Commissioners - Regular Meeting

Good evening. At this time, I'd like to call to order the August Mon County Board of Commission meeting. It's kind of hard to believe it's August and uh all these kids are getting ready to go back to school and all these teachers went back to school yesterday and time's just going by. Um I'd like to welcome Representative Gillespie to our meeting. Thanks for being here tonight. And uh I'd like to move on to announcements. Mr. Kate, we'll let Miss Kezer start.

Thank you, Miss Kezer. I have a couple of announcements. The first one is just a reminder that county offices will be closed on Monday, September the 1st in observance of the Labor Day holiday. And then secondly, if it will put the slide up for us, our maintenance staff and um our parks and recreation staff were acknowledged and presented with an award today at the Veterans Memorial Park for the work that they've done in helping do some maintenance and cleanup of the park. So, Wonderful.

All right, Mr. Cape. Uh, I actually have a couple, Mr. Chairman. Uh, C on our list there. Reminder of the public hearing which is scheduled for September the 9th for the purpose of considering whether the board of commissioners would adopt the health department as a department within the county pursuant to that general statute. Uh, also the board of health voted at their last meeting to meet monthly instead of every other month. Uh, so the next meeting will be August 26th, uh, 2025 at 6:15 p.m. I'm going to skip E for just a minute. Uh, I have a couple that are not on the list. Uh, community funding pool applications for the funding itself. Uh, those applications are live on our web page. So, any organization that wants to apply for that funding, the link is open and live on our web page. Uh, a couple of quick updates on your school projects. Highland school, Highlands, uh, particularly the middle school renovation and expansion is on schedule. Uh, and they it will be tight, but they will be ready to open for classes on the first day of of school. Uh, and the Franklin High School project, everybody's concerned about the parking lot for the students. That will be paved by the end of the week. They're actually over there working today. That parking lot will be complete by the end of the week. So, that project is on schedule. Uh, and then just something for the board to think about. Uh the board of education has contacted me and they would like to schedule a joint meeting with the board of commissioners sometime in the very near future. So we need to think about setting a meeting with them. Uh and then for item E actually Miss Alicia Ash has here Alicia and friends. Uh would you like to make the the announcement for 828 treasure quest?

Welcome um brought our uh event coordinator with her with us this evening who has put in hours and hours pulling together a very exciting event that we want to let everybody know about. So Mr. Jields asked me to come and give a speech. I'm Kelly Burns and this is Lee with 828 Vibes and Alyssa Ash with Kids Place. Um I'm not a really good speaker so bear with me. Give me a little grace but um and I don't believe in notes. I'm like, you just say whatever comes to your heart. So, um we are doing a really cool event. It's really exciting um at the rec park and we thank you all for letting us use that for um to host our event. But we are actually doing a fundraiser. It's called 828 treasure quest and it's where you can win $10,000. And um all of our sponsors have generously donated money to um for that prize money. And um all the money and the proceeds go to benefit kids place. Um a lot of people ask me why do you do those things? Um it's a good question, but if we don't realize the importance of our nonprofit and we don't uh support those nonprofits, then the next generation is is gone because um everything they do is for our sustainability. So when you vote to keep them going and all the things that that they do for the community, unless it hits home, sometimes you really don't understand it. Um we had a situation in my family where we had to prosecute someone and a place like Kids Place, they stand with your child and they go all the way through and advocate for them. And like I said, you don't know the importance until you've had to walk it and live it. Um, so I'm here to advocate for them and also to get people on board for the treasure hunt. So basically it starts at the wreck park and I'll let Lee tell a

little bit more about that in the advertising, but you compete in 10 different field day events and you earn your way to the treasure hunt. So it's kind of like a cross between Survivor in the Amazing Race. So go ahead and I'll let you tell a little bit more about it. I'm not really good at this, I promise. She she acts like she can't talk, but I seen her out there talking to a wall a while ago trying to trying to get them to join this thing. I was like, "Why are you moving here for?" So, she wouldn't show up if I wasn't here. And I read this note about not moving the mic. Oh, and I moved before. No, I moved it. So, so yes, basically we've been advertising for this event. We've only started a little over a week or so.

Um, and already it just being on Facebook and boosting it out there. We've had over 15,000 views on the boosted post itself talking about it. The website not only mentions how that um event will interact during the day, how the people will come there and compete and who's actually able to uh move on to the next level, but it also talks about uh it's got links to Franklin, what to do in Franklin. So, we're promoting and putting those pieces in there. Um, it's been encouraged also on the flyers about and on the website about people who come to plan to come to the event. Walk through Franklin, go through some of the downtown businesses, get a little idea because if you are one of those five that move on, then you're going to be moving through some of those businesses. It gives you those some of those uh events there will be possibly tied to and around that business itself. So, you might as well get yourself familiarized with it. Uh, so we've been doing a lot of that. There's billboards out um flyers being passed around. I know there's uh information being sent out through western Carolina and the boosted post itself that's the one I can actually speak towards the most is uh 40 mi out around Franklin. We're getting tons of traffic from Asheville to Franklin to Clayton, Georgia and everything else for people to register. So, um you need to come back and work out with me and we'll go do this event together. But, uh yeah, get out there and uh sign up for this event. 828treasurequest.com.

Yeah. And I do want to thank everybody on the board pretty much has always supported every event that we do. And it's like kind of like putting your money where your mouth is. If you're going to say that you advocate for the community, then advocate for the community. And I appreciate that. And I appreciate everything that you do. And um like I said, this event is just it doesn't raise, you know, the first year is the hardest year because you're just building a platform and you're trying to get people interested. So you don't raise as much money the first year. just like our music festival that we did, but you're hoping for future revenue. Um it doesn't negate the need for um grants and things like that. And I think that's really important because um like I said, our nonprofits are essential to our sustainability. So um I hope everybody comes out to the Treasure Quest. I appreciate your support and for you allowing us to use the recreck park and um I appreciate you sponsorship and for giving us volunteers and everything that you do. It matters. Um does anybody have any questions? Cuz

what day is this on?

Oh, I'm sorry. October 11th. It's on Saturday, October 11th. And it starts at the Mon County Rec Park. And um to enter in, you um you enter a donation to Kids Place. It's taxdeductible cuz the money that we got from our sponsors funds the the prize money. Uh first place wins $10,000. Second place wins $2,000 and third place wins a th000. Then the people who don't advance onto the treasure hunt get another ch chance at the field day and they'll win $1,000 in other prizes that are donated from the community. So it's a really cool event. So if you need money and people want things to do cuz we get a lot of people that say there's nothing to do in this town. Well, I'm giving you something to do, so come do it. Um, so and and support it and share it and like it because when I do an event, I don't want to just help the nonprofit. I want to help our county as a whole. And if this brings people to Mon County, if our name's on a billboard in Murphy, which it will be, and it says Franklin, North Carolina or Quala Boundaries, it brings attention to our town. And and if I was going to compete in an event like if like this, I would visit that town every weekend before that event happened. so I'd have an upper hand. So that was kind of my motivation for that. And I've been trying to do this event for over 20 years. I tried to hit relay up for doing it and they were like, "No." But I I've been a huge Survivor fan and and I love the Amazing Race. And I thought if we can take my elements that I like from each of those and combine them into one and do something fun, then let's do it. So

she has no problem talking.

No, I don't. I don't. But anyway, thank you for I just want to add that uh I'm very appreciative of the support that the county commissioners have given to kids place over the years through the community funding pool and that events like this can't take the place of the community funding pool money. Um I was looking at statistics right now uh we have already served this as you pointed out this is already August. We have already served more kids from January 1 to right now than we did all of 2024. So um we we have 184 kids on our case load right now. So

we need to diversify our funding and pull in dollars wherever we can. So thank you for the support. Appreciate you for our kids. Thank you guys and girls. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Good. All right. Mr. Breeden, any announcements? Commissioner Antoine? Yes, sir. Commissioner Shields.

Uh, I want to go along with what Miss Keyser was talking about um this morning at the at the rec park uh the at the Veterans Memorial Park. We had an opportunity to acknowledge the Mon County uh maintenance uh uh department along with the uh rec county w Park. Also, people didn't want to leave out LBJ for their fantastic work painting work uh at the job at the Veterans Park. If you go out there, look at that big eagle. And that's a contribution from the LBJ. Thank you, sir. Commissioner Sher, Mr. Lori, Eric. All right, we're going to move along here. I'd like to ask Commissioner Antoine to lead us in the pledge of allegiance. Before that, let's take a moment of silence. [Music] I aliance 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, Mr. Anform.

We have no public hearings. Any additions to the agenda? Anybody? Mr. Chairman, under um old business TD, I would like a discussion on the um the operations of solid waste. Um what the studies have shown as far as do we continue as we are or where we are as far as hauling. Um and also if we come up with a plan for hauling um only in highlands uh to a a waste place instead of make county land.

All right. And also under old business TNF update on Mon County Animal Services discussion the process of turning it over to a nonprofit or continue just to get an update on those.

All right. Any other additions to the agenda? All right. Hearing none. Uh, public comment. Put your name down on that message here. Too late. You mean put it down? Okay. Absolutely. Betsy based. I know she want to say something. Let's talk about Make sure.

All right. Public comment. Vicky Sanders. Hi everyone.

From last time. Hello ladies and gentlemen. Vicky Sanders and I live in the upper Burning Town area or the Burning Town area and I'm just here to speak again about the Burning Town Fire Department that they have had at least 22 total members that have joined. They have had more than 36 training hours which is over 70% of their members which have which has which they've provided. Also, they have new members that are coming on board all the time. I've been several I've been to several of their meetings, uh, of which I know two of the commissioners have shown up and it's appreciated very much of of just attending that open house that they had. Um all the reports uh I have been informed that they are all up to date and that they are within the two weeks of responding to any emergency um for the community out there. Also, uh, in my opinion, um, the fire burning town fire department has asked everything that has been asked of them and I don't know what else that they can do to provide a better service to us in the community. I know that several of the members here are from our area and to me it's very important that we keep that fire department um going on and they going on with their leadership and um their whole area. Um I know that we have a couple of very very nice homes out there that would be devastated if anything ever happened to them. And yes, I know Kawi is a very um good fire department also, but I am here really to represent the Burning Town area and to hope that we continue to have that. I don't know what else they could do

unless you would like to share with me what else they need to do as a homeowner. And that's all. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Sanders. Matt Jackson, Matt. All right. Can you hear me this time? All right. Good. Yes, sir.

So, for the first time, I've actually wrote things down so I don't ramble for once, but uh I want to talk about the board of health. Um I've been keeping in I was here in the meeting last month and I also watched the meetings from the board of health and county commissioners joining that. I would like to start with an old saying, don't cut off your nose despite your face. Think on that for a moment what it actually means. Don't cause greater harm by reacting too drastically when a better solution is possible. What we're seeing with this proposal to have the commissioners take over the board of health feels like an extreme response to some specific solvable problems. It's like burning down a bridge because there's a loose plank instead of just fixing the plank. At the board of health meeting last month, it was clear that there are real and legitimate concerns from health department employees. There are issues with morale and with how things are being managed. That's that absolutely does need to be acknowledged. But the fact that people are voicing concerns is not a sign that the whole system should be torn down. It's a sign that the systems need to be need attention, communication, and repair. I refuse to believe that we have reached the point of no return. Many of you ran on promises of smaller government and less government overreach. Yet, here we are considering expanding the powers of the commission over another local body, one that's meant to function independently and with professional input for the public good. Let's not throw away a system that serves the county or centralize any power for the sake of dealing with specific issues that could be resolved. If the problem was poor communication or fear of retaliation, then we need to fix it. not tear down the whole structure. I urge this board, don't make a permanent, far-reaching change in response to a short-term problem. Let's keep government small, accountable, and focused on real solutions and not overreach. Thank you, Mr. Jackson. Thank you.

All right, Miss Kelly Burns is on the list, and I think she's already said her piece. All right, Betsy Bast.

Good evening everyone. Thank you for letting us speak. I'm uh glad that you added to our agenda, Mr. Cheryl, because I specifically wanted to know what's going on with the decision-making process with the animal shelter. Um, I know that there is a really wonderful proposal that's been written to take the current animal control officers and put them under Sheriff Hullbrook's um, umbrella. And I 100% support that idea. The people who are the Mon County Animal Shelter Control officers don't have enough bite. they don't have enough ability to enforce what's happening when laws are broken regarding animal cruelty. Um, we see that in the case that was just one about the horse that was abused. And thankfully, one of the sheriff's deputies helped with that case and they were able to get a conviction on that. If our animal control officers actually were officers of the sheriff's department, we would be able to have real control over whether or not people are abusing animals because we're compassionate people and we believe that's wrong. I think you do and I think that's what we want to do. Um I talked to him a little bit about it. I'm not supposed to talk to him, but I talked to him a little bit about it and you know I think there's a good proposal for him to take on with that. And also I would like to um advocate for the positive shelter vol positive shelter volunteers who want to take on managing the shelter and I think that that would be a good partnership with the sheriff's department. Thank you.

Thank you, Miss Bast.

All right, that wraps up the public comment period. Any other adjustments to the agenda? Um, chairman, I'd like um to have a discussion on uh consent agenda 12F

12 Yes, revised voluntary shared leave. Mr. K, can you elaborate on Sur discuss it now? You want to want to discuss or you want to pull it off? Well, I want to I want Well, I don't necessarily want to pull it off. I just want a clarification on

um and um I see these um emails quite often coming through about shared leave. Um, and I just really want to know, I mean, if you look at it as shared leave, I understand that. But, um, is this something that is unique to Mon County or is this something that's in all government bodies? How did it I mean, I see where it was in 2012. It was um it was voted on and passed um in 2012, but is this something that goes all across the state of North Carolina and town and and county government?

So, it this policy that we have was approved in 2012. We are not the only county or local government that has a similar policy in place. I don't think that all 100 counties and all municipalities have it, but we are not alone in having such a policy. This policy allows employees who don't have leave, sick leave or vacation leave, and have a extenduating medical circumstance to be able to take care of their medical needs and get paid because other employees will donate leave from their bank to that employee so that they can take care of that and get paid while they're taking care of their medical issues. The change that we're requesting in this policy has to do with some special circumstances which are on the second page of that where we've had employees that had a family member that had an extenduating medical situation and our current policy did not allow for donated leave so you could take care of a family member. Um, we've had employees who during Hurricane Helen um lost their homes or had damage to their homes, didn't have leave to take off to take care of that. Um, we've had um some other extenduating circumstances, unplanned death in the family, and the person was a new employee, didn't have enough leave on the books. So, employees have been requesting that they be allowed to donate leave and those circumstances to folks as well as um what was already in our policy. So, that's the change in that. But we are not the only um local government that has a similar policy in place.

Well, and not to be argumentative about it, but you know, I'm a private sector guy and out here in the private sector world, I don't know of a private company anywhere that allows, you know, all these things. I mean, if if you're fortunate enough out here in the private sector to have a job where they offer benefits, it's usually you get paid holidays, paid sick time, um, and and paid vacation and stuff like that. Um, and then once that's over, it's over. There's nobody else to depend on. So my my whole thing about that is that is an absolute wonderful perk for the county employees if you're able to go out and use up all of your time that you're allotted and then get from somebody else because when you get that leave from somebody else and if something happens to that person then these people over here give it to that person. So, it's a snowball effect there that it's it's an ongoing thing. So, um

so our our policy does require that if you're going to donate leave that you have a balance, you maintain a balance of at least 40 hours for yourself and when the applications come in for somebody requesting donated leave. We look at that and make sure that the person has been responsible in the use of their leave and that they're just not being irresponsible and running out of their leave. So, it it really is in those circumstances, particularly a new employee that um you know hasn't earned enough leave and then all of a sudden they get sick or they have a sick child um or you have an an extenduating circumstance. So, we we try to monitor those and look at it and make sure that people are using it responsibly. Well, and I and you know, I appreciate what the county employs and you know, you you're looking out after them, but we also got to keep in mind what goes out on out here in the in the private sector world and nobody out there has those perks. So,

I I will add one other thing from the financial standpoint from the county. Typically, your employees that have leave to donate have been here longer than a new employee. So therefore, usually they're making more per hour than the employee that they donate to. So what typically happens is you may just as an example, you may have an employee that's making $20 an hour, $25 an hour that donates to an employee that's making $18 an hour and it it's it's an hour for hour basis. So on the books for us financially, it's usually a wash because the higher leave is covering a lower leave somewhere. I I believe in public education they got the same system where you can earn and pass on to somebody else that's been there for a long time. Mr. Gillespie.

Thank you. All right. Thank you. Any other adjustments to the agenda hearing? None. I'd like to entertain a motion to approve. A motion by Commissioner Breeden. Second by Commissioner Antoine. Any further discussion? Hearing none. All in favor, please signify by raising your right arm and stating I. I. Any oppose? All right. Reports and presentations. Uh, presentation and update on center operations at the LBJ job. Keith Bowers and Miss Sutton.

