Board of Aldermen - Regular Meeting

We're going to go ahead and start the meeting, so I'll call the meeting to order. Mark, would you do the invocation, please? Please stand.

Please silence your phones. Move your hats. Bless this town, and may it remain a beautiful and friendly place to live. We pray that this board makes fair and informed decisions this morning. We also pray that our police officers, firefighters, and members of our armed services here and around the world remain safe as they risk so much for our security. We also pray that our town be spared the ravages of hurricanes and other natural disasters, and that everyone associated with the town remains safe and secure. Amen.

So I'd like a motion to approve the agenda, and then we'll talk about whether there's going to be adjustments to the agenda. So could I have a motion to approve the agenda?

Motion to approve.

Second. All right. Are there adjustments to the agenda, Kim?

Mr. Mayor, under public presentations, I'd like to add item A, which will be the police chief recognition and swearing in. Mm-hmm. For item B, we'll have a grant project update from Debra Mack, and then sliding all the other public presentations down. And then under new business, the fire department has a plaque for the fire station 2, the new fire station. So for item D, delta, having the fire department plaque design approved by the board.

Do I hear a motion to accept the agenda as modified?

I make a motion to accept the agenda as modified by Alderman Mountain. I hear a second.

Second.

Any other discussion? All in favor? Aye. All opposed? None.

wake up right wake up wake up wake up wake them okay so I'm mayor and board thank you I've got I'd like to highlight a few activities Yes. So back to manager's report, a reminder, a couple of community events and activities coming up, July 3rd through the 5th, Ocean City Jazz Festival. A reminder that July 6th, the administrative offices will be closed in recognition of July 4th. July 7th, 11 o'clock, we've got a workshop planned for the board to allow your participation in mandated two-hour ethics training and also an overview from a league, North Carolina League of Municipalities representative that'll highlight the different programs, services, and lobbying efforts. Then I'd like to share with you an update, I guess, regarding Beach Access 3. which, as you recall, was the site of a drowning on June 1st. On June 8th, an ad hoc work group of department heads was assembled to brainstorm strategies, practices, and policies that could be offered to enhance public safety in and around the Inlet. The work group's preliminary ideas included about seven, eight of them, but I'll just highlight and go back and give you a status update. Adding additional signage, adding an acknowledgement statement in the parking app, removing beach access number three, adding emergency location beacons, call buttons, adding signage on River Road, adding blinking lights on signage, and erecting a memorial. some actions, activities that we've... Before you leave that real quick.

Sure. That's a county access. BA3 is a county access, right? So I guess we'll be talking to them as well.

I don't believe their land is underwater at this point. So the parking lot's ours.

Where the signs are is our property. Where the signage is is our property. But the access itself is county owned.

Okay, because we're having that meeting with them. That would be something for us to discuss next time we get together our little group, right? Because I've heard everything from, to your point, shut the parking down, but I think on the beach access, we should talk to them and coordinate with them if that's one of the things that we want to consider going forward.

In terms of things that we have done to try to mitigate, enhance safety in that particular area, We've, through our parking vendor management company, we've modified the parking app, adding a statement that basically calls attention to hazardous swimming at beach access number three and the four by four parking area. Basically, when individuals are going to reserve, purchase a parking space, that statement pops up before they check out and pay for a spot. And then it also, depending on how they are getting a receipt, it's provided to them in their receipt. In terms of additional signage on River Road, staff is in the process of gathering materials to add signage along the road and to declutter the proliferation of signs that are in the parking lot. You know, after about the third or fourth sign, all you tend to see are signs. And so we felt that decluttering would probably improve the messaging as well as adding signage on the road going to the parking area. We're also, in terms of blinking lights.

Again, before you leave the signage thing, Smith had talked to you about the $200,000 that, what did you call it, Christmas in July is what he called it? And that we put in for signage, right?

Yes, but not at that location.

But it can't be budgeted, right?

Well, we hope to see legislative action. I think it will hinge on their adoption of the state budget.

I don't want to delay what we're doing. My point, though, is we may have other money coming in that we can move back and forth, right?

Well, it will be targeted for message signs at the fire stations. So we won't be able to... I would not want to say publicly that we would use that money in some other manner. We would use it for signage at two fire stations.

My point, though, is that we wouldn't necessarily need to spend money on signage at the fire stations if we get the grant. So it would be money that we have to do the signage anyway, right? No, it would be money.

If the money that our representative indicated may be allocated to the town of North Topsail Beach, it would be specifically for messaging signs at Fire Station 1 and Fire Station 2. Perfect.

So to your point there.

I'm just talking about cash is fungible is my point. Right. It's money we wouldn't have to spend to do the signage at the firehouses.

if it comes through correct but then if we need to make to move some money in the budget for additional signage at the north end we can do that right we may not even need it he's got it yeah the cost is in insignificant

um, insignificant as compared to the, the idea of signage at fire station one and two, which is, you know, some dollars. Um, um, so I'm gonna show go blinking lights. So, uh, in terms of adding blinking lights, staff is, is, uh, gathering materials, uh, to add blinking lights at a number of locations, uh, primarily and the parking lot area and possibly on the beach. Um, uh, we're, we're, we're evaluating that cause of the, the, the, the erosion rate and stability storm wash over and so forth. Uh, but we're looking at that as well. Um, and that, that concludes my update on beach access three. Um, The sea oats cost share project, um, board members may recall that, uh, the town partnered with coastal transplants and a cost share project for the purchase of sea oats. Um, the, uh, program has offered an opportunity for property owners to purchase sea oats at a discounted price up to a limited quantity. Uh, earlier, uh, actually last week, Joe Gahan with, uh, coastal transplants offered a program summary. Uh, basically, uh, we had, uh, there were 39 properties that participated and more than 30,000 plants were, were planted, uh, as a comparison last year, there were approximately 24,000. So I think the evidence of ongoing successful program. And then lastly, um, the, uh, comprehensive compensation study. So with the adoption of the fiscal year ending 2027 budget yesterday, Work will now begin to develop a request for proposal. Previously, Lexi and I collected RFPs from peer communities, I believe that was in late April, early May, which we'll use as a basis to design the town's RFP. The major tasks that we'll invite vendors to address through their proposals include salary and benefit survey with emphasis on identifying the appropriate communities and commercial entities to benchmark against. Um, classification design, career ladder design and integration, and then an implementation migration plan. Uh, the process would, would include this kind of really high level, but, uh, you know, the, the preparation and publication and hopefully receipt of, uh, proposals, uh, scoring the proposals, panel interviews of the top two or three proposals and, uh, referral and recommendation to the board. and ultimately that y'all would make the decision. I would expect, I don't think it'll be within the manager's signature authority. And probably a presentation by, you know, if the process narrowed it down to one, then probably we would refer the one, but we'll work through that down the road. And that concludes my highlights.

All right, open forum. Lexi, anybody sign up to speak?

I have no sign ups.

OK, we'll have another one, I guess, at the end. Yep. All right, let's move on to public presentations.

This would be item A. Yep. Yes, new A. This would be item A, recognition and oath of office for our new chief of police, Andrew Page.

Chief? All right. Put your hand on that Bible. I, Andrew Page. I, Andrew Page. Do solemnly and sincerely swear. Do solemnly and sincerely swear. That I will support the Constitution and laws of the United States. That I will support the Constitution and laws of the United States. That I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to the state of North Carolina.

That I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to the state of North Carolina.

And to the constitutional powers.

And to the constitutional powers.

And authorities. And authorities. Which are or may be established for the government thereof. Which are or may be established for the government thereof. That I will endeavor to support. That I will endeavor to support. Maintain and defend.

Maintain and defend.

The constitution and laws of said state. The constitution and laws of said state. Not inconsistent with the constitution of the United States.

Not inconsistent with the constitution of the United States.

I was trying to. To the best of my knowledge and ability.

To the best of my knowledge and ability.

And that I will faithfully discharge the duties.

And that I will faithfully discharge the duties.

Of my office as chief of police.

Of my office as chief of police.

For the town of North Topsail Beach.

For the town of North Topsail Beach. So help me God. So help me God. Congratulations. Thank you. Because I get messed up at most, too. Thanks, buddy. Thank you so much. Certainly. Thanks, Chief.

Thank you. Chief, while you're signing and while everybody's taking their seats, congratulations once again. Having worked for you, I think you're going to do great things for this town and this department. I thank you for your continued service, and congratulations.

I appreciate the vote of confidence.

So I had marked those, now we're back to FEMA. The B is the grant project update. There she is, hey Deborah, how you doing? I think you're muted, or we've muted you.

There you go. All right, well it's a great morning for an update. The last time I did this, I'm going to see if I can follow what Ricky told me to do.

I'm clicking on present teams.

So let's see if I can do it right this time. So let's see.

It'll be just a moment.

Yep, there you go.

All right, there we go. Thanks, Debra. Yeah, sure. And hopefully this looks right for you. Is it too small or if I need to make any kind of change?

It's perfect, thank you.

All right, wonderful. So... The summary for you this morning, the last time I was in front of you was on April the 1st and FEMA was shut down and we had tons of things pending. But the good news in May and June, we had a total of over $15 million of reimbursements that finally came into the town, which you needed and enabled the budget amendments that were on the board was able to approve yesterday to get those funds back so you can do other projects um specifically for the recap here fema matthew is completely closed dorian florence the only thing open is the cat z the administrative uh item that we're working on to submit and then ptc-8 now has three projects because they awarded it at a cat Z for that one. So that was new. Once they came back to work, we did get a cat Z approved for that. And then you have your stormwater project, the DRMG 2304. And of course, it's currently open and the DEQ We've made the reimbursements, but we're just waiting for the memo on the final closeout for that.

Okay, so Deborah, real quick, this is Rick. So when I looked on that, that's that interest and unused funds that we talked about for four, right? So that occurred last fiscal year, as of yesterday, right? So our balance sheet will show that gone for next year?

Yes, we will have that project when the audit's done this year should show it complete or pending. We don't have a final memo from DEQ that it's closed.

But the funds have transferred, I guess, to my question, Deborah, right?

Yes, sir. Thank you, Wayne. Yes, yes. And then Florence, just update on it. That's the large reimbursement you've been waiting for. On May the 21st, we got 11.48 million in. And again, the Cat Z is the only one open and I'm preparing that and we'll be submitting that to FEMA for a review because I always submit it, let them look at it and see if they have any questions and then that one will be completed. Dorian, everything's complete. The last payment we got for that one was on May the 12th for around $346,000. PTC-A, if you know you're in the middle of that one, the CAT-G, we've received reimbursement. We feel like we can request closure, so we're waiting to hear on that. I've submitted that small project. The category B were on hold because of your internal nesting hatching season right now. So we did receive in about 3.2 million on June 19th for the work that had been completed today because it wasn't awarded and we couldn't submit the reimbursements until FEMA came back to work and in the cat see the new one. We do have the final number on that and that cannot be submitted. until both projects are closed out that's what's the hold up with florence too until you get the final closeout memos they won't let you submit your cat z because there could be emails rfis or maybe not rfis but clarification and you can feel that time and get reimbursed for it And right now on that, we are waiting on the FEMA approval for the extension. It shows it in NCEM's website, which is the state site. It's been extended to December because of the turtle nesting and hatching season and some additional dune planting. So hopefully we'll be able to get that closed out. and 2027 i don't see unless there's a weather issue this is a project i believe i saw on the agenda from yesterday that you had some additional grant money you can leverage with this one but this is just the part that i was working to assist you with and so this project as far as i know is on schedule to be completed and the grant does end on this particular portion of the grant on june 30 2027. And the DEQ that I briefly mentioned, this is the one where you received all the money in advance back in 2023. And that's the reason interest had earned on that particular, instead of it being reimbursement-based, they advanced it. And so that was paid. The town made the final payment on that to clear that grant. As far as the town's concerned, I don't believe we have any more items to address, we're just waiting for them to send us an official closeout memo on it. And so the snapshot, we started out with 23 original projects. We've closed 20 of those. The reason we have one additional is because we got the CAT-Z with PTC-8, which is new. So I've listed the four projects. Three of those are just PTC-8. and in the Florence Cat Z were working to submit. And so basically in May and June, you received over $15 million worth of reimbursements. And so in conclusion, the town has the four projects, which is detail on the previous slide and barring any complications or weather delays for the FEMA, which is the PTC-A by January, 2027, should be able to submit everything get closed out on it the stormwater grant as i mentioned uh will expire on june 30th and i don't know about the new grant if it gets approved what that expiration date would be but i can give you good news that currently there are no outstanding eligibility or compliance concerns on any of your grants to my knowledge and it's been a pleasure to assist the town in getting the money that I know you need to do your additional beach improvement project.

Thank you. Hey, net, net, net of what we spent, what we're owed out there. Is it a couple million dollars still outstanding? Deborah, does that sound right?

Yeah, currently right now you have your CATZ on your PTC-8. You have the balance of about 4.4 million, and we got such about 1.2. Right. Plus you could get up to a million dollars, but you haven't spent that money on our firm, of course, you know. so you wouldn't get that full eligible reimbursement. But you'd have a little over a million and then of course your reimbursements that you'll file for the balance of your grant for your stormwater project. You're just really getting started on the construction side of it. So that is the majority of that $2 million grant is still out there. You haven't been able to ask for any reimbursement just on the engineering. of that project. And pretty much that would close those that you'd ask our firm to assist you with.

Okay, so you've been able to clean up about, we've gotten about, what, 15 million in this year in reimbursement?

Yeah, just in May and June, yes, that's correct. During the whole year, I would have to look. It's higher than that. But just in May and June alone, it was $15 million.

Thank you for bird-dogging that, Debra.

Oh, it's been a pleasure.

Any other questions for Debra? Cash is king, right, Doug? Thank you, Debra.

Oh, you're very welcome. Thank you.

Are we on to the regular?

Yeah, now we're on the regular one. All right. So go ahead.

All right, so the next agenda item. Is Deb here? Is Deb here?

That's all right. Oh, okay.

All right, there you go. All right, so this agenda item started from a homeowner inquiry with me that I needed to meet with Deb about, and the homeowner was concerned about having to get a V-Zone certification or an elevation certification for a deck replacement, et cetera. And when we started digging into the V-Zone certification, which I didn't understand a lot, Deb and I started having a much longer conversation about the National Federal Flood Insurance Program, the NFIP. And that led to wanting to have this conversation where Deb and Brady can explain to us more about what she has done to get the town a certain level of certification, how that affects us as homeowners and just general information that I think I know I was lacking, but the detailed conversation has resulted in this presentation. And I hope it's informational for everybody out there listening. and in the audience because Deb has really worked hard to get us on certification that helps us as a town and why I think we were aware of that. I'm not sure that we were aware of all the benefits from it. So Deb, thank you for putting this presentation together. Brady, thanks for helping Deb. I appreciate your digging into it and getting us these slides so that we can explain this to the homeowners better. Thank you.

Dab microphone, please.

All right, is that good? Everybody can hear me good? Okay. I can't move it, move it. It won't move. And you can't, there you go, thanks. There you go. Um, the purpose of this presentation is to support the board of Alderman and recognizing the importance of floodplain management and to encourage continued efforts to strengthen the town's participation in NFI P and CRS programs. The presentation objection objectives are to describe how the board of Alderman and floodplain managers can support the town citizens. through the NFIP and CRS. Identify the impacts that the town's budget choices have on response and recovery to future disaster. Describe the importance of enforcing floodplain management ordinances. Know the benefits of NFIP's higher standards and the community rating system, CRS. and bring your attention to the final report of the president's council to assess the federal emergency management agency which was released on may the 7th of 2026. if you haven't had a chance to read that at your leisure i would certainly encourage each of you as i will the planning board members to read that document carefully Sorry. Coordination.

So, starting off, the purpose of the National Flood Insurance Program, also known as the NFIP. NFIP was created in 1968 by Congress to provide flood insurance coverage, reduce flood damage through floodplain management, share the risk of flood loss, and support recovery and resiliency. The Code of Federal Regulations CFR is the official codification of the general and permanent rules issued by the U.S. federal agencies and departments. 44 CFR 60.3 establishes minimum floodplain management standards for communities participating in the National Flood Insurance Program, ensuring development in flood-prone areas is reasonably safe from flooding. There are more than 22,000 NFIP participating communities.

