, vote for Richard Brady and for Debbie Talent. Commissioner Shields have a vote for Janet Green and for Debbie Talent. and Commissioner Shur. We have a vote for Richard Brady and a vote for Debbie Talent. Um, here's to my tally. We have the consent of the board for Richard Brady with four and for Debbie Talent with five. Uh, so let's I guess we entertain a motion to approve the vote of the board. Motion by Commissioner Antoine, second by Commissioner Breeden. Further discussion. All in favor, please raise your right arm and say I for the record. I. Any oppose? I vote Tammy. All right. Appointments. Um item B, community funding pool. Seven open seats. Community funding pool. Mr. Chairman, um we made before this um

We have $75,000 in budget for 2425 for the community fun. My understanding there was no money budgeted in the 2526 budget year for funding pool. So, um unless this body um approves funding out of um the fund balance or somewhere else, there's no funding moving forward for this. though my question would be if that is the case um why would we elect a seven person board for funds that are not going to carry on? Why would this body not um take this $75,000 and take the applications with a few other people and award this money to these nonprofits? That's my question. Uh the uh the 24 the funding piece of $75,000 was in the 2425 budget and we we can change that to put that $75,000 in the 25 26 budget. Wasn't that some kind of a conversation we had? It was actually part of the consent agenda budget amendments. It's the second amendment from account 113840 to account 119200. So it's you did that with the consent agenda. You've already appropriated that into this.

So, at this time, I can make a motion or that we go ahead with the consent agenda of the $75,000 that's been uh was in the 2425, but it's been appropriated and moved to the 25. It is. Yes, sir. It's It's already appropriated. Yes, sir. To the 256 2526 budget. Yes, sir. Yeah. Budget. So, you do have funds. Now, we have a motion on the floor by Commissioner Shields. Yes. I'm going to second to go into discussion. What do we need to What do we need? What are we voting on right here? Well, I I think Yes. and and he's correct in what he was saying is that we had u for 2425 we had $75,000 appropriated, but we chose to do you just rolled it over. Roll it over for the 2526 budget. Yes. And that's what we're uh that's my recollection. I guess the question is then John's question directly is why do we need a board to hand over one year's worth of funds? Is that your question? That's my question. And so you're saying we just this body needs to we either need to vote to keep funding these NOS after this $75,000 or or we continue to fund it um and we elect the board. My motion is to um um stop funding the u the NOS's after the $75,000 of this u uh this cycle. So that's that's my um as I've stated before, it's not the role of the government to tax its citizens to give to nonprofit or nongovernment organizations. But now we went through this discussion

the last time, right? And that's why we moved the monies the 75,000 to the 25 26 budget year. to go through this process here in order to establish a u a group of seven that would take that $75,000 and uh and I believe this is annually. U I don't I don't see a continuation each year. I think we have to vote on it as a group here annually whether to uh the nonprofit the $75,000 there. Yes. And u I hear what John's saying, but we may have crossed some of these bridges at the last meeting or the meeting before that because it went from 13 to seven people. Uh and we and then that agreement that we would go ahead and use the money appropriated this year or last year into this year's budget. Roll it over. Yes. And with the seven people versus the 13 we've had prior, who chooses which nonprofits make it on this list? Okay. Uh that's what you're going to do in just a few minutes. Is that So tra traditionally that has been the community funding pool. the community funding pool would accept applications and then come back to the board and make a recommendation on who you wanted to or to accept the the recommendations they gave you for funding. And I think what John's saying is don't don't staff the community funding pool, but the board itself would fund the $75,000 since we rolled it over already this year. You would you would take the applications and make the decision yourself. The monies are already

appropriated for 2425. We put it in the 2425 budget. It went into effect July 1st, 2024. That money is usually paid out in June of that next year, which would have been 25. We did not have a board to pay out these funds. So then we got into a discussion. Well, we don't have enough members to do it, so let's reduce it from 13 to seven. Well, I'm still back at the same question. Why is this body continuing to fund nongovernment organizations? Well, I have to agree with you on that, John, and I also have to agree with if we're going to fun if we're going to we've already done it. um go through and award these nonprofits that $75,000 that we have rolled over into this budget cycle. I don't know that we need to create a community funding pool committee. I feel like this board could take that final $75,000 and um you know, award that to those nonprofits and then if we decided at some later date that we were going to continue to fund the community funding pool at that time, we can create a committee. But right now, we're only we're only putting out the $75,000. And I I think my answer was to that. I hear what you're saying, but as an individual, I serve on a number of these boards or nonprofits. And that puts me in kind of a bind which I can work through it of being biased about the boards I serve on nonprofit boards. And so I just trying