Yes. Um, good evening. Um, my name is Vicki Sutton and I'm the academic manager at LBJ job. I'm joined by Mr. Keith Bowers who is our business liaison at LBJ JobCore. Mr. Shields invited us to come to to inform you a little bit about what JobCore is all about. Um tonight we're going to give you a quick overview of the JobCore program, including academic program and partnerships, career and financial readiness, camp crew and wildland firefighting, community projects and partnerships, and work-based learning and internships. JobCore is the largest residential-based vocational training program in the nation. It serves students ages 16 to 24, and is completely free of charge. The program is designed to assist economically disadvantaged youth, earn their high school diploma or high school equivalency, learn a trade, earn a driver's license, and come away with industry recognized credentials in their trade to help them start a career. Character development is also incorporated within our program. Students learn such life skills as discipline, responsibility, and leadership. At LBJ job, we offer six trades. Two of which are union trades, and those are brickmasonry and also paint. The other four are in cooperation with SEC, Southwestern Community College, and they are culinary, welding, facility maintenance, and culinary arts. Those trades are taught by Southwestern Community College instructors. When students finish their education and their trade, they are offered job placement um services. And if you look at across the nation at the United States Forest Service placement rates are pretty high. So we've been pretty

successful with that. LBJ is a job creator and also an economic multiplier. Our center directly employs local staff and contractors which injects a steady stream of income into Mon County. Every federal dollar that's spent at the center circulates through the e through the local community which supports local families and businesses. There are currently 99 contract centers across the nation and there are 24 forest service centers across the nation. We are one of the US Forest Service centers. Um, as of June 30th, which is the end of our program year, LBJ was ranked number two among 24 Forest Service centers and number 15 overall out of 123 centers nationwide. As the academic man program manager, I'm responsible for the academic program at LBJ jobcore. When students come to the center, all of them are responsible for taking a test of adult basic education in reading and in math. Um, as a result of of those tests, the diagnostics that that their teachers receive um inform teachers so that they can develop individual education plans for each student within the educational department. At LBJ, we offer a high school diploma program which is in partnership with Mon County Schools. We're very appreciative of that program of that partnership. Um, as of the last program year, five students graduated through Mon County School System. We also offer a high school equivalency program and that's in partnership with Southwestern Community College. They provide us with some part-time instructors in order to meet the instructional needs of our students. Um,

within the last program year at LBJ, 43 students earned their high school equivalency. Driver's Ed is also offered at our center. I'm smiling because, as you can well imagine, it's one of the most popular programs at our center. Um, students really enjoy getting working toward getting their driver's licenses. Um, they also, our driver's ed instructor also helps students acquire their real IDs. Within the last program year, which ended June 30th, out of 123 job course centers, LBJ is currently ranked five in the nation in reading and we're ranked 18th in the nation in math and that's out of 123 centers. I'll now turn the program over to Mr. Keith Bowers, our business liaison.

Thank you.

Thank you all very much. Um along with the vocational and academic training that we provide, we also help students with career transition readiness. We want students to be ready to join the workforce as soon as they complete our program. So we start working on that early on during their time in the program. Uh we help them with building an NC Works profile. We help them with resume creation. We help them with interview skills and getting ready to go out and work. As students get nearer the end of their program, we help them with applying for positions in their desired if they're going to go back to wherever they came from or if they want to relocate to a new area. We're going to help them with finding open jobs in that area and applying for those. We're going to help them look for housing and make sure that that's secured before we have the student transition out of the program. And then once they do leave the program, we have professionals that assist them with up to 18 months after graduation with continuing to provide that support, make sure that they stay in the workforce, that they are doing a good job, that their needs are being met. While the students are going through that transition period, we're also going to provide them financial management advice and have them take the FDIC how moneys smart are you course. This course gives the students the ability to learn about how to manage money, about how to budget, they learn about credit, they learn about debt, they learn about banking, and they learn about saving. so that they have an idea of how to be able to manage their money effectively. A lot of schools don't offer this training anymore. So, when they're coming to us, we're able to provide this training for them so they're comfortable with earning money.

The FDIC course is a self-paced course that's available online. So our students when they're about 40% complete in our program come in take this course so they start to build those skills and then as they continue on through our program they're able to put these into use. We help them with opening a bank account if they need that. We continue to provide that training for them so that when it is time for them to leave they know how to effectively handle their money as well as be effective out in the workforce. [Music] LBJ JobCore has been in our community for 61 years now. We have over six decades of providing work ready youth. As part of the US Forest Service, our center instills vocational, academic, and a conservation ethic in its students. teach them conservation skills so that when they go out they can serve both the economy and the environment when they're done. Our students live by the motto, if service is below you, leadership is beyond you. These pictures that I have here are a couple of the different events that students have done out in this community. We've long served Mon County, but even recently, we've completed a lot of local community projects. Uh the eagle that Commissioner Shields and I saw the maintenance department at the Veterans Memorial, our students painted that with their painting instructor. There's a new split rail fence that was installed at MVI. Our students built that for Mon County Schools. Uh we built benches and peers at the Franklin State Park. Uh when the high school needed to move its weight room, LBJ was contacted. Our

students went out. We moved all of those weights over to the middle school. Um had multiple roadside cleanups. In just this last program year, our students volunteered more than 2100 hours in service to Mon County. You'll often see our students helping with events at Mana, at Friends of the Greenway, at Making Program for Progress and New Visions Gym, Taste of Scotland Festival, almost any festival that goes on in Franklin. You'll see our students assisting with parking or helping with cleanup or setting up or tearing down the tents. Our students love to get out and give back to this community that has accepted them so well. According to um the americanforest.org website, there are currently over 500 active wildfires burning across the country. As part of the Forest Service, we provide training to our students to be able to assist with those and other natural disasters as needed. Our students can take training to either participate in what's called a camp a camp crew which provides logistical support to wildland firefighters or they could also take advanced training where they can actually become certified in wildland firefighting so we can get students out there. So actually tonight we were supposed to have four presenters here. Two of them are actually out helping out on wildfire right now. Uh we do have a camp crew of students out assisting at a fire in Idaho and we have another stood up getting ready to go and they're expected to go to the north rim of the Grand Canyon where there's a large fire burning. So we're constantly preparing our students to go out give back to not just this community but any community that we can

help in. Another program we offer is called workbased learning. So our students will learn in classrooms and in workshop areas where they can get knowledge of terminology and policies and then get some hands-on skills. But we also want them to work in real world environment so that when it is time to complete they actually know what to expect in the workplace. Uh this also allows the student to earn money prior to graduation to help with those transition needs. So right now we have partners with Lander Tubular Products. Uh we've worked with Lander for over a year now where we provide students to work in their factory and they've set an up 8-week apprenticeship program where our students are able to move around different parts of the factory to learn things about inventory processing or quality assurance. um they learn about uh manufacturing and materials handling so that when that 8 weeks is done they know what to expect when they go out to work force in that type of setting. We also work with the US forest service where our facility maintenance students are able to provide landscaping work at Arowwood Glade. So we actually maintain that for Nana Ranger District which saves them manh hours from coming out and having to maintain that space. Uh with the US Forest Service overall, we provide backcountry gates where our welding students are able to take raw material, cut it into size, weld it into place, send it to our paint shop who sand blast, primes, paints the gates, and we're able to send them out the door to the Forest Service to replace damaged gates. When the Forest

Service was having to purchase these gates outright, each gate cost over $5,000. By going through JobCore and only having to purchase raw materials, gates now cost $1,500 a piece. So, every gate we send out the door saves the taxpayer $3,500. We've produced 18 so far this year. We currently have on hand materials to complete 12 more. and orders will come in again. Um, another program we have is internships. And this is an opportunity for students to be able to go out across the country at different forest service sites or national park service sites, work in a conservation related career or in a career path that they're studying at JobCore to be able to have that experience, earn money for their service, have their resume built by this experience that they've done, and be able to then transition into the workforce. So, um, just in the past year, we've had students at the Grey Towers National Historic Site in Pennsylvania, at the Lassen National Forest, which is in Northern California, Dodto Ranger District in Mississippi, and we s we currently have two students at the Menden Hall Glacier Visitor Center, which if you've ever seen pictures of the Alaskan cruises, there's a cruise ship and there's a big glacier in the background that was taken from Menon Hog Glacier Visitors Center. We have two students living and working there right now. Uh we have two students working in a culinary arts internship at uh Yusede National Park. We have students at Denali National Park in Alaska. We have two students in Crater Lake National

Park. And we have one student doing a facility maintenance internship at Crater Lake. So, we're able to send these students out. Um, many of the national parks have lodges where they also have cafeteria settings. So, our culinary arts students are able to work in the cafeteria. Our maintenance students are able to work in the maintenance department. Our office administration students are able to work in the office setting. So they're able to take the training that they get from us, put it into real world, and be able to possibly move into Some of these students have moved into federal positions. Some of them gone on to work for the different concessionires that that operate within these national parks. Anyway, they come out with great experience. So I have a couple pictures. Uh the first picture are the students who are at Menon Hall right now. got a student outside of Crater Lake National Park. And the third student was Tummaine Stevenson. He completed an internship at Crater Lake and was hired on by the Pacific Northwest Research Station in Oregon. Um, our program is all about helping the students be able to prepare themselves for getting out, joining the workforce, giving back to their community. We help them by earning a high school diploma or a GED. Help them by teaching them a trade. Prepare them with financial management advice. Help them be able to get out and give back. Our graduates are trained and they earn the certifi certificates they need to be able to gain high-paying jobs. They learn about accountability because we provide a very structured environment with a strong discipline system. Finally, our centers train our students in the classroom and work areas and

through community sourced work-based learning opportunities. The real life opportunities get the students ready. They go out and they've been extremely successful and as Miss Sutton mentioned, currently we're ranked number two in the Forest Service. We're extremely proud of that. We're proud of our students and we just we really appreciate the opportunity to be able to come up speak with you about our program. I want to Mr. Shields thank you very much as liaison to LBJ. Commissioner Shields has been an incredible advocate for us a great support. We appreciate all of your support. But thank you all.

We appreciate you. Now, I will say if you ever please please come join us. Come see us at JobCore. We'd love for you to tour. Guests are always welcome. Wonderful. Fantastic.

All right. Well, that was refreshing. Yep. When you go, that's when you get refreshed. That's good. All right. Moving on. 9B progress report from the human resource department.

I wanted to take the opportunity tonight to introduce the HR department staff um and share with you some of the things we've been doing to assist in recruiting employees and enhancing our communication with applicants. First, I would like to come on up, ladies. Don't be bashful. I want to introduce um Paulie Crunkleton. Paulie um Paulie is our HR specialist who handles new hire benefits, ongoing benefit changes, retirement coordination, FMLA leave, unemployment disputes, child support notification and tracking and many other tasks. Paulie's worked for Mon County for nine and a half years and has been a member of the HR team for the past five years. We have Amy. Amy Breedlove is our HR generalist. She takes care of application tracking and distribution to the departments, job description tracking and distribution, tracking of training, evaluations, and assisting polic Pauly with benefits among various other task. Amy is our newest member. She's been with Mon County for 15 years and joined our team in January. And then Miss Nina Parrot in front of you is our HR analyst who manages the website, online and social media platforms for administration, HR and finance. Munis, which is our HR, payroll and accounting system, safety committee, employee safety training, data analysis, research, and many other job task. Nah's been with Mon County for 11 and a half years and a member of the HR team for the past two years. Our department currently provides support to 24 departments, 692 employees, of which 540 are full-time employees. This includes health department and DSS, and all of our current staff have worked at either the health department or DSS previously and are familiar with the Office of State Personnel rules and guidelines. There are approximately 15 vacant full-time positions in the county with

recruitment happening both internally and externally for those positions. and I'm going to turn it over to Nina and let her talk to you about the application process.

Good evening. My name is Nina Parrot, HR analyst with the human resources department. Miss Kizer requested I provide the board with a quick update on our new application process, why we changed it, how it works, and how things are going since our launch on July 1st. Before I begin my presentation, I want to express my admiration for all the Mon County employees involved in the hiring process. Usually change is not met with enthusiasm, but their support has really made the project successful. I would also like to thank Mr. Adams and Mr. Bashard for allowing HR to pilot the process with parks and wreck this past April. All right, see if this works. All right, why we changed the process? Our goal with this update was to make hiring faster, easier, and more tech friendly. Before tracking was inconsistent, applications were delayed and we l um lacked reliable reporting data. Now it's all streamlined. Overview of the new process. The application process is all online now. Applicants fill out the application which includes required forms. They have the option to upload a resume. And I would also like to point out that the submissions are encrypted. Here's how it works. Once the application submits the online application, they will receive an automated confirmation. HR reviews and submits to the designated department. Those will come from Amy. Um the department receives the application in their inbox and then the department contacts the applicant directly. Since the launch date, which was 29 business days ago, Mon County has received 65 applications. The average turn time from HR to the department has been 47 minutes. The following two slides are examples of real-time reports that we can pull directly from the data collection.

We can track the number of application application views, the average time it takes to complete an application, and the most popular device type. One of the most significant benefits is that applicants have the ability to apply anywhere at any time, including weekends. I believe this is opening a door for a new set of applicants that we've not seen historically. From an HR's perspective, the departments are receiving applications quickly and we can track everything in real time. But I believe departments have noticed the difference, too. For example, parks and wrecks said this change significantly improved their hiring workflow and even increased the application volume. Emergency management reported that 10 new applicants came in just since July. Solid Waste says the process is working well. Transit says they're getting applications much faster and Soil and Water even hired their top candidate through the new process. Of course, no roll out is perfect. We've had two minor issues. One applicant had a refresh issue due to their phone signal and another had trouble locating the start filling button. In both cases, HR was able to step in, help the applicant apply the same day, and we've made sure HR's contact information is easy to find so applicants can receive real-time support. Soon, we'll be we will be revamping our website's job opportunity section, updating our listings on Indeed and LinkedIn to include application submission, and rolling out our new skills test by September 1st. That's everything. Thank you for your time and I'm happy to answer any questions you have them.

Thank you, Nina, for what you do. Thank you to our whole group. Thank you, ladies. Thank you. It's a nice update. Thank you. All right, moving on to old business. Discussion on addition to Veterans Memorial Park. I'm sorry, Veterans Memorial at the Nana Hala Community Building/ Library. Uh, Miss Susan Carpenter. Welcome, Miss Susan. Back again.

And this is the only reason why I come. So the um picture you're seeing right now is uh Joseph Dills. He was killed in a tank uh January 45. See who is holding Susie Beasley. Do you know her? Yes.

Okay. Very very dear to her. But uh let's see. So, we're going to do hopefully a bigger memorial. The flag poles are 12 feet apart and the community club put this small doors stop up um in between. No discussion, no information on it for the most part. I propose a larger memorial. You can barely see it in the red. Um a total of 4 foot high. um 5 foot long. Then we'll have the stone, the face of the stone will have uh names of those killed in service in Vietnam, World War II. Uh this is just a mockup. It's not permanent whatsoever. So the community is going to raise the funds to put this in if you give us uh permission. Uh we also and we're count um contacting the businesses right now and also we have the funds from the um American Legion, the VFW and the Vietnam veterans. They have have given um a pretty good amount. We're very happy about it. uh and we're going to try to find anybody else uh to give presentations to to raise the money for this memorial monument. So, last time I had talked to you, the um between the two flag poles, we were going to put the small stone on the left and in the middle is the big stone. All right. It's kind of out of balance. And what we're I'm thinking about right now is

that we'll put the small stone behind the big stone. So as you sit over there in the gazebo in the picnic area, you will actually um have something to look at. And the we'll also put a little bit of a a flower bed perhaps. And the entire between the two flag poles will probably be be able to put all pavers. So it become more of a plaza than just a monument in between two flag poles. So that is the update and next Tuesday I believe we're going to have a meeting and we're going to discuss the new uh new position, new layout of the uh stone which was recommended by two of the locals. So

I think it's a wonderful concept. Um, do you need permission from this board? That Mr. Gate? Yeah, Mr. Chairman, I I think I think you should give your blessing to the project if you if that's the look that you want and coordinate with all the folks over there. And obviously, one of the things I think we need to do is is we need to work with these folks to work on the landscaping that's around there as well to make that a a really attractive spot for all the the groups that are over there. I like it. Well, gentlemen, you've heard the presentation. I make a motion you continue with your project. I hear a motion by Commissioner Shields. Second.

Second by Commissioner Breeden. Any further discussion? No, but I would like to say if you need any help over there, I'll be glad to come to Nana Halen and help you. Muscle. Well, we we actually said monuments and stuff, so I'll be glad to come over and help you if need. We're going to go through right now. Um Bob Barton at the western North Carolina U Marble and Granite. I haven't talked to him, but that's he usually comes up in the area. Well, the offer is there. I'll be glad to help if need. Very good. Okay. I appreciate it. All right. Thank you, gentlemen. Any other discussion? Hearing none. All in favor, please signify by raising your right arm and stating I. Any oppose? Please let the record reflect 5, Miss Dammy. Thank you.

Thank you, ma'am. Thank you. Thank you. Have a safe trip home. All right. Item B, discussion on use and occupancy of multi-use room at Nanahala Community Building and Library. Mr. Cape.

So, Mr. Chairman, I think we needed to continue the discussion on the the use and occupancy of that multi-use room there at Nanahala. Obviously, at the last meeting, we heard some presentations. You heard some information from the library staff, heard some information from community club folks. Um, in your packet, there's a couple of options for you to consider. Uh, I actually had sent you another proposed lease from community club. I think it was Monday. Uh, you should have a a draft lease from the community club. You should have our standard one-year lease from Mon County. And then we actually included a uh a per day lease that Eric can talk about in a few minutes. uh or uh at the moment you're currently, correct me if I'm wrong, but we're that room is being scheduled with a Google calendar between the two different agencies. Um and one of the and Steve with community club is here and some library folks are here. One of the one of the concerns I think that was brought up and and you can speak to that more than me is the community club is interested in doing bingo. Um, according to state statutes, you have to have some type of a lease on that facility. So, I think you should just probably open that up for discussion and see which direction you all want to go with that.

Gentlemen,

give us some information on the per dailies. Well, so in your draft and and I put those in italics, but I wasn't exactly sure when uh when they plan to do bingo or when they do um their regular meetings. So, I'm that's up for y'all to decide if you're interested in in uh specifically providing like the first and third Tuesdays of the month from uh 7 to 10 or whenever it is that the the development club meets. um hope is that that would comply with the state bingo folks um that they would authorize that at the least that would satisfy that. Um if they don't then obviously we could um revisit at that time. Another option is to do um the the meeting room lease uh of just turning that over to the community development club. that would probably take some some further communication with the the library about use of that room. And then the um the one that was was drafted that was proposed by the community club um is they didn't delineate as to what area. So that would be for the full premise um which would also include the library. So I think that would probably take a little bit more development if if yall were interested in that theory. And and one of the things I will add um of course term is something we can discuss if you want to go the lease route. If you want to do anything with a lease tonight, general statutes require us to do one year or less. Uh if you do anything from one year to 10 years, you do have to advertise it 30 days in advance. So if if you want to consider a lease and it's one year or less, you can do it tonight. If it's longer than that, we would need to advertise it and do it at the next meeting.

Okay. We're h we're happy with a one-year lease.