The benefits of NFI P participation. And of course I want to emphasize that it's voluntary. The town does not have to participate. You're, you'll probably hear that more than once through this presentation. Uh, some of the benefits are, uh, NFI P flood insurance, safer damage resistance, resistant development, grants and loans, faster recovery, uh, with more financial support.

So why is flood insurance important? On average, flood insurance payouts are better than disaster assistance. The differences between flood insurance and federal disasters assistance include average flood insurance claim payment from 2017 to 2022 was $75,000. Disaster assistance requires a presidential disaster declaration, which is uncommon. Most assistance comes as a loan that must be repaid with interest. Meanwhile, federal disaster assistance often comes as a small business administration loan or FEMA disaster grant. Between 2017 and 2022, the average individual and household program housing assistance award was about $4,000 per household, which was during the presidentially declared disaster. Flood insurance policies are often in all flood zones. Renters can get contents covered. Flood insurance payouts are sent quicker than disaster assistance funding. Flood insurance is a regular investment that property owners and renters can make that does not require repayment or create a debt burden.

So the national NFIP claims between 1980 and 2025, 88, see if I can get this number right, being the non-mathematician that I am, 88, Billion, there you go, I was gonna say, thank you. 88,876,707,541 dollars and 40 cents. The number of claims that were paid were 2,656. For Onslow County NFIP claims, they didn't have it for North Topsail Beach, but they had the information available for the county. So for the NFIP claims paid in the county between that same period, 1980 in 2025 were $70,654,928.34. The number of claims that were paid during that same timeframe were 3,089 paid.

All right, so now we're gonna get to roles and responsibilities and we're gonna start with the federal government's responsibilities in the FIP So FEMA has federal responsibilities FEMA and the federal government must make flood hazard maps and products to help communities understand flood risk and regulate floodplain development and They provide mitigation planning and technical assistance. They set minimum floodplain development standards for local communities, offer access to federal flood insurance, distribute federal funding, and ensure communities enforce their NFIP program.

Federal responsibilities continue. They provide mitigation planning and technical assistance. The Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000 requires that after November of 2004, I got here in 2006. This is gonna, there's a story behind this. Communities must have a FEMA approved mitigation plan in place to receive hazard mitigation grant program funding or funding for projects under the new disaster mitigation program. This plan is updated every five years. And on March the 4th, uh, 2026 of this year, the board of Alderman, you may remember approve the resolution to adopt the Southeastern North Carolina regional hazard mitigation plan. And the plan was approved by FEMA just recently on April the 1st, 2026. So we are, are up to date on our hazard mitigation plan and keep in mind that is a requirement before you receive any, uh, funding from FEMA for hazard mitigation.

So to touch back on what was said before about the President's Council to assess the FEMA. So the President's Council to assess the FEMA, which was established by Executive Order 14180 in January of 2025 and released its final report on May 7th, 2026. So this recommendation reflects a broader policy direction. It emphasizes a greater role for states and local communities in disaster management. Even before any legislation moves forward, the report's direction carries important signals for local government preparedness. So just to touch base again, I would recommend getting in the document and just having a brief understanding of what may be going forward.

So the, uh, state responsibilities in the NFIP, uh, support NFIP communities by providing, enabling land use authority, setting higher standards, providing technical. Oh, I'm sorry. Do what?

Oh, sorry. We're operating two different ones here.

Sorry. He's been doing that for me and he didn't do it that time. And he caught me. Sorry. You gotta use the remote.

Oh, shoot, shoot, sorry.

Sorry, sorry, sorry.

How long was I good for, for like a minute? Sorry about that.

Next one. There we go, all right.

I can walk and chew gum at the same time, just not today. State responsibilities in NFIP, and these are for our NFIP people that work for North Carolina Department of Public Safety, Division of Emergency Management. The head of the department is the state coordinator for NFIP. And then our immediate point of contact is the Eastern Planner. And we simply could not do our jobs to the level that we do without their support. In the support by NFIP communities, they provide enabling land use authority, setting higher standards, providing technical assistance, managing their own mapping program through a cooperative agreement with FEMA. It says optional. It's optional for all the states. It just so happens that our state does provide those mapping services. Supporting FEMA in monitoring community NFIP compliance. Let's see if I can get it this time. That's mine. I guess I should do yours first. There we go.

Perfect. All right, down to the local community responsibilities of the NFIP. So... The town is responsible for effective implementation of NFIP by adopting local floodplain management ordinances that meet or exceed state laws and NFIP minimum development standards, enforcing local flood ordinances consistently, completing substantial damage, substantial improvement assessments and determinations, promoting proactive floodplain management and evaluating and mitigating flood risk by adopting higher standards and working with FEMA to ensure accurate updated flood hazard information.

So this one is a little long and so please bear with me, but it is very important. This is something that I never want the town of North Tops Beach to go through ever. There was a county in Florida that went through it, I think after Florence, and it was extremely painful and extremely expensive for the property owners and for the county. The effects of suspension or non-participation in the NFIP, remember I said it was voluntary? Well, this is what happens if you don't. The National Flood Insurance is a voluntary program. A community has the right to choose whether or not they participate in NFIP and regulate development within flood prone areas designed by FEMA. However, the federal government will not support development in these hazardous areas through federal programs if the community chooses not to participate. Federal law imposes certain restrictions on federal and federally funded, federally assisted financing with flood hazard areas. In non-participating communities, state restrictions on hazard mitigation grants and disaster assistance also apply. For flood insurance is not available in non-participating NFIP communities, existing policies cannot be renewed and are canceled after the policy term. Federally backed mortgages are not available for properties in the special flood hazard areas. that includes va fannie mac fannie mae federal state funding no federal grants loans mortgage insurance of sfha properties and no state disaster assistance after flood events disastrous assistance there's there's no federal disaster aid for repair or rebuilding of insurable sfha buildings after flood flood related presidential disasters Conventional loans are allowed in SFHAs at lender discretion but require disclosure that the property is in a flood hazard area and may be ineligible for federal disaster assistance. Flood insurance rate map rules and the North Carolina building code flood standards apply in the SFHAs regardless of whether you participate in the NFIP or not. Ignoring them can make properties difficult to insure or finance. So if you wonder why we are so tenacious and bullheaded and people complain about developing north tops of each, this is why. Okay. Liability non-participation or weak regulation can expose local governments to liability due to increased risk, lack of insurance access and failure to reduce known hazards. If the development worsens flood risks, the community must correct the hazard to maximum extent possible before NFIP eligibility can be restored.

So your point there is we never want to lose our certification.

We,

Correct. Okay.

Never.

Thank you.

It takes a village. All right.

Going into the benefits of floodplain management, it promotes economic growth, increases community resiliency, improves the water quality, protects wildlife habitats, and maintains natural flood storage. How important it is, yes.

Down it. Oh, because I got it backwards. Uh, the flood damage prevention ordinance, which is, uh, on your agenda after we finished this presentation, uh, also called flood or floodplain ordinances or local floodplain regulations. The authority is granted by state statute. It's adopted and enforced by local communities. The downs flood prevention and debt flood damage counts, flood prevention and damage ordinance. Flood Prevention Damage Ordinance, leave the end out. We read this like five times and missed that. It is codified in Article 7 of the UDO. It helps keep the community safe from flooding, protect public infrastructure, and reduce the cost of recovery. There you go.

Yeah. There you go.

All right, so to talk a little bit about Deb and I, here are our responsibilities as floodplain administrators. So as the floodplain administrators for North Topsail Beach, we review proposed floodplain development for compliance with local floodplain regulations. We review and issue or deny permits for floodplain development, inspect development to ensure compliance, we keep adequate records of development in floodplains in perpetuity, and we coordinate with other community departments to ensure community projects comply with the floodplain regulations. And just one note to put out there, Development is where we have to look at things with permits. And what we define as development is any human-made change to improve or unimprove real estate, including but not limited to buildings or other structures, mining, dredging, filling, grading, paving, excavation, or drilling operations, or storage of equipment or materials. So it's pretty large and encompassing on what we have to take a look at.

Here's the relationship of building inspections department in the planning department and how we too, how the building inspectors and planners dovetail together. So core objectives of building code floodplain management, protect lives, ensure safety and health, promote accessibility and inclusivity, support disaster resilience, provide uniform standards, protect the environment. The NFIP regulations, 44 code of federal regulations, I always say register parts 59 and 60 and the local floodplain management regulations or the international building code, which is adopted as the North Carolina building codes, appendix G go into the building code and also into the building code. goes to the American Society of Civil Engineers Structural Engineering Institute 7, Minimum Design Loads and Associated Criteria for Buildings and Other Structures. That's all in one title. And the second one is the ASCE, same as the first one, Structural Engineering Institute number 24, contains the flood-resistant design and construction. both the asce7 and the asce24 are referenced in the north carolina building code as well as in the fema nfip technical bulletins that we refer to from for more technical detail than what would be provided in the ordinance okay and

Compliance begins with submitting a permit application. Permits for development are required by the NFIP, the NC Building Code, and the Town's UDO to ensure safety, legal compliance, and proper oversight of construction, renovations, and other regulated activities. In addition to reviewing the application for code compliance, the floodplain administrator is responsible for conducting substantial damage, substantial improvement determinations, which is if the cost of improvement is equal to or higher than 50% of the market value of the structure, the structure must meet the requirements for new construction. So it does play a big deal when there is damage, or if someone wants to go into an older structure and renovate, you really have to keep... an understanding of the amount of money putting it in, whereas you could keep on the older standards versus bringing the whole structure up to all the current floodplain regulations, building code regulations, zoning regulations, and even CAMA. So there's that.

An example of that would be that if your house was grandfathered at the elevation that it was at the time that it was built and it went over the 50% threshold and you did not meet that current elevation, you would be required to elevate your structure up to the base flood elevation plus two feet. All right. now before we get into this we're getting into the sweet spot here good news and bad news um so i think all the board members have a handout is there anybody here that has property in the cobra zone So the CRS program, uh, with flood insurance discounts. So this is what the town receives. The whole purpose of us doing this, of course, the number one priority is to protect lives and protect part property. What we get for those higher standards in doing that additional work is discounts through the CRS program. And communities get CRS credits for applying higher standards, mitigation actions, and outreach activities. CRS credits lead to flood insurance premium savings. All NFIP insured structures receive discounts. If you have property...

in a policy with nfip check with your flood insurance agent ask them if you're getting that 25 discount if you are not please contact us just real quick because i was going to ask you a question at the end i'm in a cobra zone yes so i can get the discount in a cobra zone because usually nfip is non-cobra

NFIP is available for non Cobra if if a structure was built prior to The establishment of Cobra and we've got like two or three Establishments establishment dates now they changed Further to the north, but the first one was adopted I think in 1987 No, that's flood map. Sorry, 1983, sorry.

But the insurance discount does not, you just said something about a handout. I'm trying to find the one you gave me. It does not apply to Cobra Zones, correct?

It does not apply to Cobra Zone, but unless the structure was built prior to that establishment date of Cobra, we do have several grandfathered policies. Okay, that was my question. Thanks. If they let that policy lapse, they would be in jeopardy of losing that policy. unfortunately as we voluntarily participate in the nfip program we still have even though you don't get the benefits of the crs discount um we still have to apply those same higher standards that that the town has adopted through uh the flood regulations so uh but as a whole the town benefits and and we'll go into that that's my question thanks I don't think I finished that though, did I? Okay, sorry. There you go.

All right, what are the benefits of higher standards? So to name a few, less damage from flooding and faster recovery, more affordable flood insurance, safer place to live and economic growth. And then a little note on the side, just one inch of water can cost $25,000 of damage in your home. That is crazy.

Some of the higher standards are, uh, free board. And I mentioned earlier, uh, BFE base flood elevation. Uh, the town's adopted a two foot free board and we've had a two foot free board since 2000, uh, restrictions on fill, no rise requirements for entire floodplain and open space preservation.

So this community rating system does require maintenance. And in order to maintain our participation, we do have to be recertified, um, by ensuring that we are doing our credited activities and we get audited every year and recertified every three to five years.

Okay. So with the CRS, So the CRS classes and their discounts go from nine to one. Each CRS class earns an additional 5% discount on flood insurance premiums. Class one communities receive the highest discount. That's my goal one day is for North Tops Beach to be a class one. Okay. There you go.

So if you'll look at these two, images. On the left shows North Carolina CRS participation. You can see there are 97 communities in the state that are in the CRS program. Out of those 97, we are ranked number five, which we share that level with 11 other communities, and we are only outranked by one other municipality, and that is Charlotte.

That's the goal, to surpass them one day.

And then on the right hand side, you'll see North Topsail Beach is shown. Again, we are class five. The PIF is policies enforced, which is 1,051 total policies and premiums that go up to total premiums of $685,931. As of October 24 of 2024, the average cost of NFIP policy in North Topsail Beach is $652.64. And I want to go back to you.

So that's our certificate that we received from FEMA when we achieved the ISO rating of five. And if you have any questions about your flood insurance or your structure, please contact either Brady or myself and we'll set up an appointment, go through your elevation certificate, probably do an onsite inspection to see how we can help you on your flood insurance.

I'm going to let Laura close. Anybody got any questions? Just one quick one that only because she brought up something before and I was watching the landfill stuff. I've seen on the elevation and what we're trying to do to protect stuff. I've seen contractors come in and dump dirt. to raise so that the 48 foot looks to be on top of the dirt, right? It's not supposed to be. It's supposed to be at the base level, right? If I come in and put eight inches of fill, is it eight inches plus 48 feet or is it 48 feet from the bottom of the eight inches?

It's measured from the top of the concrete slab to the peak of the roof. So they can bring in two feet of fill and the fill and the concrete and the concrete, but the fill is non-structural fill and the roof height is measured from the top of the concrete slab, which is limited to four inches.

So Deb, thanks for the presentation, Brady. So to wrap back up as to how this started for me, which was a homeowner inquiry about a deck needing to have a V-Zone certification. Well, one of the reasons we have V-Zone certifications is we participate in this NFIP program, and we have, the town has decided, which benefits us all, because you just saw before with Deborah Mack how much money we're getting back with FEMA, that we have to keep this FEMA certification. So on the flip side, if you're doing something at your house, sometimes you might have to get another inspection, another cert, like this V-Zone cert, but it keeps us in the NFIP program, which then keeps us getting the discount. So if we're at a level five, the ISO five, that gives us a 25% discount on our flood premiums. So I think the full circle message to people who are building or making renovations is we might have higher standards in the town, but overall they are bringing back significant money via FEMA And also in our savings in insurance premiums and Deb, I'm not sure everybody really, you know, appreciated before that you getting us the level five standard, what that meant for the town. So I want to thank you guys for getting us to that level and keeping us there and then just hit the board over the head. If we really don't understand some of these things, because it gets. detailed when you're doing these programs between organizations. But thank you so much because the state standards, the community standards play into what the FEMA standards are. And while an individual might be going, you know, but I don't know what this V-Zone cert is for my particular deck. If you understand the broader picture, these higher standards are helping the entire community. So thank you again.

Is there anything that you need from us? Because what you've got is you've got the certification. You've got where you want. Right. And so this is basically to educate us, correct?

It is. Back in, I think it was between 2010, 2015, we had been a seven when I had gotten here. And so I got it in my head that I wanted us to be a five. And we had scored enough points to actually, when I went through every single activity and claimed every single point that I could, it was like looking through the couch for change down in the sofa seats. And we had like 300, I'm sorry, 1,330 points, which was enough to be a class three. And so each time that I go through this, what's held me up is there's a five and a four and a three. So I'm confident that we could go back and get those points for a three. The problem is I couldn't crack the code on, um, uh, four, which is stormwater. And that stormwater, that's why you see 11 that are fives, and then you've got Charlotte, who's evidently cracked the code, and they're a four. And so as we continue these stormwater projects... And we're documenting a lot of it is all of us working together in Between the board in the planning board and management and staff that we're aware of all these other activities that would normally be outside of our day-to-day permits and inspection thing to where that when we go through an audit we can take credit for the work that we have done and That's a, that's a big part of it. And so I think it's very realistic that we could be a three. So thank you. Go ahead.