to I I'll I'll be glad to vote, but I'm already biased in who I'm voting for. I guess it's I mean I guess they're they're asking for a certain amount of money anyway. So I mean it's not like we're just making up the number. So, if it's a board that you sit on and they ask for $5,000 and we have $5,000 available, I mean, am I wrong in saying that? It's not we're not making up the number. So, I don't know that there's really a whole lot of bias when it comes to that. I guess I guess going back to my question, is it out of order to make that motion or that decision whether or not we're going to continue to fund the nonprofits after this $75,000 cycle? If we're not, there's no need in going through this process. If we are, then the pleasure of the board is we are. Um, so is it out of order for me to make a motion to not continue funding on? Well, I feel like I mean I don't want to, if you're asking me, I feel like that's more of a budget item that we're going to bring up, you know, next budget year if we make a motion now. Is it relevant then if if you make another motion then to pass the budget? Well, but it's also he said that that money was somewhat put in contingency if this board decided at the end of next year. Is that what you said? Are you talking about the current $75,000 you have or potential future funding? the I think uh as far as funding this program going forward, it would be part of those discussions we would have to have midy year when we talked about doing a midyear review depending on the funds that we have available. Then you would make that decision. Do you want to put another

$75,000 in this year? Do you want to wait till budget time and consider it a budget time? So that that was the the discussion that I had was we'd wait till mid year and have that thought or we'd do it at budget time and then of course obviously you develop a policy or a uh give me direction that you don't want to include that then obviously we won't have that discussion. But as of July 1, there is nothing in that budget for $75,000 for the nonprofits to be paid out in June of 2026. Is that correct? Kind of. You you you Well, I and and I think this is a Lori thought because we just switched to year 2526. So you just have you just put $75,000 into year 2526, but we didn't spend it in 2425, which is why we rolled it over. So I know where you're getting at. To answer your question, no, there there is not there is not an additional $75,000 to do this with in June of next year. So basically, we have $75,000 right now that was supposed to been awarded June of 25. That's correct. And there is no money sitting there budgeted specifically for the NGO. So there's really no need in going forward with the uh the election process of the community funding pool in my opinion. I mean to throw fuel on the fire, I feel like this is $75,000. We just put an additional $50,000 to Highlands Playground that this is supposed to prevent, right? It's supposed to be a community funding pool that says apply for the funding pool and if we have the money, that's our donation the community, but

yet people come in and we still allocate the funds. I mean, that's the problem to me is they're still coming. We're still giving out money. Well, the money I don't know. I don't know the answer to that. You know what I mean? But if he's saying it was already promised, they get that money, but there's nothing for the future, right? And then I I think my understanding that this money was going into the 2526 to be used. So what if we just appointed a couple members of this board that have a little subcommittee? Yeah, maybe these two down here to divert the funds this year. I just And then we we would inspect it and make our recommendations. I would hate to appoint a board and then abolish that board. I know just like that. I think it's Are you guys okay with that? Let these two distributed funds contingent upon our approval. Um well the legality part of it is would that even be if if we're wanting community involvement. This is one way to have community involvement making decisions on like nonprofits. When you designate somebody here, you've closed that gap. You've got uh probably you well, you got 70, I believe we had 13 some people who want to be a participant in this type of thing. And that keeps people involved in your nonprofits for one thing. And if you move it to us,

then we've we've lost seven people here that can be that are already important people within this community. And and I've said this before is that uh when you fill out those applications, and I can't remember if I got if I did show you one that was checked off. I can't remember. um where it shows when you fill out that application, hey, your county is part of this. Uh oh. They make a a we put money, the county puts money into this that helps the grant situation. Um, and we're lucky on the 300,000, but on the nonprofits, it is a real key to that application process to check that little box and saying the county is making a contribution towards this XYZ, this program. And it I don't know, it puts a little feather in your hat when you can do that. But if you're filling out a grant or something and you choose not to do that, I may be right or wrong in what I'm saying here. Human nature may come in and I look at that if I'm looking at the applications. I'd say, well, if the county can't put anything in that, why I'm going to put you people over here on this side and uh oh, I just see one right here says the countyy's participating. I'll look at you in a more favorable situation. And I I think just like you've seen here tonight, the involvement of the community and and helping us make decisions are being people who will interact with us, give us information. But you got seven people here.

Well, one thing that I would like to say that what you were talking about with that check mark, yeah, I have never been able to verify that that has any bearing on whatsoever. Even the folks that uh presented that um could not give me that. But um but what I would say, Mr. shields is you take all these people right here and let's form a group and let's figure out ways to do fundraisers for uh these these people and you'll get a lot more money than 75,000 and and and I and I hear what you're saying and I know I know where you're coming from and the Kelly and some of those people but the u the information that I've received is the fundraiser reasons. Immediate fundraising type activities are are not long range. They they're they're short range. Your money comes in, you you divide it out, what it may be. But this type of money is uh you you you'll keep seeking this money and it will help your programs longer than that uh money of singers or whatever it may be. the grants will be looked on more favorably than uh as a long long-term money uh versus your programs and things that you can put together. And not saying that's bad, that's extra good, but if you look on the budget of some of these nonprofits where that money is going, but to have this little pot of money coming to you is also a within the nonprofit. It's a pride thing too that the counties are participating