We'd like to get it solved. So, we we'd like to be able to move on. So, one year is fine. And any of the uh any of the three options could be made to work. Our our preference is the lease we submitted. Second option, you know, we would under that would be the county standard lease. That that could work fine as well. We'd have a couple minor questions about that. And I will add one of the uh the changes in the revised lease that that I had sent out to y'all. Obviously, there's been some concern or questions about use of that facility. And that that particular particular lease had a had some stipulations in it like the fees and then who can use the space and what time and as far as rental fees if the rental fees are going to be charged on that.

I updated the lease from the questions that y'all had last time. So Josh had asked for the fees schedule to be put in and we did that. Uh we dropped the fee down. I think Josh you asked for that as well. So we cut the fee in half. put the fee schedule in there and we also made it very clear that we're supporting the library activities. So, um again just yesterday I've asked a library official folks are they happy with the way we're operating with the Google calendar and they said yes they're fine. So I consider that to be solved. I don't see why there's any any question about it anymore.

Mr. Sure. Well, I think um we certainly need to work with you guys and get uh what you need to play bingo and everything else. Um I just I want to make sure that uh with this lease that that facility is designated for community activities.

Yes. and never say no, you can't use it because um we have it leased out to someone for a wedding or a birthday party or something else. I think Nanahala community comes first. The opportunity to lease that facility to a private uh family or individual um should not take control of that place. So, I mean, if if if somebody if Nana Hala wants to um um have a fitness class over there and um and y'all need to work together, you need to have that schedule. Um worked out before

and we we have we've done that on the goo Google calendar. The library folks have the schedule. They can see it. Um that hasn't been a problem. I think I I agree in general with what you're saying. As long as we agree that once something is on the schedule, it doesn't get bumped. That's correct. And there's no point um you know with no one should be able to come in there and say, "Hey, you have at least or rented out Saturday morning and we're going to have a fitness class when you already have it booked." I'm not I'm not saying that by no means, but

Okay. Um if if the building is used five days a week pretty much all day long and that's scheduled then if you have a wedding rehearsal or or any type on Friday evening and Saturday then by all means you should be able to do that right and we have blocks of time set aside for instance the the library does have an adult exercise class that's on the schedule a month at a time and We we try to stay out of that block, you know, right? So, it's worked very well. And there is uh

I would just say I think the cleanest in my opinion, the cleanest idea here would be to do that per day lease. Um it just doesn't make a lot of sense to me for a county owned building to be ran by a an organization that meets once a month and if the community club meets one time a month. So, I think it would be best, in my opinion, if the library were to continue or take over that Google calendar. They're there every day. This building's not being used the way that it should be used. Um, so from where I sit, I think that the cleanest option would be that per day lease, give them the opportunity to do bring bingo over there or something to do. And um, but I just don't see how leasing that building out. It was the original intent when the building was rebuilt. You know, half was a library, the other half was a community center to be run by the community club.

And I think if it would I think if it had started that way and it ran smoothly and there were no no disagreements between the two organizations, it'd be one thing, but until the last meeting, basically it's it's kind of been at odds and and the library ladies are here. They could speak to some of that as well. Is it going smoothly? gonna say um I think our biggest concern is we don't want to

please address the mic of the space that's that's fine with us. I think there are a lot of things that the library our space is wonderful don't get me wrong we love our space it's beautiful the furnishings are amazing um but the space is limited and you've seen eight to ladies trying to do chair exercise in a space that small it could be a little little hairy. Um, so I think it's wonderful that we're allowed to use that space and I think from our perspective, um, the library is there six days a week and the community group at this point, you know, someone's having to come and give us access to that space. And what happens if we have an event planned, a program planned, and the person who would normally come and open that space for us can't? We're going to have to cancel the program. um where we're having to rely on an outside entity to get access to that space and that for us from a planning perspective is complicated. It's hard to plan and also there are things like we'd love to do like have a craft day where we could spread out on the tables and have room if you guys do crafts you know it takes space. We need a big table. Um and the space that we have is great for library purposes but for programs and stuff it can be a little limiting. Um so from our perspective having having freedom of access would be beneficial for us in planning those community programs that I think we all want to see happen in that space.

So these questions she raised none of these have been a problem. They haven't asked for any of these what she just mentioned. None of this has been asked for. So everything the library has asked for we have put on the schedule. So it's all worked just fine. We have four uh four people with keys for access. We've never once been late to open the facility for them or to close it. So, I don't see this as problems. Well, let me ask you a question based on that. If you don't have anything scheduled in that room, what does it hurt for them to have a key to use it? I mean, this is all Nanahala uh people. I mean, what?

So, do you want it wide open for the public all the time? Well, I didn't say, but if they have if they need that space and there's no one in there, we can react real quick. They can schedule it. What if they had a key? If they if they have a key, it's going to be a free-for-all. Anybody's going to be in there. You know, this happened before at the previous library, you know, and it it turned into a kitchen. And that's that's what it was used for. And it it was not it was not nice at all.

I'm going to move this thing down the road. I feel like we've talked about it for two months and I I hate it because Nana deserves this and citizens deserve this and they need to be able to use it and I think that's the problem here is we need to get how do we use it, you know, and in what manner? Well, everything works the way the way it's going right now. Everything works. So, what do you need to provide bingo to the people of Nana? Exactly. Lease or rental agreement. So, yeah, sure. Come on. Lee Walters helps us out quite a bit.

Great. Thank you guys. I appreciate uh you listening to us tonight. Um maybe just a couple of things. First of all, I don't think it's really been expounded upon how much the club currently does use it and and what we're doing with it. Y'all seem to be under the impression that it's one day a month. I mean, in just the past month, we've had um a beekeeping class from uh um the the what do they call that? Cooperative extension. Cooperative extension. Um we had um we had a gardening class.

A gardening class also. Um there's been several things not just and and see the whole thing is we've got to we haven't had time to really build up our program yet for regular usage. We plan on uh using that club a lot for many different educational and entertainment purposes. The bingo is just one of many things that are going on. I urge you to not be focused in on availability to one entity that has had availability all the time. Okay? As far as the bingo thing goes, I did do some statute research, the the legal the legal definition of lease is a time period, singular, not time periods. So I don't know if that plan of 104 days throughout the year let two days a week or whatever the case or two days a month 24 times a year would work out for you. But I would encourage you to at least give us a year to work out these problems. I think you can see what that both parties are in uh cooperative mode right now and we are moving forward. Give us a year. Let's see what happens and then at the end of the year let's re-evaluate. Thank you.

So one more question. U how many times have you guys had to go open the door for the library usage? Quite often every time they need it. It's my wife that does it. She's the secretary. It's Steve. Um we have another uh the um Susie. Susie.

Um she lives nearby. So that has not been a problem. You know, uh we've got and and honestly, you know, when Mr. Shields and um Mr. Hickden came by to um what did they do, the grand opening ribbon cutting for the building? They they I mean I have it on video. I have their words. I They gave us the responsibility of running that side of the building. It was said this, you were there, Mr. Shields. Gary said, I mean, not Gary, but Paul said, it's your building. You guys manage it as you see fit. We're trying to do that and we're trying to do that fairly for everybody's benefit. [Music] Give us a chance. I mean, there's two things I'd have to see for me to support this. Number one, library gets a key. I mean, it's cut and dry. They I'm sorry. They can't they can't be in the same building and it be and it be locked down and then they have to call somebody to open the door. I mean in the contract it needs to you know have a detail on being clean and being prepared.

Right. Let me finish. The second the second thing is uh I'm losing my train of thought is uh gosh I just lost what I was about to say. Um was along the lines of the library but oh the fee schedule. You cut the fee schedule in half. I'm happy with that. But I feel like I just want the community to be able to use this and and use it dearly. And I think the library in the same building deserves a key. What if there's an emergency? You know, they're sitting in the building. I could support it potentially with a key. And I also feel like uh it's there for the community to use. So I don't want that to be overlooked.

Yeah, I I understand that fully. Um can I say this politely and as delicately as I can? when um the club was in the library, it would use the library. Well, anyway, in the modular school at the school, uh there was lots of uh cleanliness and order orderliness issues. I've been advised that uh there's been that in the 36B section side of the building even to this day. there's um mice and and insect problems. We don't have that. We keep it clean. We intend on keeping it clean. Uh it's our responsibility and we're just trying to live up to our responsibility.

So, I don't know. I fully understand the key issue, but it hasn't been a problem. And that's I would try to alleviate your fear. It's not negotiable for me. The other side of that coin is I'd like to see clawbacks in his contract maybe, you know, for a time period. And if one party or the other has dispute issues, the county retains a building, terminates a contract, and it's kind of like we're giving you a good faith shot at this, right? Get along. Let the community use it. That's why it's there. To me, you know what I mean? You're both from Manahala. Yeah. And uh and use it. But number one, they have to have the key. And number two, you know, the county has clawbacks that say if something were to flop, terminate the contract and that's that's honest. It's your building. It's your decision. I understand fully. Let's let's

thank you. Then they got any any well action or

you know I think the um library if they have a key to it they should uh certainly help maintain the cleanliness of that building and uh um and if there's a problem give us feedback and we can try to address it. Um, and um, I mean, I just hope y'all can get all this uh, ironed out. And um, and I understand it's hard to go in and clean up after somebody, but they deserve a chance to um, to use that without having to call you guys for a key. And if it becomes a problem, let us know. Well,

but my goal is to help you get what you need to do bingo and everything else. And it sounds to me like we are stuck on the library not having a key and access to this room. So, you give a little and um and I think we can get this done. in the interest of moving forward. I agree with the terms that uh Chairman Young has presented at this point. If there's an issue, just bring it back. We'll deal with it at that point. Until there's an issue, I don't see any reason why they can't have that. But you also need a lease.

So, at this time, I would like to make a motion that we enter into a lease with the Nanaha Community Development Club on a per day basis, whatever those days are. and that the building be open to the library, that they would keep the schedule. It's a county-owned building. That county owned entity would keep the schedule and that they would have a key to the building and Nana would have their lease that the community club would have their lease on a per day, whether that was two days a month or two days a week. I hear a motion by Commissioner Breeden. Second. Second by Commissioner Antoine.

Here we go. So my question is is does that get you where because you just said the general statutes would not allow so per day um is not going to get them and so that was a question to

right and so I don't think we have that answer from the bingo commission on whether or not they will um provide for this. So, as far as what what days do you need it specifically for bingo and then um we'll let I think we're going to what I'm hearing is the commissioners are going to allow the club and the library to work together on use of that um provided everybody has the key. But as far as what I need to include in the specific lease for bingo um or your specific meetings coming what what you what you all need for that. We don't know what days it would be. I mean, we're we're far away from this. We haven't we can't even apply for a license. And

so, we need to put a date in, I assume, to send to the the bingo commission. So, tell me what days you want on in this. I mean, what days are my what days are you proposing or does we can always amend it? Uh, Friday and Saturday, but can't you just say uh two or four times a month? Does it have to be a specific day? I would presume for the bingo commission they want to know that this is locked down for bingo for this date. I mean that's what I'm I'm hearing as far as the specifics from bingo. We don't really know cuz this was something we we did to try to accommodate for the bingo. Um just say just say Friday and Saturday then

Friday and Saturday. And you want to do did you all want to do specific times or so that I mean with or without? I guess I think we need to What times would you be running? We're not ready to answer that. Okay. Well, at least let's give times at least 4:00 on Okay. 4 to midnight.

That's a long That's a long time to play bingo. So, I have a I have a problem with um with this because I see the library taking over this whole building and um and it was split half and half um half library, half community club. Um which if the library is hosting exercise classes and need that, that is what a community club is for. Um and so uh I think by that we are taking this facility away from the community club that it was designed for.

You are and exactly what's happening. I think it wasn't designed for the community, not the community club. Designed for the community, all the people of Nana Hill and not a 30 person club.

But if it wasn't, it would have never been split in half. It was split in half for half library, half community club. And and so I agree 100% that the library should go into that room at any given time, that they have need for that room. There should be no restrictions. They should have to be cleaning up uh after it and everything else and and leave it better than they found it. But to try to tell the community club that they only have access to that Friday and Saturday guaranteed time and I just have it's

I mean their meeting day will stay the same no matter what. That's not under a lease. That's just for bingo. Beekeeping class anytime they want to. How do how do we know that now? How do we know that now? Because you've basically turned it over to the library. Who's going to who's going to schedule that room?

Um because right now it seems like the community club is trying to schedule that room with an open door for the library at any given time. Right now they just have to ask for a key. But I agree, they should have a key, but they also should still have to contact the community club and say, "We need to use this room at certain days." It should be scheduled. In other words, if somebody wants to just go in there and eat lunch, I don't think that's what it's for, right? Scheduled activities are definitely not what it's for, but it's again, it's a county owned property, so yeah, the schedule should be open just like the community building is. the schedule is okay.

You know, you you put it on the schedule, you pay your fees, you do whatever you're going to do, and any I mean, anybody can keep that schedule, but the lease idea is just for bingo. That's all we're talking about is let me bingo. Try one idea to make things easier. We don't have to do bingo. Okay. This has gotten way too complicated. Then you don't have I'm ready to give up on a bingo and the lease. Let us operate the way we've been doing in the past. and they get a key as long as they agree to schedule. That doesn't mean they just go in and use the facility. Absolutely. They should agree to a to the schedule, but you should not be so restrictive that they will never get to use it. And we haven't been.

I understand. I'm just saying in the future then um I mean I I know bingo is a very valuable um asset. It is to communities. We were we were wanting to use the money from the bingo to further our activities in in Antalya and now we're not going to be able to do that because it's gotten so comp complex. Yeah. Um but anyway, I mean so this is two months we've been here. If we have to modify it again, we have to come back. So we're looking at the end of the year to get anything done. So I'm ready to just stop the request for at least. We have a motion and a second on the floor. We're still in discussion.

Mr. Mr. Chairman, let me add one other thing. Um, and I don't want to over over complicate this, but community club actually would would have liked to have charged a rental fee for like $10 an hour or whatever that was for birthday parties or whatever. Um, Eric, correct me if I'm wrong. if if they don't have a lease on that facility, really that should be a donation instead of a they can't really they can't charge a fee on a building that they don't own or have a lease on. So, if they were going to continue that with this arrangement, they would have to do donations. Correct. Would that be the appropriate way to word that?

Yeah. or the county just provides the cleaning materials or or we we provide I'm I think you were using that money to buy plates and supplies and stuff for that room. You know, if we needed to supply that, then perhaps we we do a stock of stuff for them. I I just want to make sure I'm clear on the direction on the board wants on that to make sure we carry that out. So,

okay, that that seems complicated asking us having to ask for that kind of thing. I mean, we've we've already covered it. As long as as long as the library activities are scheduled the way they are now, and it's not a free-for-all open when anybody wants, our several thousand investment, I think, could stay there, protected the way it is now. But we could call the rental fee a donation. That'd be fine. We could ask for donations. We don't even have to have a specific cost.

I Eric, I think that would be more appropriate. Correct. Instead of them charging a quote fee on a facility, they don't have a lease on, they could ask for a donation to use a space as a cleaning fee or a a opening fee or or management fee or something for that facility. I I think that's better on our end, right? Yeah. And so we've got meaning from Lor's standpoint, it's going to be hard to account. I mean, does the money you all keep the money and it doesn't go through the county, right? Yes. Okay. It's a separate bank account. Yeah. So, we've got

I mean, if you're going to start renting it out for like that, then you get into public bid issues about you using it um basically in order to make money off of the county's property. And so, that gets that gets a little bit hairy from a legal standpoint. Whereas if it's a donation to your club, then that that eas. Yeah. And and if we have that understanding that the club's managing that side of the room, they're they're opening the door for the people to have a birthday party. I'm not saying clean up after them, but make sure the building's locked and secured and whatever after. I think for us, if that's where you're going to go, I think that's better on our end.

Yeah, we're good with that. I just I have a little bit of a worry that without a fee we're going to start scheduling lunch meetings in there. You know, people are going to want to sit there and eat lunch and that's Well, if it's a lunch meeting for people in Nana, who cares if they're ask for a donation, right? I mean, that's what it's for. The room is for the community of Nanahala. That's why I keep I just have a hard time saying this is a room for the community club. Like it should be for anyone in Nah Hill that needs to use the I used the wrong words when I said lunch meeting. I mean just a break room. That's what we're trying to avoid. Well, it's not a break room. Yeah, that should just be in your policy or just tell them no.

It's not it's not a break room. But if you need to use it for a meeting or you need to use it for a birthday party or anything else, by all means, give us a donation and we'll be happy to do it. Okay. All right. We went a couple different ways here. Mr. bring going back to your motion. Well, if we don't need a lease, then I mean, we're just going to I would like to withdraw my motion. For the record, Commissioner Breeden withdraws his motion. And uh so we're going to operate. Just one more thing. Commissioner Breeden, you have any taking further action? We're going to operate as usual.

I think I think we should operate as usual and the library should have access. They should have a key to access that when they use that for their programs for their schedule. For the programs that they have on the schedule. Yes. And that should be at any time that they need to use the room that it's not being used already. If it becomes an issue, just bring it back. We'll deal with it. All right. We're going to move on here. Thank you, M.

I don't I'm not I'm not done with that. I think I go back to the same thing. When this building was done, half of it was for the library, half of it was the community club. Um, and I hate to see this community lose the funds that they and and the entertainment that they could get by having bingo and any other fundraisers that they do. And I agree with the chairman. They should have a key to that building. They should be under with the scheduling and everything else, the monthly calendar. They should not come in there and try to bully their way in. If they need to use that room, then they should um clean up after themselves, put everything back in order. If it's a problem, then we'll address it. I like the clawback uh on this. So, at this time, I'll make a motion uh that we enter into a one-year contract with the Nanahala Community Club U with those stipulations.

I hear a motion by Commissioner Cheryl. Can you explain that little piece again about the key? Is is that Well, we need a second for this motion. Okay. Okay. Go ahead. But I'll second the motion for discussion. Okay. All right. Okay. Thank you. Go ahead, Mr. Where's Where does the key fit in here? Okay. Your motion. As it is right now, whenever the library needs to use that room, they have to call one of the community club members for them to come and unlock the door to access that. Right.

So, it's a Nanaha community building as a whole. half of it library, half of it the community club. However, if they use it for um exercise class or whatever, they shouldn't have to pick up the phone and call them and say, "Hey, I need a key to get in this room." Um that that's not um the way this should work. Um but it still shouldn't be a break room and make a mess in there and everything else. So that's my motion. And um it is for one year.