So I just had one last closing thing. I called a couple of the insurance brokers around town and they were unfamiliar with our classification as a five and unsure whether we were getting the discount as we should. So I am going to make it my mission to visit with three or four of the local insurance brokerages to make sure they have Deb's presentation and they understand how to look up our community's rating of a five to make sure they are offering their customers the discount that we're due. So thanks again, Deb.

All right, so moving on Deb, I think it's you again you guys again Are we having a public hearing on this or is just the text? So we have a public The next two with the next two items are put are have been advertised for public hearings Should we open the public hearing or have her make the presentation first?

If we could get a motion to open the public hearing.

Okay. Do I have a motion to open a public hearing? Motion to approve. Motion to open the public hearing. Do I hear a second? Second. All right. All in favor? Aye. All right. We have a public hearing. Yep. Okay. And...

So following that wonderful presentation, we're going to be looking at the FEMA NFIP, the proposed amendments for Article 7 flood regulations and the definitions that follow that in Article 11. So summary of it, Plain Department staff has drafted updates for the Towns Unified Development Ordinance Article 7 Flood Damage Prevention Ordinance and Article 11.02 definitions, which is pursuant to the 2026 coastal model provided by the North Carolina Department of Public Safety Emergency Management Slash Hazard Mitigation Section. At the Planning Board's regular meeting on June 11, 2026, Ms. Brown made a motion that the Planning Board recommends the Board of Aldermen adopt adoption of the amendments to Article 7 based on the language that is required by NFIP, along with any changes or clarifications required after the review by the NFIP planner. Ms. Ward seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously. Ms. Brown made a motion to amend the motion to include adopting Section 11, which is the definitions. Ms. Ward seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously. North Carolina Department of Public Safety, Emergency Management, Hazard Mitigation, Eastern Planner, Aaron Futrell, has reviewed and provided edits which have been incorporated in the final drafts attached. Pursuant to North Carolina General Statute 160D601, notice of public hearing was published in the Jacksonville Daily News on Saturday 6-13-2026 and then again Saturday 6-20-2026. It was posted on the Sunshine List, on the town's website, and was posted on the town's message board. The specific actions requested, number one, that the board conducts a public hearing to receive public comment on the proposed text amendments to the town of North Topsail Beach's Unified Development Ordinance Article 7, Flood Damage Prevention Ordinance, and Article 11.02 definitions, and that the board adopts the proposed text amendments as recommended by the planning board.

Okay. And I just want to highlight three major changes in this update. And one was the non-encouragement agreement. Non-conversion agreement. So before somebody builds a house, they sign a non-conversion agreement stating that they're not going to convert that ground level to habitable space. They're not supposed to do it anyway, but by having them do a non-conversion agreement and recording it, whenever somebody does a title search, they're going to have it. There's not going to be an excuse for them going in and doing it. And then it also gives us the authority that we may inspect annually to ensure that that structure's not been enclosed. That's a lot of work, but it's also extra points on CRS. That's one. And then two, I'm trying to think of these off the hand. What was it that the board asked? That was the non-enclosure, right?

And the local homes.

Rogers Bay. I knew about Rogers Bay. I was thinking that there was a third one. So on the North Carolina coastal model that was provided by the state, their their proposed language was to uh that recreation that no recreational vehicles were allowed in the special flood hazard area which included v zone as well as coastal ae zone They came up with a planning board, and that would have devastated the two, Rogers Bay, number one, and then we have another one, Surf City, family RV or family campground, right?

The misnamed Surf City Campground that's in North Topsail Beach.

That's right. It's a precursor to whenever North Topsail Beach takes over Surf City, but that's okay. But if we would have proposed that and if you would have adopted that, I would imagine the property value for Rogers Bay Campground would go to zero. and people that have invested, and that does provide, and I'm going to say affordable, although there's a couple RVs in there that they are worth more than what my house was when I bought it.

Those are legacy people that have been there for a long time too, right? For the most part. There's people that have been there for a long time.

There are people that have been there for a long time. And granted, there are some compliance issues that we continue to work with Rogers Bay on. But to adopt no RVs within the special flood hazard area is just, it's severe. And it would affect a lot of people. So I went back to the NFIP planner and I said, this you know, how can we fix this? And so after we looked and confirmed that Rogers Bay Campground is in an A-Zone because, you know, we have these own construction standards that apply throughout the SFHA. Both Rogers Bay as well as surf city family campground are in a a flood zone So we changed the language from the SF a SF H a to specifically that RVs are not pre RVs are prohibited in the v-zone so that so So we're All right, so that's one in I The other one, what was it that we didn't want to do and Aaron said that we should do? Was that the, oh, I know what it was. There was one years ago, several years ago, I got a phone call from the NFIP coordinator in Raleigh. And he asked me, he says, Deb, you're letting them climatize that ground floor enclosure? And I said, well, there's nothing in the ordinance that restricts it. You know, as long as their ventilation and everything, all mechanical and electrical is elevated two feet above BFE, I don't have anything that says that they can't do that. And I think that there was a presumption from the state that you don't allow it. And I was like, well, show me where it says you don't allow it. And so... They've caught up to us on that. And that ground floor enclosure may not be climatized. No AC, no heating. So it's going to be ground floor enclosure, parking storage access only, which really kind of dissuades people from converting it to habitable space, hopefully, unless they do it without permits.

But they can run dehumidifiers and things there, right?

You can absolutely run dehumidifiers. There's also...

It's really about making it a regular, like a bedroom or a living room or a thing like that. That's correct. When I built mine, everything's got to be blowout down there. That's right. You can't have it enclosed. That's right. Fixed and enclosed, correct?

And we do have an incredible problem with that, and the only thing that you have to do is go to VRBO, look at the pictures, and we can see the ones that are in violation. We just recently dealt with one that was the same way. So then the question comes, well, Deb, you know... If the board adopts this and this flood ordinance becomes effective today, do I have to tear out my AC? Whatever you are permitted for is, and I don't like the term grandfathered, but the term is that it's legal nonconforming. In the event that you're, you know, God forbid that the walls broke out and you lost whatever was down there and you were going back to do repairs, we would not be able to allow you to put things back the way that they were.

But if you have a permit for it... Is that similar to the 50% type of thing, where basically you have to become conforming now that you've lost that space, which you're telling us?

That's right. Right, exactly. Okay. Exactly, so those are the three major ones and I think that the president from Rogers Bay Property Owners Association is here with us So I had it I reached out to them to let them know you know the impact and what we were you know trying to work out to where that This wouldn't devalue their property Do we have any Can we get you and I was gonna get comments first, but if you got a question go ahead

As far as the RVs go, outside of those zones, are we also talking about, I know several people that have RVs that they just park in their driveways, but they're not living in them. They go on vacations. How does that work?

You know, I'm not sure. We've run into that situation again and again and again. And so if someone has a house, the problem that I would have is if they had an RV in their driveway and they were renting their RV out to RV, you know, VRBO, something like that. To me, if someone's parking their RV there, I don't have any specific guidance. I mean, I kind of treat that as personal property. I might have to reach back out to NFIP. That question has come up even when, I think we said RVs have to be in an existing RV park, right? If I have a house here, and I bought an RV, like the former mayor that goes cross-country, am I gonna tell somebody, no, you can't have an RV? If that's the intent, then somebody needs to put that explicitly in writing, because I've seen those differently.

I think it's a discretion thing, because it could be, I've seen people take pickup trucks and put the little camper on the back of it. Is that technically an RV, so... All right, so do we have anybody signed up to comment on this? Okay. Can I have a motion to close the public hearing?

Motion to close.

Before we close the public hearing, I would just open it up if there's any comments, period. I guess that's just what I asked.

Somebody wants to comment? That's what I was just asking for. I didn't hear anybody.

That's fine. You have to come up to the microphone so everybody can hear you.

And name and address.

Okay. My name is Carol Bowden. I am the president of Rogers Bay Property Owners Association. And these two are jewels. Let me tell you, I was president a few years ago and like an idiot, got talked back into it in October. And... But, um, I, in all honesty, they, they are my guide in everything that we do. And we do want to preserve, um, Rogers Bay as what I tell everyone, it's a little slice of paradise down here. Um, and it's an opportunity for people to continue the campground, uh, facility. And so. in what you're doing and what they've done with this language that does allow us to, to keep going and not destroy what so many of us, uh, get to come down here and enjoy. And, um, what a great meeting. I was a clerk to the board in Wayne county, and I love how you guys run your board. Um, thank you. I'm gonna send a video back to my old board. Okay. Thank you.

All right. So do I have a motion to close the public hearing?

Motion to close the public hearing.

Do I hear a second? I second. All in favor? Aye. So now we need a motion to approve the proposed text amendments as recommended by the planning board. Do I hear a motion to do so?

Mayor, I request a motion to approve the text amendment to the flood damage prevention ordinance, UDO article 7 and 11 as recommended by the planning board.

Do I hear a second? Second. Any other discussion?

Yes. I would really like to thank you because, as you know, I am always on the lookout for government overreach. And I think that what you have to serve under could really, really end up being a lot of government overreach, but I see that you two really work hard to ensure property owner rights and that it's not completely black and white, that you look at the human aspect of it. And I don't think everybody would, but I really, really appreciate your department. Thank you.

All right, all in favor? All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Excellent. Thank you very much. Thanks. That's a great job. All right, moving on.

Real quick, before you guys leave, you said your stormwater was one of the big issues getting us from five to a better rating?

Yes, sir.

Is there anything? I know we've got the stormwater contract going on down there at the fire department, and we're looking at the park. Is there any other major issues that we could help? to get you where you want to be.

We're going to take a look at that because there's, I think 19 activities altogether in each one of those 19 activities breaks. And that's kind of a misnomer because there are several activities, things that you do underneath those activities. And so we're going to go through and with a fine tooth comb and say, you know, do we do this already? Can we do this? What is just impossible in the things that we need help on to get over that threshold? We will certainly come back through the planning board and ask for that. That's for help.

Definitely what we want. Thank you. Yes, sir. Appreciate it.

Yes, sir. Thank you.

All right. Thank you. Sure. So I would say probably, um, the answer will be, version of a four-letter word called a stormwater utility formation it has its own independent revenue source and it would go to fund potentially fund improvements maintenance maintenance if you have a stormwater system maintenance of the system and it can be, I mean, you can scale it to variations of size, but I would submit Charlotte's done that, and I would say communities, we had it in my last permanent position in Monroe, we had a stormwater utility, and we did about $1.5, $2 million worth of improvements a year, some in terms of installing new infrastructure, but a lot of, maintenance activities, if you will, restoring, improving.

So moving on, Deb, we've got another one. We've got another public hearing as well. Correct, Deb? Yes, sir. All right. Do I have a motion to open the public hearing? I make a motion to open the public hearing. Do I hear a second?

Second.

All in favor?

Aye. All right. Deb? Thank you. Map control procedures are established to ensure the integrity of the official zoning map. And to prevent any unauthorized zoning changes, Onslow County GIS will accept amendments to the town's zoning map only when submitted by the town through duly adopted ordinances that are signed by the mayor and certified by the town clerk. Onslow County GIS will not accept zoning map change requests directly from applicants or any third parties. No unauthorized individual is permitted to alter, amend, or otherwise modify the official zoning map. The proposed ordinance would amend the UDO to designate the official zoning map in electronic GIS geodatabase format using the Onslow County GIS-based map as the town's zoning map of record. North Carolina law allows zoning maps to be maintained in digital format if approved by the local government and kept available for public inspection. The amendment is intended to modernize map administration, improve accessibility, and clarify that archived paper maps are retained only for historical reference. The draft also identifies the planning director as the zoning map administrator, provides for maintenance of the authoritative electronic map in coordination with Onondaga County GIS, establishes how adopted map amendments will be incorporated, and states that the Board of Aldermen retain sole legislative authority over zoning map designation and amendments. Consistency and reasonableness, the proposed text change is reasonable and in the public interest because it improves the administration and acceptability of the zoning map without changing underlining zoning districts through this ordinance. It is consistent with the town's adopted land use policies and with the North Carolina General Statute permitting zoning maps in digital format. at the planning board's regular meeting on june 11 2026 ms ward made a motion to recommend to the board of aldermen to amend the ordinance to establish the official zoning map in electronic gis geodatabase format ms brown second of the motion the motion passed unanimously the requested action is that the board conducts public hearing to receive public input on the proposed text amendments to article 3 and 3.03 official zoning map and Two that the board adopts the proposed text amendments as recommended by the Planning Board And attached in your package is the proposed ordinance amending the UDO to establish the official zoning map in electronic GIS Geo database format Do Alexa do we have anybody signed up?

I have no signups.

Do we have anybody that would like to speak on this?

Motion to close the public hearing Motion to close the public hearing

Do I hear a second? Second. All in favor? Aye. Do I hear a motion? You want to make a motion to approve it?

Mayor, I request that we approve a motion to approve the consistency and reasonableness statement and the proposed text amendment to establish the official zoning map in electronic GIS geodatabase format.

Do I hear a second? All in favor. Aye.

Thank you so much. One question, Deb. So for people to look up that map, will we have a link from our webpage or they go to Onslow County webpage?

I believe that we have a link to Onslow County GIS on our website.

Okay.

We should, yeah, we should always just hit Onslow County GIS and it pops right up.

You can either go directly or we should have a link, but that becomes, that becomes the official.

Okay. Terrific. Thank you.

We talked about before when you said the maps would go around this room, correct? If we tried to do the paper maps. Thanks, Deb. All right. Motion to approve the consent agenda.

We have the roadway pavement.

I'm sorry.

We have one more item. We have item F, town roadway pavement condition assessment.

All right. Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. The Public Works Department initiated a pavement condition survey in order to establish a baseline assessment of the town's roadways network and provide data-driven information to support future maintenance planning, budgeting, and infrastructure management decisions. Historically, roadway maintenance decisions have often been driven by immediate operational needs, resident concerns, and visible pavement failures. While this approach allows the town to respond to urgent issues, pavement management practices emphasize the importance of routine condition assessments, preventative maintenance strategies to extend roadway life and reduce long-term costs. To support this effort, the town engaged pavement navigators to perform a comprehensive pavement condition survey on all town-maintained roadways. The assessment evaluated approximately 7.8 centerline miles of asphalt roadway using FHA long-term pavement performance standards and methods. So the purpose, we established measurable conditions for our roadways and assets, identified current deficiencies and maintenance needs, Uh, prioritize future roadway maintenance strategies. And supported long range budget planning and objective data for future infrastructure investment decisions to present those findings. I'll go ahead and turn the floor over to Mr Steve lander who conducted the assessment.

Great Thank you.

Awesome. Great. Thanks Chris. Everybody can hear me.

Yes, sir.