in this to the point that they believe in what we are doing. And um again, I don't want to refer to I just know the organizations that some of us are belong to and uh they've you know received $10,000. I'm telling you, they're worth more than a half quarter of a million dollars to our community if you had to replace them or something happened to them. It's just a thank you uh what you're doing here trying to help people move along, showing you appreciation and uh that makes you feel good when you serve on these boards with them or you serve as a u leadership teams and things like that. just makes you look different at your governing body, an appreciation standpoint. So, we've got a motion and a second on the floor, but John may have had a motion first. No, wait. Nope. Nope. We've got your We've got your motion on the floor right now, and it's correct me if I'm wrong, Tammy, but it's to uh go ahead and and follow through with the seven member board. You recolct the motion. Is that your motion? But I was wanting to make sure that the seven member board had the 2526 um budget of to the $75,000. I did not hear that motion. I have recorded John's motion, but I did not hear Mr. Shields make a motion. Mr. Shields made the motion and I second it for discussion. Yes. Okay. And he was wanting to make sure that the funding, future funding was there. I tell you what, let's do. Let's just have you retract your motion and then you can make a new motion. Okay. But what about his motion isn't accurate. Okay. So So retract your motion. I'd like to retract my motion this time and uh

make a new motion. Make a new one. Uh I'd like for the uh community funding pool monies that were laotted for uh 2425. I think we've already moved that into the 2526 budget of $75,000. Also with that would like us to continue to set up a funding pool group of seven people that we have the names of here tonight and put those people in a responsible uh situation of giving the monies out. I just feel funny if it's me. Okay, I'll take that motion by Commissioner Shields. Yeah, I'm going to second your motion. Okay. Um I just feel like it it may not be in vain. Maybe they get something out of it, maybe they don't. But they signed up to run a community funding pool. Here it is. And uh call a vote if it don't work. Then we'll back up and redirect. Have a motion. I have a second. Any further discussion? So the motion is for the $75,000 which was also allocated and then to form the committ go ahead and form the committee with these people right here. So then the attorney would pass out ballots. We don't go that route then we'll redirect. Everybody clear? All right. All in favor please signify by raising your right arm and stating I for the record. I all oppose. So motion failed 32. Um, what would you gentlemen like to do here? Well, you can't go any further. Well, well, we have $75,000 in funds allocated. Do Do you want our board to send them out? Do you want to

I think our board sends it out this year and I personally I mean I sit on the board for a nonprofit and I would not go this route. So, I have a hard time supporting that at this point. I understand that it's beneficial to it, but I just I can't support that legally. Do you feel good about that? About which part? About two members of our board creating a subcommittee to distribute and allocate funds to the nonprofit. I would be good with them making the recommendation to this board which to then Yep. They would make a recommendation for us to support recommendation to the board, which I think is what the the seven member community funding pool does is make the recommendation. disboards to us to approve that $75,000 how it's allocated. So they can form you can form the subcommittee. They make the recommendations to this board and then um this board then would vote on would we still do the normal application process like the nonprofits would still have to apply and ask for money. Then the two members of the board would just review those applications and then make recommendations to y'all. I think that's our understanding. Yes, sir. Make sure this time, chairman, I'd like to make a motion that we form a subcommittee to take applications for the nonprofits for the award of the $75,000 funding and we'll report back to this body for approval of the funding. And so committee would be two commissioners. Do you want to name the commissioners? Well, you go ahead and name them. Oh, and I would like to name uh Commissioner Breeden and Commissioner Antoine as the U subcommittee for this. Have a motion by Commissioner Shur. Second, second by Commissioner Breeden. Any further discussion?

Well, should be Commissioner Sher and Commissioner Brie. All in favor signify by raising your right arm saying I I oppose. It's all good. You just got the motion pass three to two. Commission shield the right. Um, next one. Airport Authority. Two seats. Two seats. Um, we have three applicants for the airport authority. Um, you're voting for two. The three candidates are Natalie Allison, Howard Hathcock, and Janet Scheler. Otherwise known as Pink. [Music] [Applause] [Music] Try not to Look, he's fixing him out. So, it don't matter. I didn't look be a secret. I got on. Okay. Okay. Airport authority. Uh we have Commissioner Young. uh has [Music] Pete Hathcock and Janet Scheler.

Commissioner Breeden has Pete Hathcock and Janet Scheler. Commissioner Antoine has Pete Hathcock and Janet Scheler. Commissioner Shields has Pete Hathcock and Janet Scheler. And John Shur has Pete Hathcock and Janet Scheler. We have consensus on Pet Haycock and Janet Scheler. Motion to confirm. Move. A motion by Commissioner Cheryl. Second. Second by Commissioner Breeden. All in favor signify by raising your right arm and stating I. I. Any. And you oppose. All right. Motion pass. 50. Tammy. Do we have a need for a close session? Um, very briefly. very briefly. All right. Brief statute also invite um Joe Allen to uh join us. All right. You want to name the general statute and we need a motion? 143-318.11 A3 to consult with an attorney uh pending or regarding current litigation. Make a motion. Motion by Commissioner Breeden. Second. Second by Commissioner Shur. All in favor raise your right arm. State I. I. Nice.

raise your right arm. State IO. All right. Motion. [Music]