One year. Um and um so and so that reflects back on my question. If you do have a lease, then they can charge a fee because that's what we do at Cali School. So does does your motion include the the thought that this lease would include a fee structure for that $10 an hour or whatever? They were asked the last time to revisit this. They did. They cut the fee schedule in half.

Um I think they have came in here with with what they were asking. And I just know that bingo and stuff like that is uh very important um for a community for y'all to raise money and help u Thank you. beautify Nana Hala. And um so that's we have a motion and a second on the floor. Any more discussion? Yes, I must be a dullard. Tell me what's what was what is the motion again?

All right, we have a motion on the floor to enter into a one-year lease agreement with the Nana Community Club. Okay. So, to summarize kind of where I'm at on this, I like a group in Nana from Nana having ownership, driving by, making sure it's clean, the doors are shut, the lights are off. I don't really want the county to have to be responsible for that. I like that you guys keep it clean. But the clawbacks are just to make sure everybody in Nana Hala get to enjoy the building, including the library. And I just want to be friendly. All right. So, um, the clawbacks in this contract now, Mr. Attorney, can we

can we go over that? I mean, can we add a few right here? We can add whatever you want. I just feel like I feel like we need uh I think there's a 30-day rate to cancel. Yeah. Isn't that I think it's fair enough. Commissioner Sher, I think I can Well, I'll just say the only thing I would say is that, you know, with a year again, it's it's for the community. It shouldn't be for a club ever, just one club. Um, what I fear is is that it hasn't worked out this whole time. It's it's been back and forth the whole time. So, we we lock them into a lease. We have no control over that. They're they're going to do that. And and if we really did call back, it'd be one thing, but are we really going to do that? Number one,

if it doesn't work, I think it's a good faith shot. library. Can you support that if you have a key? As long as we're not wouldn't be considered part of the fee scheduling. No, you don't have any fees associated with your Only thing I'll say about the bingo, by the way, is if you were that serious about bingo, you would have had some information here tonight. So, if you if you were that serious about starting bingo over there and making it that big of a deal, you would have had that ready to go tonight. And we haven't seen any of that. You said you weren't even close. Which information? any information. We can't apply for a license until we have a lease. But you don't even know that this lease won't work. The per day lease. Well, how do how do we know that until we submit it with the license application?

Have you contacted anyone with the bingo? Contacted for what? It states very clearly. I've I've got the application. I can show you. It says you have to have a lease. And we visited that the last time that we were here, sir. I mean, it was it was placed on Mr. Ryden hours uh was going to do research on that if I remember correctly was on the commissioners. You put that in the commissioner's lab. And and we can do it per day. Correct. No, we don't know that. Well, this is what should have been done in the past 30 days quite honestly. And we can't do it for you. You have to do it. Sure. Well, that's why was my motion. So, we were going to do it. Go ahead.

All right. Let's move on here. We got a motion in a second on the floor. Any other discussion? No, I just hope you guys can just, you know, if if you put if somebody wants to have a business meeting over in that facility, then by all means, if it if it's open on the calendar, then uh but just don't go over there and start writing in stuff on the calendar so nobody can No, everybody has to get along. And I don't Barry, you're wrong when you said this hasn't worked. You know

the folks over here. Don't block them out cuz I'm looking at them. According to these folks over here, it hasn't worked. I' I received emails that it hasn't worked. But you know what? We're not going to debate it right now because we have a motion on the floor. So, we can just go ahead and vote for it. See what happens. We have a motion and a second on the floor. Any other discussion? Are you clear on the motion, Mr. She? No. Okay. Let me let me clear this. Let me let me just go ahead. You have you have the building in Nana Halo, half of its library, half of its community club. Got that? Okay. In order for them to be able to charge a fee and schedule a bingo and and whatever activities, they need a lease.

From this board. Got it. So, my motion is a one-year lease with clawbacks and um library has a key and library has a key and give us an update. Come in here in two months or 3 months or whatever. Tell us how it's going. But it's your community. Yeah, I understand. And it's that's wonderful. But you got to understand, I can't guarantee that nobody's going to complain to you folks again. All right? because I've gone to them and they've officially told me several times they're happy. Okay. Okay. Well, and and that's that's fine. But I think um but the key is the the key is the key.

Yes. Absolutely. But they still need to to u respect the scheduling of the calendar and everything else and not just open the door and go in there and have the And can we say as part of your motion which lease is it one of the three? that are It's a one-year lease, sir. But there's Which oneear lease? The one we submitted? I think it's the one I submitted. The meeting room lease. Okay. The one you went for the entire premises, including the library and the grounds and everything. Well, it wasn't meant for that. Well, I understand, but that's what it said. So, meeting room lease is the is the other one that I submitted. That one's fine. Yeah.

And that one is for the northern half of the structure located on the 1.36 acre tract at 36 White Oak Lane. Um, and I'm going to amend that to include uh shall provide the library key. And then I'm going to amend it to allow the charge for a fee except can't charge a fee to the library use. And that fee schedule again is what was that? $10 per hour only for the private events. Can we add obviously governmental functions which could include include school functions so it's not not a I like all that's a given. Yeah. You know what I mean?

Um all right. I'm ready to move this on down the road here. We have a motion by Commissioner Cheryl, second by Commissioner Young. Any other discussion with a key? We have a key clawbacks and a one-year contract or one-year lease agreement with the N Community Club. And the one-year lease is the one that council. All right. All in favor, please signify by raising your right arm, stating I for the record. I. Any oppose? Tammy, please let the record reflect four to one. Thank you. Thank you. All right, moving on. We went about three laps on that one. Item C, update on Burning Town, Iola Fire Department. Uh, Mr. Jimmy team.

Oh, back in May, I gave you all a update or a review, a summary of up until May. And this is a June. On uh June the 4th, Cap Captain Chad Hand with fire services, he conducted an inspection and his results were that burning town did not have host test records for the last 12 months. New members did not have background checks and training records and training records had not been updated for the last month. There were 19 members on the roster and 16 eligible firefighters. Uh then on July the 7th, uh Captain Chad Hand also done another inspection and the only thing that was found on that was that it had only 16 eligible firefighters. Then on August 1st, uh Commissioner John Cheryl, he was there. uh captains John or Chad Hand and Luke Leadford and firefighters uh Levi Leadford and Late Benedict and myself were there for this inspection and they could not produce the state the North Carolina State Fireman's Association roster. We did acquire one and uh there were eight members that they had on their department roster that was not on the state roster. And if you're not on the state roster, if you were to respond to a call, get hurt or whatever, you're not eligible for the state benefits, which is, you know, accidental uh death, uh dismemberment, and and uh there's some cancer policies on it. So they had eight members that were not eligible for that. And now then uh this month the

department does show 20 members with 36 hours of ch of training. So after this uh we had a a drill set up uh that uh we were going to do a scene setup which is just a basic firefight. You got to do that on every one of them. You got to set up the trucks uh and get water to the fire and also water to the trucks. So, it's just a basic thing. And we had a little drill set up planned for the aisle scoop and and I asked before that I asked the chief uh if he could handle answering calls without Kawi and he really didn't give me an answer. So we went ahead with started the fire scene setup and so this did not happen and the fire scene setup drill was was not able to be completed. So we didn't get to do the fire scene setup. So we really don't know what the members of the department can do. That's what that was going to be designed for.

Thank you, Mr. T. Mr. Cheryl. Um uh Timmy um can you explain to this board how many members it's on their roster is first responder EMT paramedic. So according to a chart on their wall, according to a chart on their wall, they have 11 engineers. They have uh medical, they have one, two, three, four, five. And one of those is in uh another district which is two districts away. and he can't respond through another district without red lights. Uh they have two for traffic control and there's no more 1403 firefighter one. So they have maybe nine firefighters that they have on this chart and they have they have 12 emergency vehicle drivers. How long have they been in probation? When did their probation period originally start?

July July of of 2024.

So, um 13 months. Contract says eight months. Um, while we were there for this inspection and this drill, just so happens they had a medical call and probably twothirds of the people left for that medical call. So, we waited and waited and waited. There was tempers flared and everything else out there. And um and we had just had a conversation that I don't think that you're legally eligible to go on a medical call unless you have the credentials to do so. We just had that conversation and twothirds of the people went and it said, "Well, what if we need traffic control? If you need traffic control, dispatch going to set off fires." Um, and I thought that night was an absolute perfect way of showing if Burning Town could um, handle their district. We never got there. Um, and [Music] there was it it was I thought for sure it was going to be a win one way or the other. either Burden Town was going to ace it, they can go out on their own, but we never got there. And um there was a lot of resistance for this drill. Um and when you have a scene set up like we're talking about, two engineers, only six people can go into this um and the fire chief cannot participate because he's a

commander in charge. So you got two trucks and four personnel. You got to drop a drop tank. You have to put water in that drop tank. That tanker goes back and fills up and brings back water. While that's going on, the other five or the other four is there with air packs on, turnout gear on um ready to enter that um that structure and get water to that scene. It didn't happen. Um so, um I have nothing other than all the inspections, what we have been told. Um, you know, there's a liability issue here for all the firefighters that are not. I had a I got a copy of the bylaws. Um, the bylaws states um that a in order to be a member of Burning Town Fire Department, you must uh attend four meetings. You have to have a background check uh and all this other stuff. And I asked for the minutes of those where these members were voted on. And I was told, "Oh, we do that out in the field and all this other stuff." I've never heard that before. Um, and so, um, I I can't say that they, um, are qualified to handle their district. Um, ma'am, you you stated, um, uh, the last time you spoke about, um, your insurance rates,

correct? Kowi's been covering your district for 13 months. They've covered every call. 190 calls. I don't think so. Have you got proof of that? Um, but anyways, so um your insurance rates? Have you ever had a burning fire destroy $300,000 worth of your own? That was Burning Town Fire Department that secured that as well as four others, the Franklin one and also the uh main one downtown. Am I I just want you to show me penny proof of it. That's all.

Go ahead, sir. I fought fire for 22 years. I know you did. I know exactly. But anyways, equipment that these men have to carry all the time. Um, so anyways, um, I have no proof, nothing whatsoever that they can handle their district. That's all I'm going to say. Ask Mr. Mr. Breeden.

What's your recommendation? Well, can I say something? Hold on a minute. The reason why the drill didn't happen is because we had a med call. That's why. Okay. Sorry, but providing care and saving lives is what

Listen here. We're having a meeting right here. Please, please be respectful of our time. This is a very emotional, very heated issue. And I understand and I want you guys to understand we appreciate your volunteerism and we know what you guys are doing. It's very heated. All right. It sucks for everybody. I'll be honest with you, and I shouldn't have to say that sitting right here in this seat, but please be respectful of this process. All right? Please respect the process. Carry on. Okay? Like I told you before, I've not put my opinion in on any of this, so you've asked me. Uh I think the fire protection in the burntown district without the response of another department is inadequate, which in my opinion put the residents of this district district in jeopardy. and that burning town Iola fire and rescue are unable to assume full duties. My assumptions is based on inspection results, CAD reports, fire reports from other departments for the past 13 months and a comment made by a member of Burntown Fire Department in a commissioner meeting reflecting that they would rely on mutual aid for manpower. That's my opinion.

Thank you, Mr. T. I wouldn't mind for Mr. can to address the board.

This is all fine and good. Vernon Town all the fire department has been training real hard. We've recruited real hard during the past two and a half months. That was a short time to do that. I did inform this board that we lost five members starting about March because of this whole situation. Uh during the time frame, we have added eight members. I just got that with the North Carolina Firefighters Association. I had to mail it to them because I couldn't get their website to work. So, they should have our members on there. We do have the background checks up to date. Four of these new members have worked real hard and achieved this 36 hours of training. Uh within that, I've got two others of those eight members that are within 10 hours. In this past week and past month, we've been in water supply training. So, we did the very thing that was talked about in this drill. The other thing we were deficit with was reports. The Nifer's reports, the national uh fire reports were not entered and submitted. Some of them were not entered. Those reports for the first quarter were updated within a month of me taking this over. Uh the reports for the second quarter were updated, checked and submitted by the first week in July. So those are taken care of. We do the reports on Thursday night. There's not any incomplete reports on the computer system. Our county inspection was completed. Chad Han went over things August 1st. We moved that inspection ahead a week early at the request of Mr. John Cheryl because he wanted to be there. We were in the midst of a water supply course

where we could do exactly what he indicated in this drill. Uh so if when we complete that those other two members are going to have their 36 hours and water supply will not be that big a problem. We don't have hydrates in Burning Town. We don't have a filling station in Burning Town. We supply our water with surface water from uh streams, uh water points and those type things. Now, let's talk about this little inspection exercise that we failed so miserably. Our inspection was moved ahead a week early and we had everything that was requested. We checked training records. These training records included online training. It included in-house training. It included Southwestern Community College training. So, anything that we couldn't show Mr. Han, I showed him the certificates that were in the personnel files. I showed him the background checks we had done for those new members. And so, anything that we had a deficit in was discussed that night. The tone of this meeting, it was moved up a week. When it started, I would say it was very confrontational. Mr. Cheryl came in and one of the first things he did was said, "The jails are just full of people who falsify training records."

Now, I took that personally. I've got that recorded, folks. That's good. But I'm glad you do cuz you did say that. No, I said I'm not blaming any of you for anything. But you said the jails were fully of people that falsified these records. There are lots of I took that personally the way it was said. Okay.

That continued to make the members who had been called in for an extra meeting that night. We had met on Thursday night and trained hard till after 10:00. They came in again at my request with one day's notice for this. no mention of doing any exercise or whatever that Mr. Team stated. Uh he told him that he want to know how many of our folks had CDLs. Well, I have a class A license in my pocket if you must see it. But that is not required to drive a fire apparatus. If you look it up, it's required that you have EVD. It's listed on our board and we're scheduling EVD for this fall like we've always done to train our new people to be able to operate and drive the engines. Uh the water supply class, the new members are being trained to operate these engines to get water from them to do those things that we need to do. So they're learning, they're going to be uh training with EVD, uh emergency vehicle drivers, the name of the class taught by Southwestern and whatever. He also started going down the list of I don't know how many have a a class uh a commercial driver's license. I want to know this a whole lot of things. So the whole tone of what was going on was set very negatively. So it's important that you understand that. Then all of a sudden out of the blue with no warning I was told we were going to have a drill. We're going to have a drill tonight. And what you're going to do is basically do the OSFM test and you can't be involved and I'm going to pick the people off your board. Every fire department that's ever done a classification drill for the office of state fire marshall has practiced water halls. Warren you were fire chief down here. We practiced water halls for water supply. We practiced the setup. We practiced the drop tank. We put people

in places where they had the skills and the expertise to do that. I was removed from that. Yeah, he's going to be command. So, he's not going to go in. I'm not planning on going in anyway. I am planning on being in command. So, this call drill started without me getting a chance to know what was happening to let our mutual aid companies know that we were going to have two pieces of apparatus tied up. The water dumped off one of them. Significant amounts of our personnel had showed up, occupied. I knew nothing about this. that endangered my community. And that's what we're there for is for our community. We serve to save. That's our motto at Burning Town. We serve to save. Now, these folks have worked real hard and I'm real disappointed that this would be pulled out of the woodwork at the very last minute after we had worked so hard to get training hours, recruit members, get these things turned in. Uh, I don't know how many of the other departments in this county would pass a surprise inspection if you went out tonight, sounded their tones, didn't let them get set up to do that. I, as chief, was prohibited from participating in that. So, the reason I was not there, I and a couple of our new members that weren't participating went on up to the school, got witnesses. I was there. I was at the school. Uh like I say, all P all departments would practice that. They'd assign members duties. They'd practice those duties till they got good at. And our last state exam, we were rated a four. Our records, our input, the drill we did, we got a four ratings hanging on the wall. Our fire marshals selected the participants. Six. Six is not hardly enough to run that drill.

Got to pull a drop tank, put a drop cloth down, put the drop tank on it, dump the water in that, hook the suction up on a hose, pull the lines that are going to be going in. Uh you got to have your pump operator doing that. You got one individual probably going in truck to get water because you've got four on the lines. You've got a attack line and a safety line going in. You never go to a fire with an engine and two people and they put on a backpack and their gear and go in and attack that fire without having a backup or a RIT crew or a safety crew. You do not do that. That is a sin. That's going to get people killed. You understand that? That gets people killed. I've heard you say that two or three times. Highlands put three people in a truck, one of them got water, the other two packed up and they went in and started fighting fire. numerous numerous

I've heard you say that several times. Absolutely. And it's my responsibility and it is my district to be sure that when we get called to a fire to handle that fire at whatever cost.

On the 4th of July this year, we had an alarm went off at Iowa school on that same location. We're going to set it at total response. We had two of Burning Town's apparatus there, three of Cowi's apparatus there. We had at least 20 members in the yard of that school to actually work and do that. Burning Town and Kelly were working together on that. Uh if it had been smoke showing and actually we would had Franklin on the way, mutual aid would be imperative if you had a fire of that size and that magnitude. If you've ever been on one, you know what it's like. Uh we had everybody in the county when Franklin Ford out here burned a few years ago. We have to work together as a team. This created significant danger in my district and these folks are volunteers and it created significant danger to them and the community. Number one, we had a heat advisory on July 4th. Remember how hot it was? Well, at the time this was called, it was 80° Fahrenheit still and 75% relative humidity. If you've ever worn that gear and pulled one of these things, that is a miserable weighted to do. That gear is heavy and hard to handle. The commitment of two primary apparatus and personnel would have lessened our ability to responded. We really had something. And during that drill, before it was completed, we did have a medical call. And I know people get emotional about that. Uh it didn't turn out to be a wreck with many injuries or whatever, but we could have been in a situation and we had had our people and our equipment tied up and that would have

been just a disaster for the county. A study this county conducted in 2017 by Mon County indicated that a minimally staff professional fire department for the whole county would cost an additional $8,325,000. That's in 2017. Inflate that today and see what if you want what these volunteers are giving you. what these volunteers are giving to their community that would supply a minimum of about eight members to a structure fire. Eight members going to have a tough time controlling a structure fire. You really need about 12 plus to do that. Realistically, for that response, you'd need 12 people. We are highly dependent on our volunteers in this county. They must be treated with support and respect they deserve. That's all I've got to comment to you. I think you all need to look at what we've done and the efforts we've made to protect our community.