Excellent. Excellent. Well, I certainly appreciate the opportunity to be able to present the pavement condition survey results and recommendations. It's really awesome. You guys are my first municipal client with the new company. The company started back in October of last year. It's not my... It's my 1st municipal client, but not the 1st time I've worked for municipal government. I've done over 160 payment condition surveys, and I have been in payment management for the last 2 decades. So, strangely enough, I, I really enjoy what I do. So. I'll move on with the presentation here. What you're seeing here is the pavement management blueprint. And this is what we represent and what we do for our clients. These are what we believe to be successful components of a successful program. You know, it starts with a plan, right? Any good endeavor starts with a plan and everything else comes off of that plan. And that's kind of what we're doing here today, right? We're talking about this large asset that the town owns and how do we maintain it in the best condition? I'm going to talk about the pavement condition survey and the results. Life cycle modeling is needed if you need more horsepower into the future with 7.8 miles, not always needed, but could be used to be able to forecast into the future. The maintenance toolbox I'm going to talk about, moving away from a worse first strategy towards using treatments that are earlier on in the deterioration curve. putting together concise bid documents, taking what we've done in the field and in the office, bringing it out, putting together concise documents, and also full-time construction inspection. And I want to add here that I am teamed with a company called Summit, and they provide the horsepower for the bid documents and the construction inspection. Construction history is something that is lacking in most municipalities. When we do a treatment, how long did it last? When did we do it? What were the conditions? Are we getting what we expected? And to keep track of that is really important. So when we move forward with our plan that we know to either we need to change a treatment or maybe we need to move away from a treatment based on our own history. And then coordinating utilities with the pavement is really important. and i can make a statement that nobody ever contests is that nobody likes a cut in brand new asphalt so this is uh what we offer and uh and we provide guidance on to our municipal clients all righty let's talk about planning real quick SO WHAT IS PLANNING? IT'S BASICALLY ESTABLISHING WHAT IS IT THAT WE WANT THE STREETS TO LOOK LIKE? ARE WE OKAY WITH WHERE WE'RE AT? SO ESTABLISHING A VISION, SETTING GOALS, WHAT'S THE LEVEL OF SERVICE THAT WE NEED, AND THEN IT'S GOING TO REQUIRE A CERTAIN AMOUNT OF FUNDING, AND IT'S ALSO PROBABLY GOING TO INCLUDE BROADENING THE MAINTENANCE TOOLBOX, INCLUDING DIFFERENT MAINTENANCE STRATEGIES. It's about the outcomes, right? We want to make sure that we're maintaining the roads at the highest level of service or least cost. And these processes will help us do that. so you know it's uh what what is very good look like and these are the condition states of uh of a pavement condition survey so uh in in your uh packets and in the report you'll see these pictures of town roads at the various different conditions so the first one is a very good street then moving down uh we have a good street right it's got a little more surface wear, but it's a good street. Then we have fair, where we have a little more cracking. And we move on to our poor streets. This is year 26 to 65. And there were a few of those. And then there are what we call poor streets. And we did not record any poor streets, which is good. What we're seeing here is base failure. And we didn't see a whole lot of base failures. So the streets were built well whether there's stone under them or not that's probably left to be determined but what's there is seems to be working really well over time Moving on to our pavement condition survey, it's like what Chris said, the town maintains 7.8 miles of road. We completed the pavement condition survey back in April, and we look at seven distresses from the long-term pavement performance rating methodology. and we collect severity and extent so how bad the distress is and how much and i could go into details on each one of these things but i know you'll be glad that i'm not going to do that here today so the findings is that the pci that pavement condition index which is an overall health index The town streets are at a 70, which puts the network in fair condition, right smack dab in the middle of the fair. And there's a current backlog, if you were to fix everything at one time, about $1.1 million. And if you look at the table to the right, you see where North Topsail Beach fits in with other North Carolina municipalities with mileage and with the PCI score. I'm sorry, just real quick.

So let's go back to the slide with that on it. So current, would you go into a little bit what you mean by current backlog? That's to bring our streets up to a certain condition that are poor?

No, what it is, so not every street that has distress on it needs maintenance. Right. So this would be for everything that triggers a maintenance activity, that's how much it would cost to fix everything. So typically, if you were to fix everything in the backlog, it would probably bring the PCI, that pavement condition index score, up to in the high 80s or the low 90s. But no one typically does that.

Is that because they phase it in? Yes, that's correct. And then just get into a routine plan?

Exactly.

Okay, thank you. Yes.

Yep. All right, so what's at stake, right? So there's about 95,000 square yards of pavement. To reconstruct the pavement at the unit cost that we have is $60 a square yard. So you're looking at roughly about $6 million in roadway assets. So it's a pretty big asset, probably one of the largest owned by the town, and we certainly wanna maintain it. So that's what's at stake. All right, let's talk about maintenance toolbox. So what you see here, this is a standard deterioration curve for pavement. And on the left axis, you see 0 to 100. And I should have added that this is the pavement condition survey index, so 0 is the worst, 100 is the best. And there are treatments that we can apply all along the deterioration curve. Most municipalities operate here and so usually you're spending the most amount of money for the worst level of service. We want to be up at the top highest level of service for the least cost. So this is just how we made decisions when we decide when to do certain treatments and to go through it quickly here. The top left is our rejuvenators and it's It's an asphalt-based treatment that actually puts back a part of the asphalt that dissipates when you make the asphalt and when you put it down. We've all seen the white smoke come off of the asphalt. Those are maltines. This process puts the maltines back into the pavement, actually penetrates the asphalt up to half an inch, and it goes down pink. Usually within a few hours, it gets into the pavement. By the next day, you can't tell that they were there.

Is that what you used to call slurry seal?

No. This is before. The next slide, the microsurfacing, that's similar to slurry.

Okay.

But this is before. This is kind of like changing the oil on a vehicle, right? And you can do two applications of this. It'll extend the life with two applications up to nine years. So moving along, and as we move to the right and down, it gets more expensive. So this is microsurfacing where you have more cracking and you're doing crack sealing, you're patching any fatigue areas, any failure base, and then you're putting a thin treatment to protect the surface. Down lower left, rehabilitations, where you're usually milling out the asphalt, fixing the base, and then coming back with new asphalt. And then reconstruction, this is when a road has totally failed, the base is not worth salvaging, and you basically, you grind up the asphalt, the stone, the sub-base, you put a determined amount of cement in it with water, and it sets up like concrete, you pave on it, and you have a new pavement structure. So what we're going to talk about here, and so John Arnold, who's not on the call with me from Summit, we both raided the roads together, and we just thought this is a community that could really benefit from ChipSeal. And so we're going to talk a little bit about ChipSeal in a couple slides here. So the name of the game is to stay high on the curve. So when we do some sort of rehabilitation treatment, we can do two rounds of rejuvenators. We can do a micro or a chip seal for another two rounds. So you notice how many years we pushed it out and we're on top, we're high on the curve. So it's a higher level of service. And these treatments are a lot less expensive than doing another rehabilitation in 15 to 17 years. And Typically, when we're doing these types of treatments that you're pushing it out to 25 to 30 years. So you're extending the life of the payment. So, there's our curve. And as we move down the curve, those treatments get more and more expensive. Rejuvenator is the cheapest. Microsurface at $750. Chip seal at $450. So that's kind of why we're looking at it and we think you could benefit from. And it's a big jump between your preservation correct, those micros and the chip seals to rehabilitation and an even steeper jump down to reconstruction. So we want to stay. There's going to be roads sometimes we're going to have to do mill and overlays. but we want to try to stay high on the curve as much as possible. It's about the dollars per square yard year. All right, so let's talk about two town examples here. So this is an example of a road that is in the fair condition, and this is one that is in poor condition. So without getting too far into the details, these are the distresses that we collected. This FC is fatigue cracking. It's a structural problem. So if we can cut this out and put it back, and then we come back with some surface treatment, like a microsurfacing or a chip seal, we'll bring that road from a low PCI up to an 83. So with a road that has got a high surface, so this road is actually in poor condition and typically poor condition roads, you're not gonna put a chip seal on, but when you have such low structural problems, meaning that the road was built well, and it's lasting over time, even though it's got such a high surface, we can put, you know, fix these base problems, this fatigue cracking, and this is surface defects, This is a high surface defects. The chip seal is going to fix that condition and it will bring it up for the least amount of money, the PCI score. also needs to you need to well let me talk about chip seal a little bit it goes down as a an emulsified asphalt so this is it goes down first and immediately right behind this uh distributor uh a chip spreader puts down the chips um it gets rolled in they clean up any excess and then putting a fog seal for chip retention and also to for uh appearance So this is what a final product could look like from a chip seal, and it's $4.50 a square yard. And we saw a lot of streets where this application would really benefit the town. Chris wanted me to mention also, too, is that, you know, along with doing a chip seal on these roads that we're recommending, that there also will be rehabilitation candidates. And this River Drive and River Road are ones that, you know, at the top. uh north end of the the island uh of which there's a lot of patching and standing water and uh to consider uh doing full depth uh rehabilitation milling it out and then putting it back a recommendation i would say for whenever you're trying any type of new maintenance activity is that you want to do a pilot program And so don't spend all your money on something, but try it out, work with the contractor and see what's the smallest amount of quantity that they'll do just to try it out and see how well it's received by the community. It's really about education. Everybody on the board has to understand what you're doing and the folks who own property on those roads need to know why you're doing it and the reason. So wrapping up, you know, so coming up with a town vision and establishing some goals is really important. It's like anything that we do in our life needs to have that. What are we shooting for? And it includes a strategic approach. Regular pavement condition surveys is important. When you're spending so much money on your network, you wanna know at the end of a three year, two, three year period, you know what's happening with the PCI score is it going up is it going down you know maybe in the future you know if things aren't going as we expect maybe life cycle modeling might be uh warranted um you know we're we're recommending uh an increase of funding and typically from my experience in working with municipal governments in North Carolina that uh typically It costs between 15,000 to $20,000 a mile per year to maintain your roadway network where you're at. So, you know, for the town, it's 117 to 156. That's kind of on a yearly basis. And then we talked about the sustainable maintenance program, rejuvenators, thin lift treatments, which includes micros and chip seals, rehabilitation. And obviously, this is why I'm in what I'm doing. I enjoy presenting this information to councils to be able to affect change so that we can manage the roadway networks at the highest level of service for the least cost. So with that... I will entertain questions.

We'll start with, everybody's got questions, so let's go ahead, Mark.

Well, Steve, first and foremost, thank you for what you do, and your experience means a lot to us. For the viewers at home and those that aren't familiar with the North Topsail Beach Roads and the NCDOT roads, we are referring to only North Topsail Beach Roads. We are not referring to Island Drive nor New River Inlet Road. So when you see that $1 million price tag, that is not to fix Island Drive and New River Inlet Road. That is just the side streets.

To emphasize that, there's also HOA roads that are not included in this.

These are only town roads that Chris is... Just want to make sure everybody understands the scope of what we're talking about, or the limited scope, rather. And that's my biggest thing that I wanted to get through to everybody.

That is a great point.

And just curious too, we have some roads that are inundated by, some of the town roads that are inundated by dune sand and stuff like that. How does that factor in as far as your ability to evaluate those roads and what strategies to mitigate sand compiling onto those roadways?

Yeah. So, you know, we, we do a surface pavement condition surveys and it's visual. There's two people in the vehicle, so we can only rate what we see and we didn't bring equipment to move sand. So, uh, and I know it's roads you're talking about, uh, that they, uh, you know, that the sand is, uh, it was on the pavement. So we rated what we could see, but you know, what we saw was probably representative of what the overall pavement was. Um, You know, and I guess the, you know, what strategy is there other than that you probably have to go and just clean it up every once in a while when, you know, when you get a strong wind.

And unfortunately, some of that is regulated by CAMA and restrictions.

You can't put it back.

Thank you. So, Connie, do you have anything?

Yes, I'm just curious, when a road is repaired or rehabilitated, how long is it out of commission for the residents that live on that road, since there's generally on our town roads one way in and one way out?

Mm-hmm. Yeah, so it kind of depends upon what you're doing.

Apparently he lives on a two-way street.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, so no, but, you know, there are workarounds to it. You know, it's... You know, like when you're doing a microsurfacing, you know, you're doing the one side and the people live on that side, you definitely have to make, you know, you have to set something up for them to park somewhere where they can still get out or they know that they're going to be in for a little bit. And microsurfacing, it's typically takes about an hour before you can drive on it. So there's that. And then when you're milling and putting back asphalt, You're probably on a road like that, you're probably looking at like half a day to maybe going off into the afternoon. And then if you're doing fold-up reclamation, it's probably a lot of the same. And you can build fold-up reclamation where they can ride on the reclaimed area while you're still working on the other side. So there's a lot of... I know the contractors are all used to having to deal with the residents along those roads, but there's putting out flyers, letting them know that they're coming at a certain period, and then working with them to make sure that they can still get to where they need to go while they're doing the work. It also helps blacken the tires.

Well, thank you. So we're talking hours, not days.

Laura?

Thank you.

A question for you on the chip seal, right?

uh are there any beach towns that have done chip seal recently that are examples that we could look at uh you know so chip seal typically in municipality most municipalities like where there's curb and gutter it really it uh it doesn't go well But seeing how many roads there were that have like a high surface to them, which it kind of looks like chip seal to begin with. And I don't know how many complaints that you have on those types of roads. But, you know, we just thought that, you know, that you could use this treatment. There's no there's no curb and gutter. and that it probably wouldn't get the backlash that it would on the non-beach communities. So I could find out, I can get up with Chris to see if it's slurry pavers that does the chip seal, and I could see if there's other beach communities that have used the chip seal in their communities.

Yeah, I'd like to see what the wear and tear looks like on that. Also, when we're doing this, are we looking at changing the crown of the road at all for drainage?

Now, the thin lift treatments don't change the profile of the road. If you were to do a mill and overlay, you could change some. And then with FDR, the full depth reclamation, you can definitely change the crown. So yeah, if you have drainage problems, the thin lifts and chip seals are not going to fix that.

That's important for people to know because we're not talking about completely re-architecting roads here you know so where we have water problems even if we do a surface redo or some kind of sealant it's not changing the structure of the road correct

And I've got, sorry about this, I'm not going to steal Kip's thunder, but my first job as an engineer was in maintenance on the highway department. So a couple of quick questions on this. I saw the $117,000. I'm assuming, and maybe Chris, you'll address, I'm assuming what we're going to do is prioritize this stuff, not try to do a million dollars worth. I believe we've got money in the budget this year for this. Chris, how much do you remember?

Yes, sir. That's correct. Um, street paving and repair specifically, I believe it was 52,000 and then we had an additional 200,000 listed in the capital outlay in lines for streets that were strictly based off of these findings to apply to the roads.

Okay. Cause I think would it be helpful at least for me would be for you to come back to us and give us your priority on this stuff. And I'm, and I don't know about the poor to whatever. The other thing too is, um, One of the things, when I used to run a utility, used to drive people crazy, is the last thing you want to do this, put it down and then have Anwasa dig it up because they got to fix a leak. So we're going to have to coordinate this, Chris, with Anwasa, which if you need help on, since I'm on that board. But I think that's one of the things we need to make Anwasa know before, particularly if we're doing more than just kind of a coating on this stuff, is to make sure we don't do one of these things and they're digging it up the next day. But Chris, I mean, that's, I mean, Looking at you guys, it makes sense to have him come back to us and say, you know, figure out what we can get done.

Absolutely, and we need to do a lot of discussion because I know the residents do not want to see an asphalt parking lot put at the inlet just to be washed away a few months later.

That's an excellent point. No matter how good the road is. Right, but if he can come back, I mean, they've got, it looks to me like they've got this graded as to pour and whatever. I do think that C. Dune should go first. Yeah. Just kidding. That's where I live. My street is fine, but I think that we're looking at this thing, coming back to us with some of the money you got. Do we have to bid this out, Larry? Is it big enough to bid out? I mean, you're probably going to hit this in pieces, right, Chris?

Yes, a phased approach, small bites at a time, and then the target would be the off-season so we're not saturated with vehicles and visitors.

Excellent point. Just real quick, so when you're coming back to us, could you give us an idea? I'm assuming, board, that we're going to look at the poor stuff first? I have no idea whether that's... Let's just say we're going to spend $150,000. Is that $80,000 of it or is it $200,000? I think that would be really helpful because it seems to me if we're going to go with the worst ones first... We've had an issue with people thinking there's favoritism, so assuming if we do the poor ones first, that's probably the best way to do this. Chris, is that your feeling?

Yes, sir. In Steve's breakdown, he includes in the roadways and their conditions the cost to bring those ratings up, and that was going to be what I used to reach out to vendors as a baseline for scope of work and budget and attack those specific locations.

And not to micromanage, but like we're talking about trying to do all three phases of each one, two and three. poor section and you have a sec, no section, it's two blocks away to do it all. Yeah. Yeah.

But I think, I think what he's saying, and I think that he made into, he made, and I think what you're making too is we need to understand this is going to be a continuous type of thing that, you know, no, no different than a beach plan. You can't just do this once, fix it. We're done. So do you want to add something more?

No. So I mean, as we're doing our strategic plan and planning budgets going forward, you all are coming up with a number. we need to you know keep putting in for maintenance of the roads which is great and then yearly we're going to need to be looking at condition and prioritizing and laying out the plan for that year in the off season so we don't affect everybody and then laying this in but again to rick's point is You don't do this once. If we're proactive and we're doing a maintenance program, you're going to be doing something every year on the roads. So thank you for this presentation.