Okay, let me Listen, I realize that this is a super emotional situation right now. I look at this as more of a safety issue. Number one, if lives are on the line, can they be saved? I'm not hearing that point coming up at all. during this whole time. I get what everyone is talking about. I'm I'm listening to everything that's been happening with all these meetings. But to me, the number one issue has got to be at hand. If lives are on the line, can they be saved? Mr. Team, I got a question. I have a question to ask you, please, sir. Coming up. [Music] Is this department meeting the necessary requirements today to be able to function solo like they should be?

So they have 20 members right now and that's what they were behind on since December. They have they've between the 1 of July and the 1st of August they met uh they got over the got the minimum amount of people there. They got to 20. They was to 16. Sorry, I'm a little nervous. They were at 16 pretty much from December on up till uh August or June July. In July to August, they gained at least four more members and they have 20 right now that is certified or has the has the time. We have 30 members. Three are juniors. Four don't have the 36 hours yet. They're new. the remainder at this point in time do.

So this is where this mess this is where this messes it up for the board right now. I asked a question. You guys gave me two different numbers. If none of us are firemen up here, how are we supposed to make a decision based on two different numbers this way?

Here's I mean are you understanding what I'm saying at that point? These are the numbers for the yearly report. There is one missing on that. I think I've got another sheet here somewhere. Josh still there.

One missing from the bottom of that page is paid won't hold them all. Ryan Zimmerman, our assistant chief has more than that number of hours. This is page two. report in the frame. There are three juniors on that. Some of the juniors have the training hours, but they're not 18 years old. would you

one young lady Kayla Smith became 18 August 7th so that added one more to that so are you saying that you guys have 32 eligible we have 30 members three are junior so they're not eligible as firefighters you have to be 18 so of this 32 how many are eligible to meet the requirements two that need to be marked off who have left earlier but they show up because they have training hours on there. So, what's the total? How many are eligible? Right now, 30 on there, three are juniors, so they're not eligible.

So, that makes 27 that are eligible. Four of those don't have the 36 hours yet, but they're working on. So, are you saying there's 23 that are eligible? So, who are the two that's on here that left? So, 24 at the bottom of the thing has left. Yeah. Josh Bllandon. Josh Blandon who is at West M is their paid person is no longer there. All right. So you're telling me that you have 24 eligible? Yes. Your report shown 20. Yes. That's what Chad got on the last inspection was 20.

Can and Can and Can and Can and Can and Can and Can and Can and Can and Can and Can I ask a question and I'm don't want to be disrespectful at all. I'm really looking for an answer. Um cuz I I'm not a fireman, but to me it's not even about the membership. Obviously, you have to have a minimum number, but can you explain how give me a little bit more depth on what this um the the the drill was on August 1st and how if you can't if you couldn't complete the drill, how do you complete it? you know, because you know, I think you're just getting called out, right? So, and again, I'm not trying to be disrespectful. I just don't understand if you can't do the drill without notice, how do you do it in real life without notice?

The people who would be responding are going to fall into their normal niche. The two people who were selected to be my engineers are the farthest. In fact, they're actually outside the five mile district. The chances of them day or night getting to the station and driving those particular trucks to the scene are probably less than 5%. We have certain people that are truck drivers. As commander, if you drove a truck to the scene and you did not have the experience Warren had, I would pull you from the truck. I would put the warrant on operating that truck as a commander because I know what his talents are and I would put you in either a support role or in an entry role if you were one of my people who was trained. That's how we would do it. That's how we would have done it had the alarm been an actual fire.

Did that answer your question? Sure. Absolutely. And before we continue, I do want to acknowledge all of the volunteers in this room. Please understand, I have the utmost respect for what y'all do. The reason why I'm a chaplain for first responders in this county is because I believe wholeheartedly in what you all do. So, please don't take anything that's being said here tonight as a disrespect to any of you because not everybody can do your job. I've been out on these scenes with some of you. Not everyone can do your job. So, please understand my heart. Even though we're going through this, you know, as we're going through it, it is not there's no disrespect intended to any of you whatsoever. I have the utmost respect for you.

Can I elaborate a little bit more to follow up on your question? If we arrived on the scene and I had two truck drivers pulled in with trucks, as people were coming in, I would assign them task and we'd get things done. Hopefully, we'd have more than six total people. I would be real reticent if I sent my tanker operator in a place where we're going to have to set up a draft site and whatever out to get water by himself in the truck. I mean, that's going to take a long time because he's going to have to pull the hoses and he's going to have to put the draft site up and he's going to have to get everything lined up. So, as more people came in, I would put them into the slots that they fit and I knew they had training. I've got some new people. I've got some people that are very experienced that have come to us from from other areas where they have been firefighters. And so, we have new people that are coming on board. They don't have our 36 hours yet, but they bring a lot of expertise

to this department. and uh the recruiting we've done and whatever has gotten some individuals I think are going to be a real asset to the community if we continue to be an asset to the community. Thank you. Jimmy, would you explain what that scene set up is by the state of North Carolina, how many members and exactly what the d what the process is

on a fire scene set up. They do some kind of a formula by number of calls that you've had and get the amount of people, but it cannot go over six. So, six is all that you can use on a fire scene set up. That counts the two drivers of the trucks. Uh, and that counts four for other firemen. The chief would be the seventh, but he doesn't count in this. And so, six is the maximum amount that you can use on a fire scene set up. Not a drill, but a fire scene seven. Uh I had one department the other day that done it with uh junior firemen and they've done it in four and a half minutes. Uh junior firemen did. So it's not it's just a basic uh show of that you can operate your truck and transfer from using the tank on the truck to a drop tank. getting the water out of the drop tank, transferring back without losing a prime and showing that you can shuttle water and dump water into your drop tanks. That's basically what a fire said.

Okay, so let me go back to uh to August 1st. There are whether it's changed now or not and I don't know how many members that are on this don't have turnout gear. Um that was a discussion out there while we were waiting on the first responders to come back. But I also have to I have to know according to your bylaws 104 new members shall be subjected to two different probationary periods. First is a 90-day period where the member cannot drive or operate any fire department apparatus or vote on any fire department business. The second is a standard fire department one-year probation. Probationary members are expected to attend all regular meetings. If a probationary member misses more than three meetings, the 90-day probationary period shall start over. Um, so what what is included in this probation? Well, I mean, what why are you on probation? If you put a new member on the department, they cannot, according to what I read in your bylaws, they can't participate in anything. They can look around and they can see and and they might be able to drag a hose, but what I've read in your bylaws, they can't even turn out in turnout gear. I I mean, this is in your bylaws. This is not me. Um, so you've got all these new members that are on probation that can't participate.

We're training those members and they take the training that they need to get to 36 hours. They're learning about that. We suspended those bylaws 10 weeks ago when I took office because of the fact that we were under and we had to have these new members started doing that. So, we took a vote as a department and we suspended those areas of the bylaws, which is a regular legal thing to do because we were in need of people who could participate and could learn and could do these things. We did get everybody suited up in gear. We're still short of two helmets, one helmet.

They've all been given all got them. So, we've got them all taken care of. Everybody's got gear. Kenneth, are you still on probation today? Am I still on probation? Department. I'm sorry. You're the chief.

I assume so. We had everything completed to come off of probation the end of December. Letter was written by our then chief addressed to Mr. Teams. I don't know whether he ever got it or not. And then we had what was called a missed call on January 2nd, I believe he said. So we remained on probation even though we had everything completed before the end of that 8th month. So the clock starts over. I think Mr. Dufal said that at the other did the clock start over or did it what happened with all that? I don't know. I was not chief at that time. I don't know how it was communicated. So if it started in January, we're still within that 8th month time period to August 1st, but I guess we remained on probation. We had a call recently that was a code stroke, a medical call, and we responded to that call. Kawi was not at that call and I was told later, oh, they didn't get the page. They weren't paged. That was our problem that we tried to explain to you before when we had a no response. Nobody got that call on our department. That's why we had a no response. Is that the same? Are we going to compare apples to apples or we're comparing apples to oranges? That was that was not their fault. If they didn't get the page if it was not paged, that's a problem somewhere else. That's a problem with dispatch. That's a problem with our communication system. I'm just being blunt with you. That's a communications problem. It seems that a lot of the county's problems are communications problems. But we did not get that call. So, nobody got it. So, nobody knew to respond. And we had been to that location several times. It's a

COPD patient. I live right across the mountain from them on the other side of Sier. And I've been down there numerous times when she's had difficulty breathing. But I didn't get to call. Nothing came through on our paging system. Didn't hear it on the phone. Never saw it on the phone. Are we comparing apples to apples or we deciding, well, it's okay. They just missed a call. Well, it's not okay. Burning town missed a call. Why did you guys not get the call? Is this a technology thing?

Technology. It didn't come through. Whether it didn't open up the pager for numbers, other departments are having trouble with the same thing. You can't in burning town if you've been on a med unit or something and you get certain places you can't talk to dispatch on Viper. You may or may not have a signal and I may move over here and have a great signal or I may not get anything in that vicinity. Is that is there nothing today that can cover that?

We've been relying on our personal cell phones. Uh we've got e dispatch and we pay for active 911 in addition. So we've got two emergency services today like with the technology that's out there today. Do we not have anything that can cover burning town to where there's no missed calls?

The there's actually a temporary tower that's been set up to see if if we can get underneath and hit some of the lower areas that's working off the school there. Part of the issues that that tend to be with your Viper system there's two different systems. There's a paging system which is UHF system. The Viper system is 800 MHz that you don't page off the Viper system. Uh the paging system we use is back from the 70s because people carry a an analog pager to get a voice and a message and that's the only way to get that. You can't do that off a digital device. Um, part of the problems have been the ones that we have recognized as interference on those frequencies because now your frequencies that used to be point it was 453.350 now FCC splits those into quarters. So you have 45350. So occasionally you will have interference on some of those. The way to get rid of that is what we're trying at the school there because you're taking half of that path out. You're now what happens is that that signal for the paging tone goes from downtown over the air to a tower. Then it gets kicked back out to that pager. So there's two different paths. That that test that's being run down there is a fiber connection to the school. So you're only having one path that goes through the air to see if that makes up any difference on the um on the paging that there are multiple ways the there are multiple ways that that message goes out. You you have the paging system which which is a UHF system which they carry the pagers. Um the Viper radio will catch the page. You can actually set those up. They won't make a tone but they'll open and they'll start talking. You also the e dispatches and the um active 911 that he's talking

about. Mon County pays for the e dispatches. That's a voice and text system that goes over the cell phone that automatically goes out whenever that message goes in. Um so that you'll either get a text and or a voice message. So that's that's a recognized backup for the paging system that the state of North Carolina recognizes as a backup system. But for this particular call, everything failed. No one. There was no way to get this page. There was no way. It was 2 o'clock in the morning.

2:00 in the morning, most people are asleep. You know, even if a phone went off, if it was on charger or turned down because you get all these bogus calls, but we have lots of places in Burnham, we don't have sales service.

I I can't speak to a specific call. I I can't I can't tell you that one. Did it go? Did it not go? Where did it go? And And he's correct. I I will admit digital frequencies, you you can move a foot and you may if you don't have it there, you may able to move a foot and you may able to pick that up. Um digital is different from analog. Digital digital is either on or off. There is no in between. That's why it's clear. analog is on, partially on, kind of on, maybe on, and you get scratchy in between, which is the difference in the two technologies that you use with those.

So, percentage-wise, how many members did you have on the department when that when you missed that call? 25. We had probably 243 24 percentages. What are the chances of nobody receiving that call? Honestly, I would have to say slim. Exactly. Somebody got that page.

But all of our folks are not first responders. And you pointed this out. The first responders are the ones that have the first responder tones in them. And there's not that many of them. A lot of them are just firefighters and have fire tones in their pages. Some of us have both if we do both. So at that time we had seven or eight. And if it didn't as long as it didn't kick it open, nobody got it. It didn't kick it open for Kowi the other day. Nobody got it. I go right back. Well, you said you did away with the bylaw. Never mind.

Is that Mr. team is if we're talking apples to apples, is that what happened with Kawi as well? Just missed a call. Uh that call dispatch failed Paige on that call.

Did dispatch fail to page burning down on that call? No, they got So that call you're talking about Cali would have been the second department page to that call. Is that is that what you're talking about? It was in Cali. It was in Burn. Well, it was July 30 31st right there about inspection time. They didn't page us. They actually called me and said, "Are we supposed to ride on that?" I said, I don't know why inspection you maybe maybe we're cleared up from running those because it was the end of the month and we didn't go ahead and run.

Can anybody tell me when the last time the county had a coverage survey done that shows burning town or any of these other communities have a issue? When you say coverage, you mean radio coverage or other?

Yes. It would have been 2003, 2012, 2013. that was the basis for upgrading to the Viper system because at the time I wasn't here during that time period but that survey was done to look at the radio system to see what changes need to be made and then the decision was made county invested several million dollars into that radio system after that to to try and meet those needs since then. No, there there has not been one done specifically since then that shows that coverage.

Let let me just share one thing. I had the opportunity to visit with Mr. Macascal and the fire department down there, a couple more other people. And um when I left there, just out of curiosity, I wanted to see what the area looked like uh what what your fire department was responsible for. And be honest, when I got through that, uh, I wasn't sure that any fire department could respond to fires in that area. Uh, it it's just not bringing your trucks and things up there like that. And I express that concern to you and I still feel the same way. Um the the Burning Town Fire Department, uh all the fire department, you really have a complex fire district. I don't I don't know how you I don't know how you do it. And cuz in my car, I had to rely on people uh to find out how to get back out of there. And uh and just so happened that two people on a a motor scooter led me back out of there. And so if you have new people or areas that uh that are new to that area, I don't know how you respond to fire department fires anyway or emergencies because of that. And I appreciate you and your colleagues uh being with me that day and sharing some information too. I had to go down the day before because I wasn't in town the next day. But I commend you and your department for being able to respond to that. I don't know how you do it because of the uh the phone. I can't show you my flip phones because uh that's what I've got. But but it's hard to make a contact where I was

trying to get back out of there. But um I sympathize with you trying to respond to those fires or medical things of the area that I went to and good luck just um and please when you talked about um changing your bylaws tell me if this one here um um back It's saying that all your new members [Music] members are required to have 36 hours of training each year to maintain membership. New members are exempt to this until they have been a member for a full year. Does that still apply? We operated under rules many I've been doing this for 44 years. So I have a little bit of experience with this. Used to be when you joined a fire department you got a year to get your 36 hours in. And that's the way these were done. Which version which last edition do you have of our Bible?

This one I think is 2020. 942020. Yep. 9420. And which article are you reading? Uh it is uh 106 they have we generally give that year for them to get their 36 hours when they join where they can be on the roster and full members and off of probation and the whole thing. We, like I say, we suspended those about 10 weeks ago, 11 weeks ago.

Don't you think that um men and women out here to protect your community should be the high highest trained individuals to uh fight fire and and everything else instead of just saying, "Okay, we've got 36 hours and and that's it." Um, if you look at that list, you'll see that within the past year, I've got a lot of people that are 200 hours of training. Yeah, I understand. And they are highly trained, but that was

and yes, I do think they need to be well trained. And I want the new members coming on to be well trained. And I want to be able to put those new members in a situation where they'll succeed. My department members will tell you that I my lecture is I want all my guys to come home safely. This is a dangerous occupation. A lot of firefighters every year lose their lives. Whether it's wildland firefighting, whether it's structural firefighting, whether it's building collapse or anything else. It's a dangerous occupation. And I want them to be as well trained and to know about building construction and what may fail if they have to go into a structure, what to look for, what to listen for, what to uh anticipate because of the way that building was. Uh we have a pre-plan on Cowi School as to what we'll do. Have you all toured Cowi School? Do you know that whole attic is wide open? fire will run from one end of that building to the other end of that building in a in a heartbeat. It is a dangerous job. And yes, I want them all to receive all the training they can get because I want them to go home at night. And you can ask any one of these guys been around for more than four weeks and I say that often. [Music] My goal is all my people go home safely. My goal is we will risk a little to save a lot. If it's, you know, a kid, all of us take risk, but I'm not going to risk a whole lot to save essentially nothing when it's not savable. That's a surround it and drown it operation.

Get back to the to the business end of this thing, Kenneth. In the past five years, we've had how many chiefs?

I guess I'm about number four or five when Michael retired through one, two, three between and me. So, it would be five. I think that's some of the root cause here. How do we stabilize without You've been here 44 years. you you and I have had this conversation and you know what needs to happen and you know the orders and procedures that need to be in place. If you didn't step back in right here, this ship would have sunk in my opinion months ago. How do we prevent this from happening from now on? You know, I mean, you're not going to been here 44 years. I mean, there there has to be something.

We're going to have a eb and flow of leadership in any volunteer organization. And that's I worked in my professional career with volunteers and they they come and go. In fact, you worked with some of our volunteers as a as a youth when you were involved. We have people come and go. Different ones get involved and lead. It's a matter of leadership. And some of these folks that we're training now that are younger are going to have to step up. That's true. or you're going to have to look at this study and say we're going to have a countywide fire department and we're going this route and we're going to have to suck up and the countyy's going to taxpayers going to have to come up with 14 or 15 or 16 million. Our volunteers are saving a whole lot of money, but it's a leadership thing and I think some of the things that need to be done is there needs to be something that you as a group can do to incentivize being a volunteer. We give a lot of time. You know, I got people given 200 hours for training in the past year. What incentives do they have? We've got to do some things to support them and and uphold them. And when when there is a problem with communications or when there is a problem with equipment that we need and modernize, we're going to have to say, well, we need this and we need this cause. And it's not just my department. It's Nana Hala. They're a long way away. If they need mutual aid, it's going to be a bomb. They're going to be dependent on what? Andrews. We depending on maybe some from Bryson City, some from West Mon, some from Franklin when they can get there. It's going to be a while if you drive one of those trucks across the mountain.

But this group can do something to incentivize young people training, make it a [Music] make it a star in their hat, something they can be proud of and whatever. All right, I'm ready to move on here. Anybody got any action? Let let me just say that because on that question when I looked at this agenda uh I just looked for an update and thank you for providing that tonight. I'm not prepared to vote good, bad or ugly. I I just wanted to listen to the update and uh I thank you for giving us that.