And to be honest with you, thanks, Chris, and thank you as well. Honestly, this is less money than I thought it was going to be. I thought we were talking. I always used to hate those terms. I thought we were talking. I mean, to replace a cart path at a golf course is like $3 million. Now that's concrete for the most part. But it also tells you, I guess, because we're flat, to your point, Mark, we don't have frost heave as an issue, right? We don't have those type of things as an issue. So excellent presentation, I thought. What do you all think?

Mayor? Mayor. I'd like to add, you asked about going out to bid and so forth. What may work into this for the work that, is beyond our organic capabilities, and we've got to put out the bid. Size does matter. The smaller the project, the less, well, the larger the cost, but the likely less participation by vendors. You know, if you're looking at it you know, say $75,000 paving job, uh, it'll be Chris doing it. You know, if you're looking at a million dollar paving job, you'll get a lot of interest. And so somewhere in between is probably the sweet spot. So, so an idea, what we've seen done in other communities is, is batching it, not from a year standpoint, but from a multi-year standpoint.

So pulling it out for a couple of years.

Yes. So, so, so the work, so the work that maybe is beyond organic, or maybe not sure what Chris may be anticipating recommending buying in terms of assets, equipment in future years, but whatever is beyond our capability this year, next year, it has to be put out. Thinking in terms of batching it, yes.

Well, I think that makes sense, particularly, like you said, we don't want to have one vendor. And the other thing is this is not a shot at you. This equipment is a pain in the butt. I mean, if you've ever been around this stuff and was involved in a lot of, we call it a black topping, this stuff is horrible to take care of. And so it's one thing for you guys to clean the streets. It's another thing to be doing this. No, but I think that's a fair point. If we put it out to somebody and it's a three-year contract using that as an example, right, and we know we're going to be doing this and that cleans up all the poors and maybe half the fares, what you're saying is that's probably the better way to look at it.

I would submit that, yes.

Okay. All right. Excellent. Do you have anything else?

Yeah, because I live on private roads, right? And we try, I can tell you the vendors just don't call us back. Right. No, because it's such a small job. So I totally agree because we're having trouble getting anybody to. Respond to us. So I like the idea of doing this over multi years because the vendors don't want to come in for tiny jobs The beautiful part for us is guess what then we can budget for it too, right?

So it's not a it's not a gorilla after the second year. So thanks Chris. Thank you very much. Excellent presentation Thank you Now do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda I

Motion to approve the consent agenda.

Do I hear a second? Second. Any discussion? Wayne already answered my questions. I wanted to make sure the money had gone out, so thank you. And Deborah Mack did the same thing again. And the only other question that I asked him just for the board is when you look at the financial statements on the sales tax piece of it, you show that we are substantially, I think it's 400,000 under budget in revenues. That's a timing issue. And so to the extent that we get money in July, August, September, but it's for this last quarter, all right, that will be reflected in this year's income statement, meaning that we're, Wayne, what we talked about is we're basically on budget. We're fine with that. But looking at that particular financial statement, you would think that we're short that, but it's a timing issue, correct?

May I ask? Oh, I was going to say, may I ask the fire chief a couple questions?

Nothing for the police chief today?

Just wondered how it's coming along. How is there anything we can do for you and what's your status update?

I'm sorry, Connie was finished yesterday, right?

Just don't seem very happy.

Um, the contractor and I had a very long heart to heart discussion yesterday. Um, looks like we're pushed back to august now um i'm sorry just for clarification of 2026. all right it's possible so what are the big issues holding us up now is it uh it might be more closed discussion uh conversation um yeah i mean

Okay, thank you.

Thank you. You're welcome. Anybody else?

Yeah, Chief, while you're still there. Obviously, there's been a lot of concern about activity on the north end as far as safety and stuff like that, and I know you all have run several calls out there in the past month and done well as far as saving, and we've avoided many tragedies. So, I mean, are you seeing... It seems to me and from other people that live in the area that there are increased calls for rescues. Are you seeing more or less? Are we about on par? What's your gut feeling on that? No, they're about the same.

I think it's just getting more attention so people are paying more attention. The call volume for the north end is about the same as it normally is this time of year. Thank you.

It's funny you mention that, because actually after the last meeting, I went and looked at statistics about safe and unsafe. We're not even at the top in North Carolina in terms of rescues and stuff. I think, is it Oak Island that's like, well, actually the Outer Banks are first, and then is it Oak Island that's that bad? I mean, it's, we're, and I think Surf City in terms of responses. So, in terms of, and thank you for what you guys did. Appreciate you keeping us in the loop, and Great job. For you too, Chief.

Yeah, it's a team effort. You know, I mean, it's Turkey Creek's with us. I mean, Camp Lejeune's with us. I mean, when we hit the water, they hit the water. So, I mean, and PD's there helping us with the drone and everything else. I mean, It's a team effort. I mean, there's a lot of people getting in that water and going to that water.

And I will have to say, I think a lot of towns have public information officers that deal with the media. I know that you and Chief Page have dealt with the media, and you guys have been way above par for representing the town. So thank you guys for being professional on the camera.

Thanks again. And if you don't mind me asking also, as far as, obviously these things, like you said, you're calling in Turkey Creek, you've got Camp Lejeune, all these resources, do you all ever practice or have exercises where you're in the off peak season uh talking about coordinated efforts and who's going to do what i mean just so that the the community knows what your active plans are and what they are leading up to the peak summer as opposed to not just we run out there and say what do you all want to do just kind of explain it

Chief Hardest and I, we constantly have conversations because, you know, the inlet's constantly changing and the scenarios are constantly changing. So we're constantly having conversations about what we can do better, you know, how this call went and, you know, analyzing what we did, you know, try to be more proactive instead of reactive. they obtained a jet ski last year from the county, which has been a huge help. A couple of weeks ago, we had a kayaker down here. They were actually to launch closer than we were. So, you know, it's a, like I said, it's a team effort, you know, and our policies are safety driven. if our boat hits the water, their boat hits the water. If our jet ski hits the water, their jet ski hits the water. And then, you know, Camp Lejeune is a, is a extra safety net, you know, um, which our, I will say, I will, uh, brag on our program and Turkey Creeks. Uh, we have done so well. Camp Lejeune has asked us to go further North for them. Um, so, uh, we're, We have a very great working group for the conditions we're dealing with.

Let me add one other thing on that that people don't understand. I didn't understand it until we had the meeting with the county. you are in charge of these rescue things there's only one one group and that's us that's in charge of the thing those people are help you in terms of the stuff like putting the boat in and everything else because one of the concerns was if you got multiple people trying to do multiple things out there so basically you they know they got to go in they know they got to do that stuff but you are in charge of maintaining the safety of our beach correct absolutely Because I think that's one thing when we talked to the county about it, they were absolutely understood that, did not want to interfere with what we were doing, understood you can't have two commanders out there when there's an emergency. And like I said, when you filled us in, when we met with the county on that kind of stuff, I think that was made clear, and they 100% support us on that. So thanks, Chief.

Great.

Police Chief? Sorry, I can't let you go. Chief, as you're walking up, obviously we're coming in We're coming into the 4th of July, our busiest weekend of the year, America 250. There's a lot going on. As far as police department preparation for the weekend, it's kind of an all-hands-on-deck type situation for the community to know. To stress to the community, too, I know Onslow County put out a thing as far as when to call 911, stressing, listen. People are going to be lighting fireworks off. There's no way the police department's going to be able to respond to it. But when fingers and hands get blown off, then you can call 911, those sort of situations. They did it comically, but realistically. Could you just briefly talk about the police department's staffing up your message to the community as we lead into this in your new role?

Sure, I appreciate it. Yeah, so we are bringing in the entire police department. So right now, with July 4th weekend, we've got what we call our A-shift, who's actually on duty, and they were already scheduled to be on duty day and night. And then we're bringing in our B-shift. They're going to be taking care of beach patrol. They're working extra duty at the Jazz Fest. I've actually got some reserve officers that have come in from various parts of the country, if you can believe that or not. and they're going to be helping us to just make sure what what we always try to do and we've done this for years on fourth of july weekend is we want every call to have a maximum response and that helps us to keep things under control because if we can get as many hands as possible on every call as soon as it drops or as soon as possible afterwards It usually keeps things from escalating. As far as fireworks go, yeah, everybody out here is shooting off fireworks. We know, and we're going to get to them as soon as we can. If there are priority calls that are pending, we're going to take those first. And I'll be here the entire week, so if you need something, come see me.

As always, thank you and your officers for what they do.

I appreciate it.

All right.

We did approve the agenda. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? All right.

So Deb and Brady got were pulled away. So I will be, um, presenting this item on their behalf. Uh, we have a request for wider rate, right of way encroachment to construct a private beach access. Um, Mr. Rail has asked that, um, the board consider, uh, continuing the item until the September 2nd. Board of Alderman meeting. Um, he had prior commitments that restricted him from being able to be here, be here. Um, however, the board is, um, does have the authority to approve or deny this request here. Um, it's, it's really up to the board on whether or not they'd like to hear it now, or if they'd like to wait, is this the one we, uh, we have already continued prior. Yes.

What's the feeling? I'd make a motion to continue it. I think it's fair to give the resident an opportunity, given his appearance before the planning board. I would make a motion then to table it until the September 2nd, 2026 Board of Aldermen meeting. Okay. So I hear a second.

Second.

All in favor? Aye. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Chris is going to have to call in. Okay. So what I asked Chris to do, we've been talking about what to file under the shallow draft, I think, on Don's team. And the whole idea of this thing is he wanted to make sure we crossed our T's and dotted our I's that we had proved him going ahead and filing this thing, which is the first step to getting the money for that. And Chris, just, you know, I don't know how much, we've gone over this many, many times. Chris, can you just tell us what's the number that you've got that you're going to be filing?

um i'm gonna i'm i'm sorry um mr mayor i don't have the exact number but it is roughly 33 million dollars that we're going to be asking for from the shallow jet okay that's uh 40 go ahead 45 45 is the estimated total project cost uh 45 and change um conservatively and so we're going to be asking for 33 um i would expect that we will be getting We may not get the full 33, but I would expect we would get somewhere between 22 and 33 back.

And that's consistent with, I think, what Doug's going to be presenting to us, Doug, and our quant guy and that kind of stuff. I just want to make sure that what we are filing here is consistent. And if you remember, Chris had some issues, I think we talked about in the last meeting, about what the state thought might be eligible or not. So basically what you're telling us, you're going to ask for the maximum amount and anticipate we'll get less than the 33 we're asking for. But you might as well ask for everything we can get, right? Yeah.

You don't get any presents unless you tell somebody it's your birthday.

Is that a technical term?

That is a very technical term. One of my mentors, first day in the office, first day of my career, told that one to me. So, yes, sir.

So do we need a motion to authorize him to make the filing? Is that what we should do? All right. Do I hear a motion to authorize Chris to make a filing for the shallow drift fund on our behalf?

Motion.

Hang on. At a number at his discretion around $33 million. In case he wants to fine tune and ask for more.

I'm never going to remember all that, but whatever I just said, all in favor.

I'm sorry. Any other discussion? Cause we've talked about this for a while. Chris just wanted to make sure that we were all on board. Thank you, Chris.

All right.

All in favor. Okay. All opposed. All right. Thanks, Chris.

Yes, sir. One quick thing before I go. is that there will be a resolution, a formal resolution when we submit that the alderman will have to sign off on. And I will bring that before the board here very shortly.

Okay. So, um, as part of this motion, should we say that, um, be authorized to sign that on behalf of the town? Otherwise we're waiting until August.

I'll make a motion that the mayor can sign that resolution so that Chris can move forward with the application.

If we can just modify the motion, if we could amend the amendment, amend the motion to authorize the mayor to sign the resolution, um, to authorize the submission to the shallow draft. grant fund subject to attorney and manager review. Perfect. Is that fine? Is that what you said?

Yes. Let's make that change to my motion.

Do I hear a second?

Second. I'll second my own motion.

All in favor? Aye. Thanks. Yeah, I don't want to hold it up for a month waiting for a signature. Thanks, Chris.

For the record, who seconded that one? Mark. Okay.

Kip. Okay. All right.

As long as it wasn't Laura again.

Does anybody want a five-minute break? Are we good? All right. While you're getting ready, do you want to take a five-minute break so people can use the facilities? Are we okay?

Just when you got up there. That's right. Give them the clicker. Give them the clicker.

I'm going to get some more water.

We really appreciate this, and just as an introduction to everybody that has not dealt with Doug and his family before, they were instrumental in doing SOBs for us before. They were instrumental in us refinancing stuff and being in the financial position that we are now. We saved Connie millions of dollars in interest and payments, and we have one more payment in, where's Wayne? November? November. And then we've cleaned out all that beach debt. So, Doug, we really appreciate the work you've done for us. And if you can bring in financing at 2%, we're going to be very happy with you today. Gosh.

We're going to try. Okay, cool. You're going to bring this up for us? The PowerPoint. Yes. And the deferred costs will come later. Preferred costs. Okay? Will you run it for me?

The little clicker's not here.

Oh, that's fine. OK. Well, I could have sent you a non-PDF version. OK. Good to be here today. Next slide, please. the town board has discussed for quite a while but this board in particular is very into forecasting cost revenues cost and then the impacts of those forecast how do we manage those impacts uh... we're engaged right now our firm together with your staff and Wayne and his staff have been, I love the Lux title. When I saw Noreen's last name, I said, you've hired a Lux person. That means top, you know. So we've been working together on numbers they've provided. I've seen the budget, I've seen cash reports. A lot of data's been provided and they'll be an integral part of next steps. So we're gonna discuss primarily today the general fund model. the Beach Fund, Fund 30 model, and then I'm gonna talk to you about setting fund balance policies for the General Fund and the Beach Fund, because without those policies, we're not gonna effectively use the fund balances and cash that we presently have, okay? Just so you'll know, I think we can shift to the next slide. Well, let's shift back, I'm sorry. We're probably going to be back to you in the fall time frame. I want to get my hands around the budget. I've reviewed it. I want to do more analysis of prior budgets and how we ended the year. I mean, the bottom line is until you really figure out the efficiency of the expenditure of the budget, particularly if you see patterns, It's an effective way to be able to make projections on what happens to future budgets, what kind of increases will be necessary, those kinds of things.

Just real quick as a clarification, Chris is going to be filing filing the shallow draft. So by then, he'll have a better idea. Because I know your model has made some assumptions in it which look reasonable. But then you'll have a better model. Because it looks like unless the state somehow gets religion and this individual gets off us on that, on the disposal area, we're not going to know anyway. So is that kind of what your timing is? You'll be able to do the budget, you'll be able to do that, and then from the shallow draft we'll get an idea. Plus you'll have our final balance sheet.

Right, that's correct. Yeah, I want to get my hands around the numbers in the audit. Then we'll look at the beach fund with particular emphasis currently on the one, two, and three reaches and how we fund improvements to those reaches. Now, just as you said, Mr. Mayor, I don't know whether that's going to be this year or next year, but I've done an analysis that says what financial position are you in if it were done this year, okay? We'll do that, and then we're going to, and this is probably also a fall timeframe, be looking for a path forward for future renourishment cost and how you're going to fund that. As you know, there's a 30-year plan. You discussed the 30-year plan in 2023 to nourish the beaches. You must have a plan, must have adopted a plan, so that you will, during... beach storms and fema applications be able to receive fema cash sufficient to build your beaches back to their proper bases and so that is a very important part of the overall beach planning there was a report to you in 2023 where y'all all y'all own in 2023 i've lost track of time Have y'all seen those reports? If you haven't, they're available to send to you. Um, I, I reviewed both of them. There was a report and then an update. I'm going to show you a chart out of the 2023 update.

Let's see. I think that should have been on the bias. It should be in the bisect link in the town too, right? Yes.

So the five year and the 30 year plan set by the, or recommended by the bisect are both available.

I would encourage you if you have not to read them. Um, The big part of our work to be done now into the fall time frame, we've been on the phone with Chris more than once, the manager, folks from finance. I'm going to go over the numbers and a little bit of future cost estimates, but we're trying to get our arms around the one, two, and three, but the bigger job is going to be how do we afford the re-nourishment inside the 30-year plan, okay? And then the fund balance policies.

All right, sir. Thank you.

Okay. First of all, we all know the term unassigned fund balance. I hope we do because under state law, unassigned fund balance is the only fund balance you can appropriate. So all the cash that you have in this city is not cash that's available through unassigned. So we're gonna focus on setting financial policies on the part of your fund balance that you can appropriate as a board, okay? So just wanna put that term there. You'll see multiple fund balance titles when you see the annual audit or the annual financial report, but by statute, the unassigned is your free cash, your available cash to appropriate.

And sorry to interrupt you, just real quick so I understand this. In the past, we have moved money between funds. You have. Right. We have.

And there's nothing, for most funds you may do that.

Right. So if there's something in one of the funds, I'm making this up, in 10, that we wanted to move to the beach fund. Mm-hmm. Is it a permanent thing? Because we took money. We had the issue that preceded you guys coming on here that stopped Chris from doing something because it was not sitting in the right account. And so we moved money into the correct, even though we had plenty of cash. Is there any flexibility in that as you're doing this? or is it basically just making sure we meet the statutory requirements?

As long as there's no restriction by your own policy that you have not modified, nor a restriction by state law, then you can move money among funds. But you have to be cognizant of the law and any restrictions that you have formed internally that you don't violate your own policy. Now, you can change it, but you would need to change the policy and then move the money. Right, right. Well, and I'm going to talk to you about moving money, too, now that we're going to talk about policies, okay? Because I think most governmental entities have fund balance policies. for most of their primary funds. They are generally for operating funds or funds that operate with cash that is repetitively used. The two funds that you have that are the most prominent in this juxtaposition is the general fund and the beach fund. That's why we've singled them out to start. I'm happy, I remember in the old days when I was working for the town, There was really not much of a beach fund, and it was just kind of all over the place. You have a real beach fund. I call it beach fund. I think y'all have got a more formal name, but it's Fund 30. So let's talk about the general fund. My recommendation to you as your financial advisor, take it as you will, is that you set a policy to maintain an unassigned fund balance one year of annual revenues. That would be not appropriated revenues, but revenues that are real. As an example, if you appropriated fund balance, that's not a real revenue. That's a one-time thing. the annual revenues of the general fund, and you would maintain an unassigned fund balance, 100% of that, okay?

I apologize for this. When you say 100% of revenues, if I was looking at our income statement, those would be the revenues coming into Fund 10, not total fund, not total town revenues, correct?

You really have to set policies by fund. And so right now we're talking about the general fund, which is your Fund 10. That's correct, Mr. Mayor. Right now, it's in the range. I'm a big rounder. I love some of the earlier things when we talked pennies. I'm a financial guy that doesn't talk past $100,000. So basically, that's roughly $10 million out of your current budget. We can look at the audit for this year, so you would set that as your fund balance policy, okay? As other part of the policy, and we can submit to you written policies if you want them. We've done them for multiple of our clients. And then on an annual basis.

Trey, would that be something that would make sense to have him send the policies into us to look at? Is that a consent? Is that okay with everybody? Yes. At least that's a starting point.

I'm sorry. I was hearing a noise. I didn't know what it was. we're clearing with the council that's a good way to start this thing is to have if you can send us what you've got that would be great i'll provide those my hope is in the future that you will put them in the annual budget so because you have them in the annual budget by fund you would affirm the policy each year most of our clients and most of the large cities that do this as part of the annual budget process okay so once we audit every year My recommendation of that policy is once you've exceeded 100% of revenues of the previous fiscal year, any excess in the general fund be moved to Fund 30. I'm going to be frank with you guys. In North Carolina, because it's a very strong financial management state, and I remember this back to the days when I was Chief Financial Officer of the City of Charlotte, sometimes fund balances would just get really big. I'm a firm believer that once you've established fund balance policies, when you exceed those policies, you effectively use the money that you've exceeded by, okay? So that really sort of recycles excess fund balance and doesn't have people walking in saying, oh my God, you've got all this money, what are you doing with it? Well, the point is you're keeping 100% of revenues, and every year after the audit, you move the excess to the beach fund. Now, by that policy, the way we would write it is to say that is your first place to use it. You could use it on a one-time basis for other things, okay? But that's the way the policy is written. So I would recommend 100%. That's about 10 million. After audit every year, you move the rest to the beach fund because you're gonna find out in a little bit that our most money need is in the beach fund, okay?

And again, I know I'm getting ahead of us, but we also have the capital fund, which is fund, Wayne? 12. 12. So, you know, I mean, what you're telling us is our biggest expenditure going forward is going to be the beach. from a capital standpoint.

Yes.

So move all excess funds into that, and that's why you're over the 25% that the LGC likes, right?

Well, let me get into that. OK, so what is the proper measurement of how much fund balance you ought to have in the general fund? If you're a city of Raleigh, a city of Charlotte, a city of Monroe, others that we've worked with, in current days, people look in the 20% to 25% range. of the revenues, what percentage of that do you keep in an assigned fund balance. If you want to retain a AA or higher rating with rating agencies, it better be that high because otherwise you may not have been retaining enough to be a really AA or AAA top, top, top city. So basically, right now I see most people in the 25% range. So why am I asking you to be higher, right? We're a financial advisor to the city of Asheville. We were their advisor when they received all three AAAs for their general fund. Can you imagine a city that went bankrupt in 1920 that now has AAAs from all three rating agencies? When we made the presentation to council for the first triple, I said, so you can figure this out. It takes a hundred years from 1920 to 2020 basically to get back. So let's not do that again. But my point is, cash is king for a beach community. And as you know, we do a number of beach communities as advisor. When the storm comes through and Wayne has to start writing checks, he may not have a dime of anybody's grant money, not a dime. And so we have to make sure that you can tap through appropriations a fund balance in the general fund that we hope to reimburse or a fund balance out of the beach fund. So as the mayor's heard me say since I've known the mayor, cash is king. If you're a beach community and you don't have cash, in my personal opinion, you're in trouble. So I want you to have 10 million bucks sitting there that goes up every year based upon your revenues and then the extra amount you move over. So if you have a huge event, you can appropriate money and your finance director can start writing checks.

Okay, so that would be even the FEMA stuff is reimbursable. What you're saying is even if they sign off on the project, okay. He has to write a check before you get a dime. And you might help us put SOPS in place, but what you're saying is you better have the cash ready so you can get out there as fast as you can. Correct. Does that also help by having that, and you're talking about your AAA rating, when you're looking at getting financing for us, that's going to help us in the financing?

Oh, the banks are going to love that you have policies and that you've shown positive financial performance. Absolutely. No question. So that is my recommendation with respect to the general fund. We'll provide some policies. I would vote that you approve the policy now and then put it in the budget for the next budget. Let's not wait a year kind of thing, okay? Okay, now let's talk about the beach fund. Now I'm going to tell you in a minute how much money you got, like right now. Subject to audit, Wayne. I think we discussed that on the phone the other day. And subject to Deborah's report, I mean, there's so many numbers moving around. I mean, it's scary. But I think... Oh, I know. And it's in the cash account. Okay, what about the unassigned fund balance for the beach fund, the other big fund? Mr. Mayor, you mentioned a capital projects fund and all of that. Typically, capital projects funds do not have formal fund balance policies. What they do have, and I'm going to give you an example, we have a capital projects fund for the money we borrowed for the fire department, for the new fire station. If we don't spend all that money and we have signed the closeout on the project and we have excess money, it should not sit in that account forever because it's just unproductive, not unproductive, I'm not educated in Iredell County, nonproductive cash. Also, you have laws and regulations. If you have those proceeds left over, you have to reappropriate it for a project that's consistent under your bond documents or you must use it to pay debt service. So on your capital projects, your non-recurring operating funds, they don't have fund balance policies. They should have another policy. If we talk about this ultimately, I hope annually your finance department will give you an accounting of where we are on capital project expenditures and do we have any money that we can move somewhere else because a project has been finished. Okay. Here's my deal on the unassigned fund balance in the Beach Fund. It's my hope that we can retain another 100% level, okay? That's approximately $6 million, so that between the two funds, you would have $16 million available to you in a humongous emergency. And you could appropriate, because it's unassigned fund balance, you can sign an appropriation ordinance, if you all vote it, immediately to spend the money. outside the annual operating budget. You can make a budget amendment at any time. Now, what that would do is, once we hit $6 million, all the money left in that fund is free to your appropriation use for projects, for reserves. We're going to talk about reserves a little bit later. And you'll receive every year, hopefully, money because you've exceeded your 100% revenues in the general fund, and there'll be money that will move over that can be productively used in what is the biggest part of your economy. It's called the beach. Without the beach, you wouldn't have an economy, frankly. And you've got a great one. So, what do we currently have in the beach fund? Where are we if we implemented all of these policies, okay? And this is estimated. We've got to get an audit. Wayne and his folks are new. We just, we want to get the audit under our belt and all of that sort of thing. But currently, um, we have about $5 million we could move from the general fund to meet our policy and subject to audit and move it into the beach fund. Okay. we're going to have approximately $17 million. Somebody mentioned earlier that y'all had moved some money or something. Have y'all already moved money from Fund 31 back to Fund 30?

They approved the budget amendments yesterday, so it is approved.

I have not done it. Is it all $17 million?

Yes.

Yeah. But here again, subject to audit because right now it's a little over $17 million. So if that's the good number, audited number, the fund currently has about $5 million in fund balance. Now, folks, it had big old fund balances before, but you had all that FEMA money you had to spend, and you weren't getting the FEMA money back until May and June of this year. So right now, unaudited, you're going to hear the audited number later, there's about $27 million that you can put into that fund. Five from the general if you adopt the policy, 17 from fund 31, and then it currently has $5 million. Okay?

And, Wayne, right now the cash we're looking at in your thing today is the 51, but that's less the 3? that went out back to the state, or is that including the three? Because that was on the 26th or something.

I didn't know if there was a... Yeah, the three that went back to DEQ, was it already done?

Okay. So you'll tie back those numbers because the number in my head is 51, all right? And so... Now, if you say there's 10 in 10, that's still 41, so that 14 delta, you can work with him to figure out where that is, Wayne?

Yeah. Well, that's hence the new audit. I'm hoping there's a little extra money, but I don't want to tell you all about extra money I don't know about, because... Council members tend to remember those numbers and want to spend them, don't you? So bottom line, I see in the range of 27. If we keep a policy of six, that gives us about $21 million. Okay? All right. Next slide, please. I'm sorry. Yes, sir. Can I ask you a question?

Twenty-seven is as of today. So in theory, if we put the current budget, it puts six in.

Mm-hmm.

As you're saying...

if we don't do reaches one two and three or a big project yes presumably now I think the cash already reflects some of that but here again we got an audit for you but you're technically correct if that right now the general that the the beach fund budget has roughly five million once we pay off the last debt service payment and what y'all call available for additional projects it's in the five million range So technically that $5 million is there available for debt service or for projects. What I'm going to speak to you about is how do we fund reaches one, two, and three. Okay? Because I felt in talking with the manager and Mr. Mayor hearing you on a phone call or two, while we don't have final answers until audits and things of that nature, y'all deserve to know where do we see the position right now so that you can enter into a thought process of funding, the rapidness of that funding, what happens if it happens really quick, that kind of thing, okay? I'm still sort of out there on the terminal groin and figuring out if that money's in 44, the 44 million, the project cost we've been seeing. I don't think it is, right?

Because the EIS is theoretically going to come out in September, and then you've got notice period, and you've got, Connie, how much litigation is going to tie this up? What was it? The one that said Oak Island that lasted, what, seven or eight years? Yeah. So that is not in the 44 because we made the fundamental decision that as a town, we wanted to go ahead and get a beach project done and not wait for that project. And what Chris told us in the earlier meeting was that they're not mutually exclusive. So we didn't want to wait for the very north end for one to get done, hoping that the groin got done because then they wouldn't have sand.

He's got just over $5 million in his budget that we're going to look at in a minute that he showed in 2023 for terminal groin. I presumed that was the money, but I just wanted to sort of hear y'all's feedback.

That's the number I've heard him talk about.

Okay, fine. Okay, so now is $44 million cost achievable? Bless his heart, he just added a million on it on the last phone call. First time I'd heard 45. I'm calling Chris and say, Chris, I want to hear 43, not 45. That's a joke. So how do we fund all of that? What happens, okay? When talking with Chris, he said for safety's sake in making this presentation, let's assume we get a 50% grant or apply for and potentially receive a 50% grant to fund the $44 million. Okay? Okay, so alternative one in how we fund the three reaches is one, We borrow $22 million from special obligation bonds and leave all the cash. Now, remember for a minute, this is assuming you get $22 million, all right? We issue SOBs for $22 million and keep all of our $27 million in the fund, okay? Yeah, and we're going to talk a little bit at the back end about it. Dylan's going to do that. Okay, so the second alternative is we could use all our cash, spend down to what is basically our policy, and not issue the SOBs, okay? I don't like getting down to our policy, exactly. I just think, I just, I want us to have more cash, okay? Because in a minute when you see this report, we're going to need a good deal of cash in the future, all right? Now, the alternative that's sort of the one that gives all of us a little heart problem is what if we get no grant funding? And I don't mean this to sound wrong, but we can't go to sleep on it tonight and just assume it. We're all just crossing ourselves hoping it happens, but we don't know. I wanted to present an alternative to you that said it looks like at $44 million and it's a first priority for you, I know, at least what I've heard. Can we move forward? The answer, subject to our audit, is yes. Okay? We would do that by taking $22 million in SOBs and we would take our fund balance of 22 million, leaving us at about our policy minimum, and we could fund the 44 million out of those two sources. Okay? So I think you ought to feel good that we're really close on having the funding if you don't get a grant, but it would put us and that's why I made a big third point, without the grants, the beach fund, it's gonna have funding shortfalls. I'm gonna talk to you about funding needs as it is, because we're gonna have to look at how we do those. And basically, so you'll know, if we borrow SOBs of 22 million and borrow it for six years, that takes our capacity from the fund for six years. which is why I'm hoping that you're going to spend all the money going in. Yes, sir. Yeah, that's correct. Um, we do not have the money to do this without issuing sobs unless you robbed the general fund, had no fund balance in the beach fund. Go back to where we used to be. I don't think you want to go there. And so bottom line is alternative three can get us there. All right. Assuming the 45 doesn't keep going higher, right?

What changed for us? When you go back to when I first met you, this is not possible.

Oh, I mean, I genuinely worried about it for a while because, you know, you just think, where's the money coming from?

But, I mean, even to get to this point in this short period of time is incredible.

Yeah, I want you to feel semi-comfortable until we get the audit that y'all can do the $44 million project. If you see it as a priority and you want to spend that money, I think we can retain our minimum fund balances that we're having in our policy and do the $44 million. Okay? Underline, I think, and subject to audit.

Now, granted, it's $44 million. Are we basing that off of having it done this season or it getting pushed off two seasons? No, that's Chris's estimate. Okay.

And I think one of the reasons it's gone down is, believe it or not, the demand for some of these dredges has dropped. And so he thinks that depending on how fast we can get contracts and stuff in place. And the other thing, Mark, and we're looking at fixed numbers, and Doug's talked about this. If you remember, the other thing we talked about is, for example— We still do one, two, and three, but instead of a $44 million one, is there a smaller one that we could do to fund and still make them engineered beaches? And so that's another alternative that we're not asking to look at, right? Because if he comes back to us and says, I'm really not comfortable because we don't have any other funding, What can you do for 36? I'm just making that up. Exactly. And both Chris and Fran have talked about ways to, you know, instead of putting down 10 inches, you're putting down 6 inches, but still get all the phases done at the same time and still be considered an engineered beach. So that's the sidecar to what he's doing.