All right, moving on. keep working hard and and thank you to the volunteers. Commissioner Anto is right. He made a very good statement and uh please don't think any of this is an attack on on you guys. So, and girls, thank you. All right, moving on. Um, is there any action? I asked for action. I heard no response. He was just Oh, I didn't know you were asking for action. I I made two calls for action, Commissioner Shur. Oh. I'm fixing to move on. Here we go.

No, I I mean um I make a motion at this time that um we suspend the contract for Burntown Iowa Fire Department. We have a motion on the floor by Commissioner Sher. Is that a merger or is that going to look like? Motion is to suspend the contract. Um, considering the discussion. Second. Second by Commissioner Antoine. Thank you, sir. I think that's a good question for for legal, Mr. Breeden. Does this look like a merger? What What we suspend the contract, what happens? Where do we go from there?

Well, right now we have a a motion to suspend the contract. If that happens, then you'd have to immediately make provisions for fire and rescue. Um, in that in the burning town, you you would have to enter into a contract with another department, but that would have to happen now.

Honestly, that needs to happen almost instantaneously. um you you don't want those people to be without protection. You you would have some mutual aid agreements that the coverage would still be there, but to really have the coverage that the Department of Insurance wants to ensure, particularly for the public to understand that somebody's going to be there for them, then I would I would highly recommend if you terminate a contract to immediately contract with another department. and we've had on the table for months uh another department um willing to take this uh district over. It's always been stated that the volunteers that uh Vernon Town Hall the fire department um members are certainly um eligible to stay at their department. um leadership's going to change. Koway Fire Department is the first rolled out on um any of these calls for the last year. Um they've ran 190 some calls um with no compensation. Um so Kawi over the last year are the providers of fire service to Burning Town residents. So um and they have they brought in a budget and the paperwork for us to look at if this this happened. And um and so it's not only my concern for the citizens, the taxpayers, and the residents of

Burning Town. It's also the men and women that are put out here in the field every single day expected to do something they can't do or they haven't had the proper training to do it. I understand they're in the motion of getting trained. Those are things that you do when you have adequate numbers of trained individuals to handle this. And there are some folks on that department that is very qualified. There's just not enough. And um and my fear is we're going to get somebody hurt or killed by asking them to do something that they're um um that they're not I hate to say it but trained or qualified to provide to the citizens of Burning Town and the taxpayers. I mean, we've heard it from the inspections team, personal information that in his humbled opinion, it's not there. So, I think this board is legally obligated to protect the property owners in Burntown community. That's all I got to say.

Yes. Y'all ask us, can we provide the care for our community? Please address the mic. Mr. Z,

we get asked, can y'all cover y'all's community? Has anybody brought up? Have we had an adequate number of people on a call? Cuz that's on record. Who shows up? Who checked on scene? Who checked in route? Have we had the adequate number? I'm not ready to give it up. Give the department up. Give the community up. I mean, I'm gonna stay either way because I've put a lot of time in it. Mr. Cheryl, I'm sorry I get aggravated with you. That day, 12hour work day. My kids wanted me home. They called me. Hey, like we said, there was no, "Hey, we're having this tonight." I told them, "I'm coming home. We'll play outside for the remainder of the lot. That's my biggest thing. My family. My family's first.

Let me tell you, but I took assistant chief role and that plays a big role in my life, too. I've got to find a way to my family life, assistant chief life, and fire life. It's three different lives. And my kids have lost a lot of time with me. I've missed football practices. I've missed baseball practice, baseball games.

Do you want to know how important trying to save this department was for me? I had a grandbaby born wee hours of the morning and I was supposed to been there Friday morning. We were going to do this on Thursday because that was July 31st, August 1st. It's over. Let's look at it. your department and your community was that important for me to miss being there for my grandchild. So, I understand the sacrifices that people give, right?

But you know what? I showed up there for y'all. And I wanted y'all to prove to me that y'all were ready. I showed up. I mean, I was there. I pulled in cuz I remember you asking, "Who's that?" Oh, yeah. Somebody told you. Yes. So, I was a little aggravated because they called me. I was like, "Are you kidding me?" But the biggest thing to my point is, y'all ask if we can cover it. Can we show up to these calls?

Has anybody asked, "Have we had the adequate number of people on the calls with Kawi? Have we had the number?" That's the only thing I'm asking because I haven't really I'm hard but real education part of it I'm more hands-on but standing here these past couple there's nobody asked has Vernon town had the adequate number of people on a call. Let me ask you

I just think that's something we need to look at because if we do then that could help prove a point to some people. Maybe they can. and they've got the number of people. If we don't, well, they don't they can't get adequate number of people with help coming. Mr. Zimmerman, let me ask you the history of your membership at Burning Town Iowa Fire Department. How long have you been back at Burning Town Fire Department? This last time? This last time? Yeah. When did you rejoin the fire department? Year and a half ago. Year and a half ago. And you came back as assistant chief? I came back as a firefighter.

Okay. So the question is, how long were you gone before when you resigned from the fire department? 6 months. Six months. And so how many times have you actually been a member and left Verntown Fire Department? One time. One time. Yes, sir. So you left and then you were gone for six months. You rejoined. You when I started at age 18. Mhm.

Kenneth Castle was the my chief. I started I went up in the ranks. I got to safety officer lieutenant. I had family stuff. I said, "Look, I got to take a leave absence." Now, whether that leave absence got filed, that was up to the chief and assistant chief. I'm not throwing nobody under the bus. But I came back. I stayed four, five, 6 years and I left, but I came back. Did you?

Because Let me let me redirect here. I feel like we're focusing on on one employees experience here. I want to focus more on the department, but Mr. Zimmerman, does anybody have any more questions for him? Thank you for your time. I want to give these two commissioners an opportunity to speak. That's just all I wanted to bring. Thank you. No, thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Bri and Commissioner Antoine.

Um, you know, it's a it's been mentioned, you know, it's kind of emotional and I mean, it's a tough decision, you know. Um, it's been about a year of probation. you know, we've been through all that. Um, I mean, it does look like you guys are making some strides trying to do the right thing. Um, obviously, and regardless of how the vote goes, um, you know, people can be uh they'd be eligible obviously to serve on on either department. I would like to see I mean, I I think we talked about that before. where I think it would have been a lot lot nicer and cleaner and um kind of would have saved some of this if we had done some type of merger if it was going to be inevitable anyway, which is what some of your board members were talking about at that time. Um I don't know if we can get there now. I think that was one of the things we asked was for your board and their board to get together and try to make things right and work things out and figure it out, but um unfortunately it doesn't seem like we got there. So, we're in this situation now and I don't know what the right answer is.

If that holds any weight, that's my community as well. If it holds any weight, I I was a member there. I'm probably the oldest member in here. I joined when I was eight over 40 years ago. U I'd be willing to to come back to save it. That's my community. That's all I've ever known burn that holds any weight. I'll I'll show up this Thursday.

Sheriff, I did want to ask you I did want to ask you what your thoughts were on that because I mean it does hold a lot of weight there. You know, I think a merger probably would have been a better answer than to have to be in a situation where the question now is whether or not to terminate the contract, you know, and I'm I'm sorry, but this is complicated, man. It's I don't have just a straight answer right now. This is super complicated. I mean, I've asked a couple of questions and I've got several different answers and none of them were answering really the question that I was asking. So, it's really difficult for us to sit up here and make a decision based on what we've been presented here. And you know, I'm saying this for the public that's watching as well. We're being asked to make a decision without being given the right information. It's super difficult. I'm looking at your faces and I can see the passion there and I understand. Trust me, I get it. If something happens in your community, you guys are calling us. We're coming to do a debrief for you guys cuz y'all mean just as much to us. And at the same time, I got to be super concerned for the community to make sure that this is a safe situation for the community. Not just an emotional thing, but it's a safe situation for the community. All right,

buddy. I guess man, I mean, the facts are the facts. I mean, that's Well,

so I'll give my two cents and I feel like it's hard because you take emotions out of this, you play the business card. it. I hate to say the time's up. The time's somewhat up. Time to make the decision. And it's not like we're asking or suggesting that you guys go home. You're fired. It's almost the opposite. In my the way I see this is the motion is to adopt a new charter. I burn town still needs to be served by community members of Burning Town. you would have a board that's kind of overseeing a budget that has a wonderful track record that I feel like your board doesn't have a great track record right now. And that's just a fact. That's an opinion. The past four or five years, we've had a disaster with chiefs. And I feel like something bad happens. We've been talking about this for a year. We've been talking about it for a year and a half. Been on probation. We've had Cowi covering all the calls. And then all of a sudden, time's up and we want more time. And I feel like that's what I'm being asked right now is to provide more time. And all of a sudden the time has to clock runs out eventually. And I'm looking at a proven department that's running a budget, running a track record. And then we've got another one over here. We've been trying to get up. And Ken, you've put in a dang lot a lot of work in this thing, man. I'll have to tell you. I mean, you deserve a pat on the back. And it's hard because I respect that. And the last thing I want to do is pull the rug out from under you. But if I had to go with my gut right now, it would be to, you know, follow a new charter. I'll just be honest with you. But it's dang hard, you know, and and that's just laying all my cards on the table and and uh you know, I hope none of you guys take it personal, but that's just that's the way I feel about it. That's where I'm at. I I just wish in in the in the situation that we could bring in uh not tonight

but Kawi Fire Department their input in on this because they become a player here uh and and I want to know if they want to be a player. Mr. Shields, I think it's important to take in mind that Gowi's been trying to sit down at the table with Burning Town for months. Mr. McCascal, has that meeting ever happened? That meeting's never happened, but I've been trying to sit down and at the table with them for months. I mean, you guys are two miles apart times and nobody ever I mean, don't you think that's part of the problem right here? Kawi's covering your calls in your district and we have boards haven't even sat down at the same table. I think fundamentally that's part of the problem.

They actually did. One night, our chairman and chief and maybe vice chairman of the board went to Burning Town, met with them, discussed some stuff and never heard anything back. I I don't want this to get ugly. These guys, we need people on that side of the river. If we take this over, that's a long ways for us to go. It's not. We're not booting them out. There just has to be a process change for us to make it work. And I'll point out, we did not request them to cover all our calls. We requested that we get the calls through good communications. And that's what maintained us after the first of the year on probation is shall we covering our costs. We had it done in December. We had five more qualified people on. So we would have been in the 20s, the low 20s with people, but we had people after the first of the year and that probation being continued and whatever that just finally the yay got going and they left.

Okay. Volunteers, you're passionate about your community. If this contract got terminated tonight, Kawi took it over, would you stay on for your community? me would depend on the chief and the leadership. That's that's pretty good of you guys. That's honestly takes a lot of pressure off us. I will not be there.

I personally don't think it's fair because the you were met. We they met the goal. They come on August the 4th and change what they want some more things set done. So how can you change something in the middle when one when some of the goals were met then they come on the next day? Oh, I want this, this, and this. It had nothing to do with the previous stuff. With all due respect, I mean, we're looking at a roster, and we've had months and months and months, and we've been just kind of barely trickling up one or two here or there, and and barely crossing the edge. I mean, when your back's against the wall, and it's that urgent, Kawi has 50 60 members. We're struggling to get, you know, a roster. Am I wrong in that statement?

No, we've got It's hard. I you see the issues at stake here. If I could say one more thing, I had a fire in my place in 23. If Co was there, it would have burnt down cuz they said in 10 more minutes it would have been gone. It would have taken him 10 8 to 9 10 minutes to get to my house from there.

Please understand, it's not suggesting that we close down all Burning Town stations. We operate out of those stations. Hopefully with Cowi, I'm sorry, Burning Town community members doing what you're doing now. The difference in my mind is we're responding under a different um you know engine under a different charter. That's the difference to me. All right. And no disrespect to their board. Look, these are wonderful people, this community. I mean, I think you see see this board struggling up here. It's not something anybody's excited about it. There's a business end of this thing and I think the time's come to make a vote and it is what it is. As far as ISO, your insurance and all that, we have to keep those stations in place and that equipment. We'll go back through another inspection in a year to do that. But the equipment's not going to be all the time. There's some legal stuff that will have to be worked through this um to get to where we need to be, but we need guys and we need to be able to stop in Burning Town community, pick up a truck and go to those places, to those houses.

So then you guys would not be able to immediately take the contract. Yeah, we can take the contract and cover it, but there's some legal issues on who owns that stuff. and you can't be covered until black guys become the owner of it and that stuff. So, but speaking without state fire marshall's office, we can cover it from where we're at. Go ahead, sir. I think I think everybody else got to speak. Go ahead.

13 months that we was on probation, I never seen the three of you down there. I see Mr. Sher. I see Mr. Gary down there. I've never seen the three of you. Barry, you got elected to be our representative in Cali in Burn Town. 13 months. We ain't seen you since you've been elected. I would I would agree with that, but I haven't been on here for 13 months. So, but I've been on there since. You're right. You're 100% right. And

you've never come in an offer. Where can you we help you help us out? Never heard nothing from you. Never heard nothing from anybody. You're right. Election year. If it goes this way, we want this transition to go as smooth as possible. We're concerned about the citizens over there getting the protection

and and that's what this board asked for the two boards to get together and work it out amongst your department so we didn't have to get into this position. And we also said get with um Cowi Fire Department, come up with some kind of payment uh system to pay for these per calls. Uh that never happened. Um, and I mean, so we actually, this board says July 31st, 2025. That's the deadline. That's it. End of story. And here we are. So, there's no I mean, in in my opinion, it's um it didn't work.

Oh. Is there is there an issue? We did it. We did it. We did it. He, am I not mistaken, they gave us till July 31st to get everything in order, our membership, our reports done, all of that. Is there an issue with his motion? Am I mistaken? I know it's a tough decision. Yeah. Okay. I know it's hard, but we made all of that. That's what we aimed at. That's what we did.

I'm going to call the question. We've got a motion on the floor. Second by Commissioner Antoine. Any further discussion hearing? None. All in favor, please signify by raising your right arm, stating I. I. Any. And you oppose. Motion fails. Two, three. There you go. All right. Thursday night and I'll see if I can recruit. So, what does that mean? Does that mean they drop where you're at? Good. We're going to move on.

Okay. What chairman? So I guess the question is now is Cowi responsible to cover that district because we just opened it up that now they are eligible and capable of covering their district without Cowi. Is that correct? Okay. Okay. So um so um so at this time um we need to um uh do we need a motion to stop having Kowi be first out? I would ask are is Burning Town still on probation

at the moment? Yes. They have not received a correspondence from Mon County removing them from probation. I would like to see that remain for the time being. Well, you got to get with Kowi and ask them if they're willing to cover that district because they be on permission without somebody running across. That's what I was talking about while ago.

So, Mr. T, come back up front. Um, based on the last inspection, is there can you make a recommendation that they be taken off probation based on the equipment manpower that they've got at the moment? Would they pass a North Carolina 9S inspection minimum, preferably this class 7 to be off probation? They would pass the 9S part with the CLI 7 that was part of the fire scene setup. In order to get that, you've got to have that. The contract states requires a minimum of a protection class seven.

I think it's up to the board. I I think based on that information, you make the determination if you're comfortable that they come off probation or whether you want them to remain on probation and what kind of information you want them to provide for you after the fact because we've based on our contract, we've never really gotten to the point after an 8-month term on what to do with that. So, I think that's a question that you as a board since you're responsible for that contract, what are you satisfied with? And if you want to leave them on probation, what do you want to see? If we leave them on probation, does Kawi have to cover their calls?

Could the probation be that they get past those uh drills that there's no miss calls?

Decision, you know, about the probation cuz we put them on initially because they had failed so bad on those inspection and missed some calls. That's why we we had Cowi going in the first first out. So typically if normally if you have the apparatus and the personnel that's typically where you will get another department response. So I think I would be okay assuming that Cali doesn't have to respond. And obviously they're not interested in responding if they don't get compensated. So you have an issue there if if you don't do that. We have no no uh other move but to take them out of probation and um and let them let them protect their community, their district.

Well, necessarily think that's true either. I mean, you can leave them on probation until they can make sure that they can sustain that number of people that they can pass those drills that there's no mis calls. I mean I mean you know they have the numbers right now and we we have placed departments on probation before and not send a mutual aid department automatically usually because the personnel that usually they're just short a few personnel somewhere. So we that is not a precedent setting thing. We have done that before depending on the circumstances you see as the department

and Warren I've been at this a long time on mid calls like that in the past if they didn't get a response from our department within five minutes they repage it a second page and page a adjacent department to help cover it. I have no problem with that. We would be willing to do that for other adjacent departments if they didn't have a response or there was a reason. I think the second page and we talked about that a month ago that if you know they didn't get a response and in the middle of the night when you're sound asleep and you got to get up get your clothes on you got to get out the door you got to get your radio on your vehicle started you know 5 minutes is a reasonable time to run that page again

actually I think on the radio the standard is supposed to be two minutes if they don't hear anybody in two minutes they're supposed to repage it again so two would be all right too but it's pretty hard to get out of bed and get your clothes on and get out on the door and get to your radio and stuff in two minutes. But we have no problem with it. But that's not been happening either. But to answer your question, yes, you can you could do a probation and not send another department.

I I mean I'd like to see that I'd like to see Burntown stay on probation until you can sustain these numbers, till you can pass those tests or drills or whatever they are. and make sure that you're not missing calls. And as the chief, I would say that if it's possible, I'd get with 911 and say, "Paige, all my people, med, firemen, whatever it is, and let's see who doesn't have service." Um, you know, that's a that's a leadership thing right there. So, you know, I'll just be honest. Few of us just stuck our neck out for you guys, so makes proud. So during the probation period, they have to go out and do monthly inspections still. They've done them for 13 months or whatever it's been. The contract says 8 months. We've extended it to 13 months and now we're going to extend it um indefinitely.

Yeah. How much longer we extend it? What did you just say? I didn't hear you. How much longer are we going to extend it? The probation is is there a six months, three months? Is there a Initially it's eight months, but we eight months. Yeah, initially it's 8 months and we went we've been 13 months right now. What kind of update would you like as a board? Do you want a monthly? You want a bimonthly? You you tell us what you want in this?

I would like a monthly. I mean, I we definitely just stuck our necks out for you guys. So, I'd like to know that I'd prefer to know that you guys can look at me right now and say within a month we got this thing covered. We can get off probation. That's honestly would like to be able to see with you guys. Where yall at with that? Absolutely. You got it. Got it. What can you come down visit with us one night and sit down and talk to him? Well,

I will make an effort. I will make an effort. But let me explain to you. I mean, we'll have to break it up. Have to alternate Thursday. Sure. All right. Y'all ready to move on? John, let us move. Yeah. So, so there's no set time for extension of probation. That there needs to be just go a month at a time. Let's see what they can do. Knock this out in a month. You won't have to deal with this anymore.

All right, everybody good with that? Moving on to item D, old business. Thank you to you volunteers again. Thank you guys. Um, thank you, Mr. McKascal. Appreciate you. I would I would like to before you move recess. No, I'd like to ask council about the liability to this. Is there any liability to this board or the county? Yes,

these people are service providers. They provide fire service for the citizens of their district. If they are on probation 13 months after the eight-month contract says and we continue to put them on probation for an unannounced amount of time, does that put this board in liability or the county as a whole for liability issues? I don't think so. just because the board voted to I mean that they're currently they're currently have the requisite amount of numbers. There is this thing called sovereign immunity where counties aren't liable for

for the access unless there's waiver of sovereign immunity by insurance. So I'd say no. Um, I did look it up and I printed it out, but as far as giving you an answer right this second, I I think that's fairly on. Well, I just as we recognize for 13 months the problem and I go back to the eight-month contract and a hypothetical if something happens in Burntown community. Whatever happens that those people cannot come back and sue us or this county because we are the ones that ultimately hire these service providers. up.

So that's a 5minute recess. Yeah, fine. Yeah, it's been 3 hours. If you guys don't mind, we'll take a 5minute recess. [Music] I missed that.

All right. Old business. Item D. continue discussion on expanded access to alcoholic beverages through regulated on and off premise sales. Um, county manager, can you help elaborate on

Well, obviously in your package you had a draft resolution that would require would be required for you to pass should you decide as a board to request this be placed on the ballot. Um, Eric can probably talk more about the details of that. And then of course as part of that decision you would need to decide which election and you would have the choice of the primary election in 2026 or the general election. Um I don't think it's necessary that you absolutely have to do it tonight as far as timing but in order for it to be on the ballot you do have to eventually pass that resolution. So I think tonight's discussion on that and direction on which way you want to go. Correct.

Okay.

Okay. So, the [Music] question did come up last month on whether there could also be liquor sales or or um I guess it's nonfortified wine, which is unfortified wine is basically wine and um beer, malt beverages, liquor sales, and that's for 16% or less. If you're going to do liquor by the drink in restaurants, the county would have to operate an ABC store um or at least have it already have one in place or put that also on the ballot and that would likewise have to pass. If the county is not interested in operating an ABC store or putting it on the ballot, then we're we've got malt beverages and unfortified wine. And then also, do you want that for on premise and off- premise or just one or the other? In other words, on premise would be in restaurants in in um clubs, that type of thing where they could sell on premise. Um off premise would be um gas stations where you you take it out. In other words, you can buy it and drink it on premise versus taking it off premise or you can put it on the ballot with both on premise and off- premise. There's um when it goes up on the ballot, it's set by statute exactly how that language reads. So, we don't have to craft that language to put it on there and and Melanie would know um exactly what that language and what that what that um looks like when it shows up. But that's so right now the one I've drafted and we can do whatever you want um says malt beverage and unfortified wine for both on premise and off- premise. The question also then is do you want that at the primary election in 2026 or the general election in 2026?

That's what we call the presidential election in 26 midterm. And yeah 26 is not presidential. It's just the general

midterm general. And I that one you got I think actually the draft that I have now is still as it shows up is incorrect. I didn't get that corrected. It says on the okay as it the one you have in front of you says November 25 and that's obviously wrong. The only thing that's on November 25 is the municipal election. So that is crafted wrong and I take responsibility for that oversight. So, just to be clear, when it comes to the liquor sales, we can't go in with the town of Franklin, Town of Highlands to use their No, not without submitting some sort of bill to the through the through the legislature to allow something something like that. So that would be a local bill in the uh that Representative Gillespie or Senator Corbin would have to uh introduce in the short session. I don't know when it would be introduced, but it would have and it would I'm assuming would also have to be in conjunction with the town of Franklin who actually has ABC store where they're agreeing to relinquish something um or combine it. And for example, in Jackson County, it is a jointly, it is a joint board between the town of Silva and Jackson County. So that they both have a financial arrangement um as to what how those profits get split. And last time I looked, I think it was 60% county, 40% to the town. But that like when the county and Jackson County built the one in Cashers several years ago, that relationship was renegotiated to the 6040. It used to be 50/50. Um,

and both parties benefit from that. County didn't have to um go get a new charter. They let the town stay in. They could the county Jackson County could have went and got their own charter. um had they put it on the referendum and operated that way in which case the county would have received all those receipts. Anyway, I digress. But if we were to go do our own open our own, does it have to be in the city limits or does it have to be in the county? If you're going to go do your own, it would have to be the house bill thing that is whatever you were working out with. If you're going to do your own as far as making county itself, that has to be a board referendum,

right? But would it would this would the the liquor store have to be in the city limits or would it have to be in the county? Does it matter? I think it would I'm not sure. Yeah. As far as where you operate that, I don't know. And I will remind the board also remember you do have two ABC stores because you have an ABC store in Highlands and Franklin. So whatever if there was to have to be some kind of agreement with the town of Franklin, you got to have the same agreement with the town of Highlands as well. Okay, good point. All right. So, the referendum is for the the voting for the public have an opportunity to vote yes or no. Is that right? Yeah.

Yeah. Right. And Okay. To me, I think that's important, but I don't want to get caught up in a situation where I'm advocating alcohol beverage. I I think the referendum should be up to the public. Okay. Commissioner shows this vote is to put it on the referendum. You're a good man. Thank you. All right.

All right. Well, it's the pleasure of the board. Well, I'd like to make a motion that we uh adopt this resolution uh to put this alcohol sales on the referendum as presented. It's not as present because this referendum is wrong. But so you have to decide do you want general or primary 2026 and I mean so I guess the motion would be on premise and offremise and then which one primary or general? My motion would be to put this put a uh resolution on referendum for on premise and off- premise in the general 2026 election. Second.

Have a motion by Commissioner Breeden, second by Commissioner Shields. Any other discussion? Hearing none. All in favor, please signify by raising your right arm, stating I. I. Any oppose? Please let the record reflect 50. Tammy, thank you. All right. Item E, solid waste. Commissioner Shir. Oh, no. Yeah, that was a long time ago. You want me to I started say you want me to start off, John?

Like an update on um what the research has shown and also um the u where we are with a application process for a full-time director.

Okay. So, we have an interim director at the moment, we have not advertised anything past that because for the time period of when she started the 1 of July till now, we've actually had a significant amount of work to do. And it concerned me that we would try to bring somebody new in right off that. So, I've been working with her through the process. She wants to make sure how she feels about if she's interested to make to be a full-time solid waste director um and to work through the process. Uh the process has been we're basically looking at two different paths and I actually thought I would have a whole lot more information for you tonight. But so essentially what has happened um back previously back in the spring there were some processes already started to spec out and price the construction of sale 2A and 2B which is the next phase of the landfill. Uh we also had some discussions during our work sessions on looking at hauling options whether it's just from highlands or whether it's alto together. So my intent was obviously you want an updated price to see how hauling compares to the hole in the ground that you're going to put the the waste in. We had proceeded with the cost estimates for the cell 2 A and 2B which is the almost 12 acre cell that would would be constructed if you construct another cell. Uh engineers actually put that out for bid. We also got some financial offers from from from some facilities. Um the the cost estimates that came back were above what our predictions were. Um we were we were predicting somewhere in the $7.5 million range. Those came back

somewhere in the $10 million range without um fees involved with that. So two-pronged approach with that. I wanted to have that figure so particularly we could look at Highlands and see what that cost would be and how it would compare to the new cost of the space. Um since then we have since those numbers came in really high. Uh, we have asked McGill, who is the architect on record for that project, to go back to the least the the lowest responsible bidder and have them look at their bid because we we found some discrepancies from bid to bid. Some line items were very high, some were very low to validate that bid to see what the price was to see if we could split off moneywise if it was beneficial to do just 2 A instead of 2 A and 2B together. And at the same time, Lori and I have discussed some options with Jamie and we're going to we're going to prepare a bid document, I think, is our our best way. Our our estimate on hauling is roughly somewhere in the neighborhood of $5,000 a day is what we're what our rough estimate from the engineers been on doing a hall. That does include tipping fee somewhere. So that would depend on what what price we got on those tipping fees, depending on which landfill we went. I think knowing that that we're now going to be about a month behind on the construction project if we wanted to go with that sale construction, I think it would behoove us to go ahead and draft an RSP or a bid document, actually put the hauling and the tipping fees out for bid at another facility and specify that it's either everything with an option to just do highlands if that's if that's feasible. So, we can look at those numbers together. Um, what

I would hope is that by the September meeting, we'll be able to come back to you and present you with the option for the sale itself because one of the concerns we have is we want to if that's the route we have to go, we're under a time crunch to get it built before we fill up the sale. We have well, in order for us to do the financing, we have to go we have to have a offer from the bank. We have to get LGC approval. um we have to meet the time frame they're on and get the application to them. Then that has to come back to you. So we could actually My intent tonight was to come to you and say, "Okay, here's what if you want to build it, here's the cost. If you want to finance it, here's the rate. Let's ask the LGC to see if they're okay with us actually doing this." And then have that come back to you to give a final stamp of approval to see if it met all the requirements. Unfortunately, we're about a month behind now because the bids came in so high. So, I think our plan going forward is hopefully I would have that information for you on the sale at the September meeting. We will knowing that we've come in high. I don't I don't know where we're going to get back down to, but now we know we pretty well know a number on what that sale is going to cost. So, that will give us the opportunity to put that out for a bid, get those numbers back and see what facilities or companies bid on it. look at all our other options and we can put both of those real time, real estimates together, make a decision on what you want to go.

Well, are we going to factor in you saying that to open that sale, it's $10 million is what the bids came in, but then at x amount of years, we have to close that sale. That's correct. the amount of money that it cost to close that sale and also the amount of property that we're using for waste in Mon County that uh is valuable land that could be used for future um needs of Mon County.

Yeah. In in that financial information that you would receive, we we actually would budget X amount of dollars for post what's called postclosure fees. So that essentially North Carolina requires you when and anywhere that you do a landfill requires you when you close that landfill, you have to have a set percentage of money aside either in a fund or it has to be available, which means you have to either go out and borrow it or you have to be able to borrow it somewhere. Um, typically the most financially responsible way to do that is set that money aside every year, build that account up and you have that money set aside in case to do that postclosure expense that you have. So that would be part of the determination. That's why we need to look at the whole picture when we look at the hauling option because one of the things we have to take into consideration is the we would have to make a little bit of a conversion in Franklin to actually be a transfer facility instead of a recovery facility. Highlands is a transfer facility. Franklin is a recovery facility. Has to do with mechanical means of shuffling the waste back and forth and meeting certain requirements. Um, we also couldn't eliminate all of the people and the staff you have at the landfill because you're still going to have waste coming in that you got to process, but instead of send it to the landfill, you're hanging a left and you're taking it somewhere else. Um, so that that's why we need to get the whole picture together. So honestly, we're we're doing about two to three different passs of options at the same time to bring back to you to say, "Okay, here's your options. This is what we need to do." And and there's even some options that I've talked to some of the some people that understand, you know, you have private companies that will buy your airspace. They'll develop your landfill for you. Uh you

have companies that come in will run your whole operation for you if you want them to do that. Jackson County does that. they they have a company that runs basically their entire operation. Um, so I think I think we need a little bit more time for me to give you that accurate information. It's also important, we started a process with Davenport Associates, uh, last year. They're the ones that do your capital improvement plan. and Lori and I approached them back before budget time to have them develop a financial plan for solid waste and to take in consideration all of these factors so when I come back to you next year budget time if I'm the one that's sitting in the chair that you you can look at those options and they say okay here's the money you need this is what your expenses are matter which way you're going here's here's option A here's option B here's option C this is what it costs and it's kind of like before they give you a tax rate they'll tell you this is the rate you need on per ton and this is your availability fee. You can adjust those any way you want to to get where you need to be. Um we've also discussed some options. Uh Jamie has had a conversation with me. Maybe we need to look at some of the waste that comes in. You know, mattresses particularly are a big space. They suck up space because you can't compact them. you know, maybe there needs to be a little more of a charge for a mattress as opposed to a bag of trash somewhere because it's it's easier to compact the trash. Um, there's options you can look at like a a uh I call it a grinder, but it's not really a grinder. You you feed all the trash through, makes little bitty pieces, which makes it compact more. Well, instead of having to buy million and a half dollar compactor, maybe you could buy a cheaper compactor and spend your money on on the the shredder and and save your space. But but once I know what the space costs and once I know what the hauling cost, I can look at the shredder. I can look at

the compactor. You know, if you spend a million dollars on a shredder, but it saves you a million half dollars worth of space in a landfill or it saves you a million half dollars worth of hauling somewhere, then longterm it's worth the money. So, that's what we want Davenport to do with us over the next year is is to look at that and give you a plan. And then the other thing that we've been doing, garage staff's been working with solid waste staff to go look at their equipment. Um, honestly, we're trying to look where they have three pieces of equipment that may not be maybe semi-ubpar. Can we get rid of three and buy two that are better that we have less maintenance costs on, which saves us money somewhere in the process, which helps us keep those those fees down somewhere. So, long story short, there's a lot of stuff going on that we're trying to get you an answer to. I just can't tell you exactly where the light's going to be at the end of the tunnel just yet.

All right, options. That's good. All right, item F. Commissioner Shur animal control update. Would you like me to do that?

I would for you to give us the uh update on where we are in that process. So, we did have one proposal that came back to us from a volunteer group that propo offered a proposal to our RFP to operate the animal shelter. Uh, we're in the process of looking at that. I've actually sent it out to the two health board members to to look at to give some input. I've sent it to the health department staff that are over animal control now to get some input. And I think what we need to do now is spend some quality time looking at the proposal because it's a it's a multi-ter proposal that extends over several years and it talks about um some upgrades that they propose would be needed for that facility to make it work efficiently. So, I think it's just going to take some time for us to look at those to make sure that that if we enter into that that number one, we want to commit to those improvements that those folks are looking for and to make sure that long-term those improvements work out financially for us or at least we break even with them to make sure that the ask is worth the the input that we put on it. So, we're we're in the process of reviewing it. I need to get some some folks together at a table to have some more in-depth review of that and and then we'll hopefully get that back to you to let you consider maybe at the September meeting if if everything goes well.

Good. Thank you. All right, that wraps up old business 11. New business discussion regarding Swain and Mon County property boundary. Tax administrator Abby Bradler. Welcome Abby.

Good evening. Thank you all for making time for this. Um I'm here tonight to present a joint resolution requesting the North Carolina Geodetic Survey conduct a survey of the boundary line between Mon County and Swain County. As you all remember, last year we came I came before you and we had to release 12 parcels into Swain because they were actually in Swain County. Um, and now we're still looking at the line at the time. The tax administrator and the mapping administrator were not well and they wanted time. They were one of them was new and one of them was getting ready to retire. So now they have a new tax administrator. they have a new mapper and they've come to us and said we want to do this now and the first step in that process is to do a joint resolution between the two counties and present it to the it has to be recorded and that starts the process for the North Carolina Geodetic Survey. Um

do you want me to The North Carolina Geodetic Survey pays for it. It's no cost to us or to Swain. um they do all the um surveying, they do all the monuments, they do the recording of the documents, and they send letters to the um taxpayers. Um we did do this with Jackson County. Um, in 2022, I think it was done, it was 21 or 22, but then in 23 we went ahead, Jackson and I, because we were in a reval, we went ahead and implemented that with the taxpayers, but we thought that they were going to go ahead and send letters out at that time. Well, the state did not. And so it takes a long time for this process because before they can do that and before they can record the map, they have to actually make sure the markers on that survey is actually put in place. That's taken them since 23 to do

just to put the markers. So they are actually I don't know if it was this week or next week they're actually recording that survey for this um Jackson making line. But right now there's not um if you look on one map NC1 map that tells you it's a big database of things that GIS parcels um all kinds of information about our state about all of our state and on there it says that like Swain County has nothing as far as a survey out there. Um we don't either as far as we know. The line that we have used has been used for as long as I've been here, which is 20 years. And so we call it our legacy line. But there's no survey for Swain either. They are actually converting to the one line that's on the north NC1 map. And that's a little bit different than us. That's another reason. Um, another reason we want to do this is because as before with those other parcels that we did last year, it had to do with the voting district, if you're on a line, it's wherever your head lays. And the actually the state says that this one house, we're going to lose this one house. And we've already changed it. Um, April Hampton from Swing County and I have gone through the list. We've made sure nobody's being double taxed. Um, but this one house had to change into Swain because that actually according to one map is in Swain County. We've always taxed it and so we've changed that. That one house and a carport actually got moved to Swain. And the actual line is not very different, but I'm just I mean this is it's not a it's going to be a big deal. It's going to take a while. It's not going to make a lot of money monetaryly difference for either county. Now, Swain will pick up some things, but depending on where that line is, there's

nine houses that could be affected, but I need a resolution. I need and Eric, did the resolution has every Do you need me to read it? Did you have a I think we've pointed. It's just that it's allow us to do to present this to the uh geodetic survey so they can start their process. At this time, I'd like to make a motion that we enter into a resolution with Swain County as presented. Second. A motion by Commissioner Breeden, second by Commissioner Churrell. Any further I'm sorry, Commissioner Anur.