Our goal is to always keep them engineered so that FEMA comes in with dollars because, folks, the storms will come. We just hope not frequently. Yeah, knock on something. Okay, so that's kind of the plan subject to some more work. I anticipate with management staff, finance staff, with Chris in the room with us, it's going to take us several meetings to get a comfort level on funding and timing, okay? Now, can we pull up what is called the preferred beach management option? It's a different one, please. And then we'll bring this one back up. It's preferred option cost. This came from the 2023 report, okay? What Chris has told us on the phone call is that, of course, these costs are three years old, roughly, two and a half to three years old. The cost did not include planning. So they're off 8% to 10% to start with. On a call we had recently, Mr. Manager, you will remember, we asked Chris to go to work to update these costs because when these costs become updated, we'll be able to look at a plan. We'll now have five reaches done. 44 will be done. The other reach, four and five, were done. then we've got to look at a funding plan for how we keep them in the 30-year plan and how we keep the beaches at a level such that when the storm comes, we get engineered beach reimbursement.

And just real quick, if you look at where he's got the groin, which is in 28, I think the other reason it's 5 is because it assumes the beach has already been fixed. Yeah. Because I think the original number we saw that, and I know Susan Meyer's out there when she was on the board, that's a lot lower number than we thought, Susan, because it was going to be a standalone project, right? Yeah.

Done together, hopefully it's doing a better efficiency. Right. Folks, let me tell you about these numbers. I kidded Chris on the phone and said, next time I'll do your spreadsheet for you. This attempts to do a cash flow analysis for you, okay? It takes 4.2 million of the revenues out of the beach fund, takes under the further column expenses, assumes grants for approximately 50%, and some loans and assumes, cause I said to Chris on the phone, what are these years without any definition? I mean, what is that? And he said, that's just an accumulation of the cash by virtue of the revenue. We're not going to do it that way. We're going to look at what you need to fund. We're going to take the budget and say, this is what you've got to have for operations. The beach fund must budget for operating and maintenance cost of the beach. And here will be the excess we have. Now it's right at $5-ish million. I want to look at the former budgets and the actual performance to see if we've got any more of that based upon whether we've been stewards of the budget and been conservative in projections. So if you look at this, what this basically tells us is, is that roughly every five years, now he's got the first one in 29. I also said to him on the phone, I think we're off in years. 16 million bucks for one, two, and three. When we do four and five, $24 million to do the renourishment, okay? What we have to do for you, just as we did on the one, two and three reaches, Chris has five years and our other beach clients, we've been really seeing re-nourishment more on a six year cycle. Because if they're done right to start with firming is correct, grassing is correct, walls, the metal wall, I'm not a beach guy, but you know, the walls are there to hold, if you've done it right, what we've been seeing is about six years, not five years,

on the re-nourishments. You mentioned before the LGC will not go beyond six years in any kind of funding anyway. That was an uphill battle you had last time.

Here's the deal, and I'm just saying this. If we could prove that it happened more than once, that the way you nourished your beaches and cared for them with your operating costs throughout the year, that you could do it seven years, and keep your status with FEMA. We could probably get that done, but it would have to be shown more than one year. So six has been the customary that you've seen over a plethora of these beaches. And so that's why six has sort of been their standard. I want to look at this with Chris and see if we feel more comfortable with a six-year cycle than a... I don't get all the dates, and I'm not saying that's bad. I'm just saying I've got to understand all this, and we just started this, our work group, not long ago. So there's still work to be done to figure all that out. So the next thing, hopefully, as I said to you earlier on in the fall, we'll bring you back a plan that says... Here's what it looks like you've got to fund. It's going to be higher than these costs because we know they're low and we may have some inflation. We've got to figure that out. Here's what we have to fund. If we get the $22 million, which is why I'm so hopeful and I'm a glass half full kind of person, it would leave us in such a strong position, right? We'd have $27 million in the fund to start with. Six is policy, $21 million or so to play with. use in conjunction with other borrowings and so that's going to also bring a great deal to the table on how what's the efficiency and what's the need currently folks unless we get all these grants and i wish i were more positive about getting them i see the state grants the state budget and i see the federal budget and folks they're tight and so bottom line We're going to bring you something back. We'll probably need to do it in a day when y'all have taken a nerve pill. Joke. To just look at it and say, here are the what ifs. We'll identify with and without grants. things of that nature. And we'll identify for you how much additional revenue needs to flow into the Fund 30 to pay for all of this. And I'm just going to say to you, although I don't know it yet, because I honestly don't, it's going to take some more money. There's just not enough money that's coming.

And that's why, to your point, it is critical that we have those funding policies in place. Absolutely. So we know where the money's going. And so if we know we only need, I'm using 10, in fund 10, then you know where the rest of it is.

I'm hoping you're going to have 13, you know, that you're going to have a real efficient budget and we're going to move 3 million over. so we're going to look at the ideas to have fluid fluidity between them that is correct if you don't have a general fund policy and we don't move the money it's just what ifs with a real policy we can make assumptions and look in the future as to what's happened and that's why i want to study more than one year's budget i want to look at how much you carry forward every year because i trust and i believe i've spoken to larry once about this you've got a your budget has reasonable assumptions in it. It isn't stretched to the max kind of thing, if you get my drift.

Can I ask a quick question? Not to get into all the what-ifs today, and we haven't taken our nerve pill, but my concern is if we make policy and we had to put X amount of money per year, that one year when that storm does hit us, Are we going to have the flexibility to move that money around, or are we going to be handcuffed by policy to put it somewhere else?

Remember what he's talking about is, and I'll let you finish, the idea behind this is if you've got that $10 million there in Fund 10, plus we would have excess in the beach fund, if there was an event, that came through. First off, it would generally be FEMA reimbursement. If it wasn't, then we've got a different issue. But the whole idea is to be able to not do what happened the last time in this town is we didn't have the cash to front the project to get it back. So the reason he wants to build a tent in there is for that disaster, not for the day of operating stuff. Something bad happens. we can go out there and start working on it in a month or two, not waiting three years. Is that fair, Doug?

That's also what I'm saying, though, is after that year, we're still not where we need to be. Those funds, we still have the flexibility to move them where they need to go.

FEMA was the collateral for the loan. So we would probably ask Doug, the consensus of the board is, when we get into that kind of season, he would have a pretty good idea. as to what sobs we could get for a FEMA-type project so that it wouldn't take as long to go ahead and get that in place before we spent the money. Is that fair, Doug?

Yes, sir. Alderman Barefoot, you ask a very good question, and there's one element to that question that you were going for. I'm positive. Let's say we got $10 million in the general and $6 million in the beach. and we have a bad situation and Wayne writes $8 million worth of checks so the community can operate before we start getting any FEMA money, okay? Now, we have alternatives for getting that money back, although if you look at how long it took to get some of this other grant money back, don't be hoping it comes in one year. We would then have to amend our policy to say we're below the $10 million we want, we're down to say $5 million, and we want to reimburse that over the next X years. Because we don't want to end up almost call you councilman all the time. So if I slip up and say councilperson, please forgive me. Mr. Alderman, we're going to have to look at if there's multi-year storms, where are we? To be honest. We hope that doesn't happen, but we've got to think ahead.

Right. And also, Mark, and we've talked about this as a board, the reality of this thing is none of us know what's going to happen during this period of time. And so it's great to talk about we're going to do all these projects and stuff. but as you know from being around here, you have multiple storms, you have those type of things. Board's just gonna have to step back and say, what do we get done? And it might be, instead of being a re-nourishment after six years, we just say, we're gonna have to postpone that re-nourishment for a couple years to refill the buckets.

Well, I just know in the past years we had some money that was policy-driven and had to stay in that bucket. I want to be able to move water from one bucket to the other.

Mr. Alderman, under your policy for an unassigned fund balance maintained in the two major operating funds, you may appropriate that as well at any time legally. You just want to plan to make sure it comes back up to its level. Is it sitting there as a temporary thing? Is it a permanent thing? Okay. that's why as we talked through this and had some conversations i'm just not comfortable with that about fifteen million dollars sitting there that's available to you about sixteen actually right and the other thing just real quick that

And I think he was making a joke at the beginning. We talk about cash being king. The reason he wants to put debt in there is because then you've got the cash, right? And if you spend the cash, you don't have it available for those times.

Well, folks, y'all simply don't have cash to do the project without debt. If you don't get a grant, you have to have debt. Or you, as I said earlier, you'll extinguish all your fund balances and

be on a prayer kind of thing but and this will go also to our emergency operations plan with a name stormed in a state of emergency week the board can also adopt a policy as to what our spending policy is during an emergency that is absolutely correct good point good point

Alderman. So anyway, what we want to come back to you on when we've really figured this out with the engineers and got the numbers where we think they're current numbers, we're going to come back to you and say, how do we fund all this? Every six years, you can issue another roughly $25 million in debt with the five you've got. So it's a circular resource. But that circular resource, unfortunately, is not big enough to do all five reaches, okay? So the question becomes how much grants do we, I wanna put y'all in a position so you can take a piece of paper to your elected officials and say, I gotta have help keeping my economy going. And we've already got a policy of keeping 16 million in our fund balances. We've funded these with taxes. Y'all gotta help us or the state is gonna lose one of its major revenue producers called the beach. I want people to be in a position to say, this is why we need your help. It isn't simply because we're pulling a number out of the wind. I think it armors you a lot better if you have that. Now, I say it's fall. It could go beyond fall. It's just going to depend on how quick we get all of this and figure it out. Y'all good on that? I'm also hoping we can move the re-nourishments to six years instead of five. I think that'll have an impact.

That's a fundamental change, too. That would be good. Any idea, and I know I'm putting you on the spot, you got some really low-cost stuff before. I know we're not in that range anymore. Doug, but what are we, I mean, right now we're getting, where's Wayne, three, three and a half on our investments, right? Okay, what do you think we'd be borrowing?

The debt's going to be approximately the same for a six-year borrowing, okay? Pray that the Fed doesn't raise short-term rates next year. Now, the word is they're going to leave them where they are. They're probably not going to lower them. I read that the other day.

Yeah, me too.

So if they don't raise them, we're in the 350-ish range on your six-year money. I remember the days when it had been 1%. I wish we could go back to that.

I mean, and again, I'm looking at this very simplistically. If I'm getting 3.5 and I'm borrowing at 3.5, I'm borrowing at zero.

Well, true, because, yes, to be honest, that's true. That's why you wouldn't use your cash. Yeah, yeah.

I had a question, because you mentioned Chris's spreadsheets versus what you'd like to put together. Can we get to the point where Chris is using one that you're using? That's where he's going. Yeah, I mean. But can we look to doing that for just ease of everybody with numbers?

Well, let me say this, Alderman. With y'all's agreement, I'm going to say to Chris, it's my spreadsheet, you give me the data to it. So that it's something that you can get. It's got to be in your model. I don't mean that in a mean way. No, but it's got to be in your model because you're the only ones that understand it. Numbers spreadsheets should be numbers people, I think, with inputs from...

people right he can give you source data and then we that is correct that is okay that's correct all right and we're not gonna argue about it we just say we need a model that's consistent going for that that's correct I think the key the key key element that is communication between

The engineer people, the finance people. And I'm not sure why it didn't happen before, what, two weeks ago?

He's still building the sheets. And also, remember, this thing was put together in 23.

Well, a plan that I'm going to recommend to your new manager, presuming your new manager wants to do this, This whole, the general fund, its policy, where we see the general fund going and funding based upon various changes in costs and other things that will come out of the model that Dylan has already started, we ought to talk about the beach model. This needs to be updated every year to say, here's what it was, here's what it is now, here's how that's impacted. I'm going to finish with this. It's my hope if we can have some money left in the fund and we can generate a couple of million a year or more out of efficiencies in the general fund that we can have reserves established inside the beach fund so that we can use both pay go and borrowed money to do your renourishments. Okay? And I think what we need to do inside the beach fund, when we hit our $6 million and it's over $6 million, what do we do with it? I want you to reserve it for future renourishment rather than somehow it just sits there and somebody one day says, that's money, let's do this. Well, the priority's got to be the renourishment cost.

Well, and I think that's something, and I remember... Speaking actually with Ocean City. I was asked that question about well, where's the cash? Why are you not giving it back? And the answer is none of this happens if we don't have this cash So we've got nothing to us when this was put together at BISAC. It was understood It's a living document that it has to be that I

Well, it has to be updated, I think, annually or biannually or something.

But I think it was waiting to figure out what the projects were. So this has to be updated. It should be looked at, just like we do the beach every year.

Well, this goes 30 years. Now, I don't know about you all, but I don't trust a single number past about five. I question it past three. But you have to have a plan. You have to update that plan, blah, blah. Okay? Okay. Any more on this? I just want all y'all to know that wasn't there for the discussion. I'm sure there was some. There's been work on cost. The work that hasn't been done through no one's fault is how do we pay for it? And that's what we're going to help you look at, okay? And y'all are not going to shoot the messenger in these conversations, right?

Look at the manager. I'm just glad we can have a discussion. We've got funds available to even have this discussion.

Okay, that was the one we just did. So let's go to the next slide. I think I've just done that. I just did that. Okay, Dylan's going to talk to you real quick because the mayor talks about the debt financing. He's going to do a two-year what is it and how do we do it.

Yeah, absolutely. Thanks again for your time today. We're just here to briefly discuss how exactly we can make the sausage here on getting this borrowing per Doug's alternative one that we discussed earlier today. According to North Carolina statute with assistance from the local government commission, there's really only two viable options. as a means to earn this $22 million or whatever it ends up being of beached nourishment or renourishment project fund. Option one is to vote in general obligation bonds. This is a longer process, often requires multiple credit ratings, usually a publicly offered deal. in juxtaposition to a special obligation bond which we know the town is familiar with not voted on towns issued him before and our firm has expertise uh including in this year we recently issued 13 million dollars of special obligation bonds uh in the town of nags had uh in addition to the beaches out in avondale and buxton as well uh using a very similar financing structure y'all know why i don't brag a lot Doug, I'm not even halfway through.

I got a call from Nags Head years ago, and they said we have to re-nourish We have to do geos or we have to pledge a fire truck or something to raise money and then use it over there. What a convoluted method is that? And that's when, through a lot of research, we determined that SOBS could be issued to do this. Without it, you'd have to vote this. Folks, it's months and months of process. Most geo bonds that are used for beach nourishment are voted by the county because they have this larger blah, blah. And there's some larger beach towns that have voted them, but I mean the big ones.

Absolutely. And as Doug mentioned, we're very proud to say that we have a lot of expertise in issuing special obligations, both across the state. Absolutely. Also here. So one thing that we thought it was prudent to highlight with special obligation bonds, and they're more of the lawyer side of how we structure them, is that we will require what's called an MSD or municipal service district, kind of what makes a special obligation bond the special part. With that, the actual amortization schedule of the debt does not change. However, it's important to note that this does not necessarily require a tax to go along with the MSD. So we often find that as long as we work closely hand in hand with the town's bond attorney, bond council, to ensure that reaches one, two, and three are covered and under this MSD, we can find that we can utilize a traditional privately placed structure for that.

One more interruption. I just spoke to your attorney as we walked in today. I forget the swath of the MSD that we did years ago. So we just need to look at the swath of it because it may need to be bigger.

Right, because Doug, didn't the town, this preceded me, you might know, but originally they were looking at a way down in five to put a special additional tax on that. And I think the board, when we were on it, said, We're one town. Okay, if we're going to do something in one, two, and three, the idea is not to have a different tax for them. And I think that was the original thing, right?

It was pretty ugly. It was pretty ugly. The citizens were very, and understandably so, very much unhappy with the thought of different tax rates at the different groups.

And even within, I think, five, the issue then was, well, I'm on sound. Why am I going to get taxed for fixing Joe Smith's house on the oceanfront? It was not a very pleasant conversation.

Even more than that, if you had oceanfront houses, but then you had an area where there were no houses on the oceanfront, but the houses that were on the sound side, but there's no houses in front of them. I mean, it went on and on, and it was...

Wasn't that the origination that was a different tax rate too?

Well they wanted to do it as a different tax rate and then what ended up happening of course was We went into the phases for the beach.

Yeah, exactly. Let me say this, Mayor Pro Tempore, you bring up a good point. That is purely policy by every beach town. Unfortunately, we have a state statute, and to this point in time, I can't figure out how it made the statute. Whether you're the city of Charlotte, who's issued many SOBs, or whether you're Town of North Topsail Beach, if you don't have an MSD in which the project occurs, you cannot issue SOPS. But you do not have to raise a tax. You must have the existence of the Municipal Service District. You are not obligated to tax out of that Municipal Service District.