Any further discussion? They do look alike. Hearing none. And all in favor, please raise your right arm. State I. I. Any. Thank you. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, I did I did want to give a shout out to both well, obviously to the Mon County mapping and tax offices um for working so diligently on on together between those two departments. But then likewise with Swain County to to come up with figuring out what how we're going to tax this until this comes through. the last time I and she was talking about the length of time it took for the Jackson Min line to go through. I think that original resolution went through in 2015. So, it took them eight years to get it surveyed and we're still haven't got it recorded. So, this is going to be basically an 8-year agreement on where this line is until it gets set by the geodetic service. So, it it was a lot of a lot of great work and um working together to make that happen.

Thank you, Abby. It's wonderful. You know, that line's probably 20 miles, 30 miles. over 20 miles. It's around 25, I believe, or 27. And then once you get in there, it's a long way. They used to you had the the Swain line, the one map the one map line, and the Megan line. And so there were three actual different lines and depending on which line you're looking at. So yeah, we did have a case where I think one taxpayer last year went to vote and Swain had changed their line to the one map and said, "You can't vote here." And they're like, "What are you talking about? I've been voting here for 40 years." Yeah. Not anymore. She's like, "What are you talking about? My house didn't move."

Your kids are now going to school.

Well, that's why um Mr. Ridenhower had put that in there that we're going to tax everything except for that one house as it is until we know where the exact line is. And our mapping office did do a 100 foot buffer on each side of the line. So that those are going to get taxed the same as well. So that there's no changes with that. I did check with the um voting registry. The only house that they had a problem with was the one at 114 Swain Lane. And those people are actually thinking about changing their address or their house. They have another house and they want to go back to Mon. So they're trying to get they're thinking about moving to the house behind them so they can actually come to Mon and vote in Mon County. Can't blame them.

All right. But thank you. Thank you, Abby. All right. Item B, consideration and revision to article six, section two of the Mon County personnel policy regarding hospital and medical insurance upon retirement. Made

Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to have some discussion with the board. Obviously, I'm supposed to be working on a salary and benefit study for the next budget process. But one of the items that we have identified very early on is a concern that we have with one of our current policies. Uh, and Tammy will correct me if I say any of this wrong, but the way our policy currently is set since 2019, in order to receive health insurance benefits when you retire, you have to serve 30 years with Mon County. uh that prior to that it was 30 years in retirement system. Then that kind of got tweaked over to Mon County so that your your full 30 years had to be with Mon County. Uh one of the things that we think we have identified that would help us recruit folks is the fact that I'm going to give you an example. Let's assume that I'm a I'm a deputy that works in Jackson County and I've worked there 15 years and we have an opening here and we want to come work over here. Um, in order to to qualify for that benefit, you have to work another 30 years for Mon County. Now, you could retire at 25 years or 30 years and have benefits from a retirement system, but to actually qualify for that health benefit, you'd have to work 45 years in order to qualify for that here. So, one of the things we looked at was could we do anything to that to encourage folks to apply here to to to be a little bit more of a recruiting tool and and we obviously were open to s to suggestions. you know, we kind of landed on 10 consecutive years with Mon County that if you if you retired with 30 years of service in the the local government retirement system and you have worked 10 consecutive years with Mon County, you'd be eligible for those benefits to hopefully maybe encourage, you know, if it's environmental health specialist, if it's a nurse, some of

those midcareer folks that may be with other governments. And yes, we're we're trying to poach those folks that that are competent and qualified to get them here with with something. Um, so that we were kind of wanting to have a little discussion with you to see if you would even consider that. Um, obviously there there could be a cost or there will be a cost with that. Um, I can't tell you exactly what that cost will be because it would depend on the number of people that we brought in, the number of people that would actually make the 30 years and do the 10 consecutive years with Mon County. Um, so there would be some I don't think, and Tammy, correct me if I'm wrong, we've got a handful of folks at the moment, five or six, is that correct? That if we if we make this retroactive back to 2019 that would qualify. I don't think that we're going to recruit 100 people a year to come into this program. So it's I don't think it's going to be a huge expense for us down the road. And I think the first time this would affect us would probably be 10 years from now when those people that are there now start to retire if they make the 30 years. Tammy think that's

so I know one of the questions you always want to know is what's it going to cost? Um it it depends. It depends on on how many people we recruit, how many people make the 30-year mark, how many work 10 consecutive at making county and is it a wash because do we have people that will work 15 years for us and then turn around and go somewhere else or or you have folks that make 25 years that don't make the 30. Um, so it's it's kind of a wash. So I I just kind of wanted to put that out there for some discussion from the board for you to maybe think about that. part-time employees are not a member of this anyway. No,

I could I could support that. I feel like there's a there's a like I said mid career age group age gap that I feel like they have to decide the rest of their life if if they're not going to work here or not. And this would kind of help reintroduce that if they had to work a couple extra years to, you know, hit the 10 years. I I'm okay with that. Well, and I want to mention the 10 consecutive years. We we had discussion about that. Should it be consecutive? Could they work five here and finish with five? My thought was make it 10 consecutive because I don't

I don't I'm not necessarily looking for an employee that works nine years here, then goes to Jackson, then comes back to Mon County, and works one year here at the end of their career, and then we do those benefits. So we felt like 10 was kind of a a good number to work with. And then the other option we have is is we come back, you know, at some point if you do consider this, we come back in a year, we look how many people hit this policy. What's it going to do to us in 10 years? Where where are we going to be? Agree. We need to track it.

Am I good?

We need to get an approval on it. Um, that's entirely up to you. If if you need more information, I'll bring you more information. If you want me to tweak the numbers, I'll tweak the numbers. I'll consider whatever you want to consider. Or I like the 10 years. I think we've we've talked about it. I think the five, you know, five years with some places, it's just too short for me. Um, if you put in 15 or 20 years somewhere else and for lack of a better term, we can poach you and we get some experience and you put 10 with us, 30 years in the retirement system, you know, I'm good with that. I think that's a fair number and I think consecutive years is important. So I think that's that that was the whole reason we talked about this in the first place was recruitment retention. You know, we're we're hiring people and they're staying for four or five years and they're going somewhere else. And so the offset in money like you said is probably going to be pretty close if don't do something that in the form of a motion.

I would like to make a motion that we approve this uh um I guess revision to this article and our policy personnel policy as presented. All right. All right. I hear a motion by Commissioner Breeden. Second. Second by Commissioner Antoine. Any further discussion?

Well, the biggest thing is 10 years of providing a service um to the taxpayers and the citizens of Mon County. Uh I understand the retention part of it, but uh sure seems unfair to all the folks that's worked here for 30 years. and uh and provided a service for 30 years to the citizens and taxpayers of this county. Uh I think u you know if you go into the military you retire after 20 years and I just think 10 years is not I agree with it but 10 years not long enough to provide a service here for these people to get medical insurance for the rest of their life off the taxpayers of Mon County when they provided a service for 10 years. And that's it.

So, let me let me also clarify. I do understand understand what you're saying. The our insurance policy covers them from the time they retire until they reach Medicare eligibility and then at that point they are they're eligible for a supplement after that because Medicare becomes primary. The supplement is a a little policy to cover stuff after that. So, that exposure it would depend. Yes, that that could happen on some employees. You would offset a little of that. If you have a a 15-year employee or let's say a 10ear employee, 15ear employee that comes in, they have to work another Let me do my math. 25 year employee that comes in has to work another 10 years. They'll be a 35 year employee that you won't have that expense on them. So, I I do understand where you're coming from. We thought about that.

I I do get it. How many, and you may have just said it, how many employees with Mon County right now, if that goes in, how many of them would it benefit if that change is made?

Tammy, I had that spreadsheet somewhere here. So, that would be the folks. It would take at least Look at my numbers. Right. The 23 24 25 There's three that it would take seven years for them to qualify for that benefit. Is that correct? Seven or eight years.

Seven. Seven or eight years for them to qualify for that benefit. And then after that, the next group would be your 10 to 13 year range. And there's looks like two of those. one to try on the cus basically three that it would take 20 years for that to for that to be a liability for you to have to pay. All right, we have a motion and a second. Any further discussion hearing? None. All in favor, please raise your right arm and state I. I.

Any oppose? All right, Tammy, please let the record reflect a 4 to one vote. I'm sorry you threw me off. I didn't hear you, John. Hard time focusing. All right, discussion on evaluation and roof repair needs at SEC mobile classrooms. Mr. Joe Allen. Brother, you always get the last pick. Every told Warren at a recess, I believe you orchestrated that he gets what it is. Somebody Somebody's got to do it. Somebody's got to be last.

That's all right. Um, back during the budget meetings, SEC had come to us wanted some money for roofing mobile classrooms. [Music] that we evaluate that question. Warren and I met with Curtis out there a month or so ago. Uh those are some pictures that we had taken. Uh those roofs are in definitely needed repair. Uh you can see sh singles missing everywhere. Uh I do think ACC has got some bids for that roofing, but I I would agree that it is in need of repair three roofs. The U help me here, Warren a little bit, but by law with SEC on that list that they gave us when he did presentation, we're we have to do this, right? There is a statutoal requirement that you do support them on their capital needs. I don't know that there's a there's no dollar figure or percentage, but yes, you are required within certain means to support the community college. And and I think that's where this conversation came in because I think the budget we were given was 40,000 and the estimate that the college has provided to us is way less than that. So,

yes, 40,000 was the budget. What? They requested 40,000 in the budget, but

they've got three estimates. They they would like to regutter the trailer soon, but they're going to have the gutters to all pieces time they get the roof off there. But, uh, they had three estimates for the roof. The lowest estimate was lead mate 11,000 for all three of them. And the lowest estimate on all the gutter on all three of them was 3,19, which is a total of 14,819. So for just a little over 14,000, we can accomplish what we thought we were going to have to spend 40,000 on. So he and I both think that even though they're mobile classrooms, they have some age on them,

it's probably worth the effort for them to spend the 14,000 on those roofs and let them do that. Now, we we do not have to. These are their bids. This is their purchasing process. They will go through Lor's process to request the reimbursement back from us. So you don't have to approve the bids. We basically just need the consensus that you're okay for them to proceed on with their process. I guess the main question is they have workman's comp and a licensed professional, right? It's not a that a handyman, right? That would be on the college. They would have to require that. The the gentleman that I'm looking at, the gentleman that has the lowest bed has workman's comp. He's got insurance. He does. How many buildings? Three.

Three. Three. And what are the dimensions? Does it give you a breakdown on those lids on the U? Yep. One of them where I can read

or actually how many squares per roof? Yeah. Look where that roof was. See

what's that? Look where them vents have kept that roof clean. Oh yeah, actually I don't know if they do actually break it down by square John in any of these quote quotes. Um, I've got the No, I don't. That's handy information to have whether it's a good price or not. Um, it is and I did have that at one time. I I'd actually figured it myself. I can tell you what it is. It's square pretty quick. What now? I can probably tell you what it is. It's square pretty quick.

Well, okay. So these stain are these are these actually stain marks or these um where the gravel is come off of these shingles. That's mildew around the vents. How old is the roof? When did we say that he got them trailers in there? Early 2000s. Yeah, it come from CA one or the mobile. That Iowa was finished in 2006. So it would have been right around that time frame. And these are just regular three tab shingles. Yep. Uh okay. What are they replacing? Architectural. They're replacing them with architectural shingles.

25 year 30 25 year 25 year. Mhm. Uh tearing off the old shingles. Tearing off the old shingles. The only thing that we do need to consider is there is none of these quotes have added in for any plywood replacement. So there's a possibility that there's going to be some plywood to be replaced. Roof are the roofs leaking. Yeah. Okay. So they put titanium under it. Yeah. They're going to refill it. Um I just tell you why I'm asking

I just put a new metal roof on my mom's house. um tearing off the old shingles and um and putting the metal roof on uh with all the drip metal and everything else is 6,500 bucks. This is a good So that I mean when you got a 25ear shingle versus a uh uh heavy gauge metal, there's really no comparison with um with the quality that you're getting. Um, and is this only are there only one layer of shingles on these? Yes.

Okay. So, you could actually strip it and uh and put a metal roof over top of it without going through that expense. It could roof be three times that. John, what's that? Metal roof be times that. Yeah. And I mean, I don't know if it' be three times that. It's going to be dirt. I just put one on my mom's house for 6,500 bucks. I hired a contractor to do it. They're they're closer now than they used to be. However,

we can't afford. I don't know. Well, they're 70. They're probably to replace these things. Probably $70,000 each. If we wanted to replace them, this may buy us a few years. This roof is going to buy us a few years. This roof is probably going to out outlast the the mobile classroom units. They're not We ain't got another 15 or 20 years in these things. We're They're going to have to be replaced at some point. So, I don't know that a more permanent metal roof is really right. I mean, because we're going to have to replace the things anyway is at some point. They're or somebody's going to have to replace them. SEC. I don't know how that works.

Do you need action on this, Joe? I I think we're okay either if you want to take action or if you want consensus because the money the money you've already budgeted, the money is on their line item. The purchasing's up to them. The agreements are up to them. We just wanted to to bring the information back to you like you requested the budget process on what they're spending their money on. So, you need a motion on it. I would take a motion, but I'm also good with the consensus because make a motion that uh we approve the roof repair needs at SEC mobile classroom. Here a motion by Commissioner Shields. Second. Second by Commissioner Breeden. Any further discussion? All in favor, please raise your right arm. State I go ahead. Any oppose?

Go ahead. I'll answer. John, what was the final price for Alia? 14,819 5,000. That's with new gutters. That's with new gutters, too. That's with new gutters. New gutters. Yeah. Did you support that or no? Yeah, I did. Please let the record five Tammy. All right. Thanks for being last, Joe. Joe, it's a John. It's the government last agenda. I make a motion that we approve the consent agenda as presented. Here a motion by Commissioner Shur. Second,

second by Commissioner Breeden. Further discussion. All in favor, please raise your right arm. State I. I.

Any oppose? 50. Stammy. Appointments. Mon County Board of Health. Mr. Chairman, let me add something to that. We We did have two resignations on the board of health not too long ago. So, we did immediately post the vacancies. We didn't have a whole lot of time from the time we posted until this meeting. So, we felt like we would bring you the application we'd received and then let you decide whether you want to consider those tonight or whether you want to bump those into September. Give people a longer time to apply. Uh there are three openings. One of them is a an optometrist that we've been unable to fill. you have the ability because you've advertised and haven't got anybody, you can put somebody from the public in there and the other other two slots at the moment. Um, one of them's public and one of them would be a physician, but you also have a physician on the health board that if you don't find a physician, you have a physician filling a public spot that you could move to a physician if we can vet him out and make sure he's good with North Carolina. then you'd open up another public spot. So my recommendation, my suggestion would be my concern is that we haven't advertised very long for those. So it's entirely up to you, but it might behoove you to put at least some or part of those off until September. Um I am a little concerned because they're two members, three members short to make sure they keep a quorum. So obviously we want to make sure we have enough people there. Um we there was some discussion. So John is actually a voting member of the health board because he has been appointed officially from you as the liaison to the health board which makes him a voting member. Um Barry has been attending those meetings and you you've

basically directed him as a second liaison to make sure that we managed our business. you do have the option you could appoint him as a voting member in the public spot if you wanted to to put another voting member on there to make sure you have a quorum or if you felt so inclined to do that to give him voting capacity since he's at the meeting. Um so you do have a couple options to think about depending on what you want to do with this and you'd have two voting commissioners, right? You you would have two voting you would have one voting commissioner and you would have a commissioner filling a voting public spot. Correct.

But it still be two commissioners voting. Yes. Let me u I made the announcement way before this ever happened is uh since Commissioner Breeden has been appointed as the second liaison and I am a voting member. So as soon as that board is completely filled, I have announced my resignation on that board as a voting member. I will continue to be there until it is um

until the positions are filled. Um but I am not going to vacate that as long as there are needs for a court. All right. That being said, what's the pleasure of the board? I make a motion that we appoint uh Mr. Breeden to the second voting member. Um and as far as the appointments, um I'm good with the the applications that we have. Um but I got a motion by commissioner just ask Mr. reading something.

I need a second right here. Okay. Second. Second by Commissioner Anton. Is that when you put two commissioners on there's voting? We've all had a feedback for the month on our power struggles and stuff. Uh can we dodge that bullet? Um You put two on there that commissioner you you've got a

Here's the way I I interpret that. Mr. Shields Mr. Shur states whenever the board gets full and all the vacancies are filled up, he's going to resign. So, we're only going to have one member, but having two at this point in time would ensure that we have a quorum because they're three members shy. So, is that Yes. valid with you? Yes. So, so Commissioner Breed is going to stay on. Commissioner Sher's going to resign and then we'll fill his seat with the general public one. Is that for public knowledge? It's on record. Shelby, did you get that?

So, well, I was going to say we also want to reiterate I'm assuming that would be the the appointment to the voting spot that has been previously advertised as an optometrist that you have been unable to fill with an with a qualified applicant. And as such, the general statute gives you the ability to point a member from the general public to that spot of which even though Commissioner Breeden is a commissioner, he is also a member of the general public. He's put a lot of time into it. Yeah. Did I say that? Did I sound like an attorney?

Yes. So, the motion is to appoint Commissioner Breeden to fulfill the the position of the optometrist because that was not filled by an optometrist and the statute specifically allows for that appointment to be from the community at large. Yes. All right. I have a motion and a second. Any other discussion? Hearing none. All in favor, please raise your right arm. State I for the record. I Any oppose? Give me 50, please. Thank you. Now, I would before we get off topic, I wouldn't mind open applications back up for a period of maybe two to three weeks. Tammy, is that is that possible?

That's correct. And and during that time, can we vet the doctor that's on there now? He's in a in a public or general public. Can we vet him to see if he qualifies for North Carolina to move him into that physician's position? And then we would know if we're trying to get two general public or one general public and a physician. Yes, we we can do that. Good call. And and the question would be believe he has a Georgia license too. Is that correct? Lives in North Carolina. Yes, we we will vet that out and make sure we have that answered. All right. Do we still have a need for close session? Eric, do we need just a minute? Unfortunately, I need like two minutes.

All right. I really do. All right. This is pursuant to 143-318.1183 to consult with an attorney about uh pending litigation and to give instructions to the county attorney. I need a motion. Make a motion we go into close session. Second motion by Commissioner Shur second by Commissioner Breeden. All in favor, please raise your right arm. They die. How about him? Roger.

Commissioner Shur second by Commissioner Breeden. All in favor raise your right arm. did uh uh there he