Sure. All right. I'll go ahead and close out here. So as I mentioned, the amortization structure is going to be level principle. Over that six-year time period, as we discussed, we'll work to align the project funding and costs to hopefully work around that. With that, the way we generally do these, as we have in the past, is a private placement as opposed to a public offering. Fortunately, we actually have seen some positive competition in the space. Multiple banks are now bidding on these, which is competitively lowering rates beyond the traditional partners of PNC Bank that we've used in the past. Webster Bank and Regions have also come in strong in previous deals this past couple months. But yeah, final point.

And you're looking at the same basic rate depending, even if it was a FEMA versus, so basically they'd be looking at the same thing.

Theirs is a cost of funds thing. It's just about their cost of funds to lend more money.

Yeah, the way these banks kind of decide is based on cost of funds. And to be honest, part of it is a relationship with the town that they are hoping to cultivate through these. um yeah i'll close out then um so yeah final point on this is that these special obligation bonds can be issued in conjunction with fema grants and reimbursements we've done this in the past uh in a variety of beach towns here on the southern shore as well uh including the town itself so we feel comfortable that this methodology is and structure is the right way to go yeah there's two ways to use sobs to make it easy one to build frill projects

Build a beach or nourish a beach. The second way we can borrow under SOBs is to fund project costs before FEMA has reimbursed us. And you've had more than one SOB issued for that purpose. None of them are no longer outstanding because you got enough money in the beach fund to pay them off early.

Great. Any further questions on the financing structure here? Great. I think we can go to the final slide here and just close out. Any further questions for the rest of the presentation here?

All I would say is, and Connie just whispered this in my ear, thank goodness we have you guys involved in this because we have got, I've talked to other towns going on with this cluster, you know, what that's been going on with the property taxes, and there is a panic among all these things. And I think without your help, we would not be where we are today. So thank you.

Thank you. All right.

All right. You've got a question, Louie.

okay so moving forward like what are we looking forward to in the august you know in our at our august meeting i don't know your next steps and when we're going to hear from you again guys y'all are not going to hear from us again until probably november okay because we're starting we're going to hopefully be getting into some strategic planning before then yeah

When I come back to you again, I want to be safe enough in the numbers that we don't a month later say, oops.

Remember, he's got to have the audit information. We've got the audit contract.

It's going to be later than I want it to be, but when his folks is new, they're going through all of this. We've got to set a position. I'm a financial guy. I don't tell you wrong numbers.

So I guess just an update then on the work being done in the background at each of the meetings before we get a formal presentation.

We can update through the manager where we are. I'm hoping we'll set up some meetings with the engineers, that sort of thing. We haven't done that calendar yet. Larry, I hope you'll stay, but anyway, if you don't, y'all are going to have a new manager. Obviously, that manager has to be brought into this process. He gets it. He got this beach nourishment thing quick.

Thank you. Moving on, we have the Anybody want to ride to Charlotte, we're headed out. All right, thanks. Thank you.

Thank you. Stop at Noble Smoke.

Hey, hey. I do like that place.

I'll have to send you. I've got a good friend of mine that I play golf with, and I cannot remember the name of the restaurant that he is managing in Charlotte. Well, let me know. It's a tapas place that they reopened about a year ago. So I'll have to send it. I will. Thanks. See you all.

Mayor and Alderman, I'd like to offer some introductory remarks before deferring or introducing it. The purpose of the Emergency Operation Plan is to legalize the structure and execute a community-wide response to disasters while protecting residents and property. Because local governments are the first dollar and first responder line of defense, the plan serves as the official operational linkage between everyday municipal departments, community stakeholders, and federal aid. And this is a little bit of background. Your staff has collaborated over three or four work sessions in, if you will, a tabletop light exercise format, reviewing the roles and responsibilities for the different areas of the plan. We've updated portions of it and looked at the emergency contracts that needed to be either created or validated. The latter, reestablishing those contracts, continues to be an ongoing process. We've concluded the editing of the plan last week or so and have referred it to you formally for your consideration and hopefully your approval. And I'd like to defer to Chief to offer any additional insights on the scope of the plan

So high level, not a lot changed. In the previous EOP, we had a lot less staff, so we identified staff for positions. Now that we are fully staffed, we removed that, and it gives the town manager the authority to put the people in the correct places. That's pretty much the only change that happened in the EOP.

Are you satisfied with what you've got, Chief?

Yeah, I mean, we've been working on it pretty diligently.

No, I mean the plan itself. Are you satisfied with the plan and where we are?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's a good plan.

Okay. I just don't think I should be second-guessing, would you? Yeah, no, I mean...

So, for the board's knowledge, I know we had contracts in place, but can you tell us which contracts had to get renewed and...

So, uh, the one with the school system has to be renewed yearly. The library is being renewed. Uh, we're working on a fuel contract for services. Um,

I thought there was a debris or a trash one.

Tetra Tech, that was renewed. So all those vital, the motels and hotels contracts, stuff like that for housing in case of a major storm, stuff like that had to be renewed.

I think to Laura's point, I'm assuming we're going to approve it, but maybe in August just give us kind of a, when you report anything that's outstanding, okay, contract-wise. I don't think there'll be any issues with the county.

It's in the manager's report.

Oh, that's right. I meant, but in August, is it, you think everything will be? Well, we'll, we'll, we'll, we're happy to update you.

It is in, it is in the manager's report.

Okay. All right. So have we, did we do, we still haven't done for the citizens. Have we like a hurricane preparedness seminar? Like we've done in the past. Did we do anything for the citizens here at town hall? We wouldn't do it now.

Well, taking that suggestion one or two meetings ago, we've initiated effort. We've tried to coordinate. We've set forth a couple of dates from a planning perspective with stakeholders, and we haven't been able to get a date confirmed. The lead agency, if you will, is the National Weather Service. Eric, I believe, who participated two years ago, warmed up to the idea of doing it again, but we haven't gotten a date.

Do we need him to do this? What's that? Do we need him to do this, or can we not do something for our citizens without him?

I'll give you the contact.

Okay. Thanks. Cause I still think we should do something for the citizens, you know, to talk to them about their go bag, their reentry permit, their stuff to be prepared. Yeah.

I mean, that's part of it. We bring in the experts from Joey MC on losses. They can talk about the stuff that they need you to prep before an evacuation and everything. And then the town talks about like reentry passes, you know, security and everything else, why everyone is evacuated. So, okay.

And I know a lot of citizens, they think, you know, we've been to this before, but we have a lot of new residents every week. We have new residents that come in that have never experienced a hurricane.

All right. So let's at least go have a motion to approve.

Motion to approve.

Do I hear a second?

Second.

Any more discussion?

I just want to say I read through your emergency operation plan and it is very comprehensive. You guys all did a great job on it. And, um, I think that once it's online and people read it, they'll see that we just don't wing it. Thank you.

All right. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Thanks, Chief. Thank you, Chief. Larry, I think this is the audit contract.

Thank you, Mayor. Alderman S. Preston Douglas Associates has submitted their engagement letter and contract to the board for your review and approval for conducting the fiscal year 2025-2026 audit. The audit contract total amount is not to exceed $28,250. Preston Douglas and Associates will audit the financial statements of the governmental activities of each major fund and the aggregated remaining fund information, including related notes to the financial statements which collectively comprise the basic financial statements of the towns. for the year ending June 30th, 2026. Our requested action is to approve the contract with Preston Douglas and Associates in the amount of $28,250. Can I have a motion to approve?

I am too, I am too. Motion to approve? Motion to approve. Mayor, second?

Second.

Okay, just real quick. I'm assuming that on the motion, we want that subject to review by council and give you the authority to sign the contract? Is that what you're looking for?

I believe the audit contract, we've already looked at that, but to the extent that there's been any changes. It's just crossing T.I.

to make sure. And then the other thing, just as a comment, last year, because of some issues, it'd be nice to get this in. I mean, obviously, that's going to, whatever you guys can help to try to make sure we get it as early as we can. I know how it works. It's not in your control, my friend. All right. Laura, do you have a comment?

I have two points. Well, a question. Two years. Who was the firm last year and who was the firm the year before? And is this a new firm doing this?

My understanding, this is the same firm that did the last audit. which is different than the firm before that.

Yes.

So I gotcha. Okay. Yep. And it's also for, as for Trey, it's the same contract as last year as well with the dates reflected for this year.

So if you're okay with that, we can just do a motion to approve and leave it.

I think a motion to approve is fine. It is sufficient. I'm remembering right, last year we already reviewed that contract, and my understanding is it's the same as what we reviewed and changed last year.

It is the same contract with updated dates to reflect.

So we have a motion to approve. We have a second, so we basically just need a vote.

Also, the contract form is state-directed. I mean, it's not our contract.

Okay, all in favor? Aye. All opposed? Okay. Chief. Chief. If you can, at the beginning, kind of, Chief, if you will, tell us what you want to get accomplished today by us, please.

Certainly. My audience has disappeared largely, so I will be brief.

Is there a slide on it?

No, no. This is mostly just a discussion. So in the spring, I attended the parking committee meeting, and it was discussed there that we needed to retouch the parking ordinance. We needed to update it. basically just finalized something to put in the ordinances and a draft ordinance was supplied by our parking vendor surf cast and we appreciate that it largely follows the current practices of And there were some at that, that, uh, draft ordinance was circulated through staff and there were some recommendations about what needed to be changed. And then it was passed through the town attorneys and they, they made some changes. And so that's the version that is before you today. Uh, this is to open a discussion. amongst yourselves about what you'd like to see in the town order in the ordinance parking ordinance. I understand from the clerk that this needs to be noticed again and there needs to be a public hearing on it. So no action today. A couple of things that I wanted to point out quickly. The original version that was passed to us from the parking vendor they were requesting that street intersections would be it'd be unlawful to park at street intersections within 40 feet we have some roads in town that right exactly so we changed that the current the ordinance originally said 15 feet so we recommended that be the standard so we changed that There was also a prohibition in 6-95 for closing town parking lots between the hours of midnight and 6 a.m. That would effectively close the beach. And that has actually been to the bidding before the board has a similar motion parking from midnight to six. Well, and it already is. So after 4 PM or I'm sorry, 5 PM, it's already free to park here, but it had been to the board once before and it was shot down. Yeah.

It had been to the parking committee too.

Right.

And, um, there was some lively discussion on it, but it was, it was wholeheartedly. by everybody but one person shot right down.

Yeah, and that was the recollection I had of it. So the recommendation was made to remove that from the ordinance so you don't see that in there. The mayor and I had a conversation about contractor parking. We need to kind of define what that means. What is right of way? Where are they allowed to park? And how is that being enforced? So that's a discussion I'd ask you to have. And then finally, the handicap parking. Sure.

private contractors like here's a concern I've got I am sick of having these trucks that are supposedly in the right-of-way sticking out in the street the traffic is a pain in the butt trying to get around them stuff it's gonna be a problem it's gonna be a safety issue and I could see Kip nodding I mean they're sticking out in the road and I literally had a conversation with a guy who parked on the in our road which is a town road who told me he is allowed to park on the pavement All right. And that's not what the ordinance talks about. Okay. It's you can't park on a street and we've got to figure out a way to get, you know, look, I'm sorry. If you're building a house, then you got to be on your lot as much as you possibly can. And that's not what's happening right now. They're sticking out in the road. I see people swerving all the time.

Well, before younger left, I mean, we had the accident where the guys didn't have combs out there and everything else.

So, I mean, at a minimum, they're really pushing. the envelope and this kind of stuff. And there's a guy across the street from me that's put markers up in front of his house. It's his contractor building the other house to keep people from parking there. But his contract employees are all up and down the road. And it's like, I just, you know.

Well, the landscape guys are blocking streets.

Yeah.

They're just parking in the street. when they're mowing and doing things in certain years.

So that's something that probably needs to be addressed in the ordinance and the nature of what their visit is there, right? Because as we talked earlier, if a Guy C. Lee truck or a lumber delivery truck pulls up, he has no place to go. So he has to stop basically roadside. He puts his cones out. What I've made a practice of doing and have encouraged my officers to do, we'll stop and help with traffic until they're able to unload their lumber and get it out of there. We understand that they don't have a place to park.

If you could go with the Boston model, you know what that is?

They get tickets. Yeah, well, and that's a possibility, too. So that's a discussion I'd ask you to have and decide how you want that to look. Obviously, you know, the police department.

Well, I think we want to be friendly. And something like Guy C. Lee taking a half an hour to drop something off is not, in my opinion, I would look for, especially Kip, with your background, to take a hard look at this thing because I don't like the way they're, like I said, literally coming here today There were two large trucks that could have pulled over farther. Mark, you drove by them, too, on the right-hand side. And you're swerving over because you don't feel like you can miss them. And again, he wasn't asking for it today. I didn't know what we wanted, so I'd read through this thing, and I'm really uncomfortable with it. And I think the point that you made to me, which is a good point, is, Rick, if it's on WASA truck or it's a Joe MC truck and they're doing utility work, that is different than a contractor parking their truck or their car on the street all day long.

Yeah, absolutely. And then lastly, I would ask you to take a look at the handicap regulations. So I've received, and I know the town manager has received, at least two, possibly three calls from different, not just disabled persons, but disability advocate groups. The way that our current practice is structured is if you're in a handicapped spot and you have a handicapped placard, you are exempt from paying fees. However, if you park in a regular spot, you get charged, and you may not drive on the beach either.

We'll talk about that as a board. We're looking through this. You mentioned that to me, and the only concern I've got is I'm not really sure Okay, if you're in one of our parking lots and you're using a handicapped thing.

I have no problem with that I don't think they should be ticketed if I'm parking in the middle of street with a handicap sticker Separate in a way the problem if I'm in one of the parking lots, right and I'm not in a handicap marked spot But I have my placard and I'm in another spot is the question whether we charge them or not charge the rest and and if you're gonna not charge them in the

marked spot and there are no more marked spots i think you can't charge them that's the issue that we've been running into and the argument that we've been getting and it's not an unreasonable argument and i spoke with the town attorney before the meeting and we kind of shared the sentiment that if you're going to

If you're going to allow them to park for free anywhere, then you should probably allow them to park in any otherwise legal spot.

That is something that the parking committee has addressed and gone over several times, but it is something that we all need to talk about.

and there's there's and when you get into the devil's advocate stuff you know you get the teenagers that get grandma's car and placard and they come over here but you know it's going to be so hard to enforce and everything else well i think what you're doing is we've got we got a copy of it yes would you guys just parking committee take a quick run at it so you just to see and then anybody or and we'll send i'll send my comments anybody that wants to send it to the parking committee

And I also like to say thank you for taking the initiative to have your officers.

Thank you.

I'd like to say thank you for taking the initiative to ask your officers to do what you're doing by either directing traffic or at least putting their blue lights on, especially when they're parked in a, I mean, we don't have a curvy, curvy road, but there are some areas there that you really can't see around the curve. And then when you have people riding their bikes and walking, it's difficult.

So

Chief, right now, you're asking for us to look at it. You want us to get wording around or the parking committee is going to, and then you're going to bring it back to us for approval to change.

Yes, ma'am, that's correct.

So if you're going to change an ordinance, I will have to notice that. And if you're going to change an ordinance, that's also going to... enact fees and punishments like that or consequences I think the question is there is no parking ordinance for North Topsail Beach right now even if you're enacting any ordinance I'm going to need to notice that so that the public has the opportunity to speak on it and if you're going to issue an ordinance or create an ordinance that's issuing fines as well there are more conditions around that like a second hearing it has the part when's the next parking whenever they're going to call it so i'm going to issue a notice for this for the next board of aldermen meeting perfect this meeting this item was simply to introduce the item to the board so that it's on your radar to review

I would say, let's see what the parking committee wants to do. If you notice it, then they've got to make a decision by August 3rd. Why don't we do this?

Why don't we ask the parking committee to get back to Lexi as to whether they're ready to make...

whenever we can also do that we can have parking committee meet uh and it whenever they notify me that they're ready for the board of aldermen to to see and vote on it i can issue a notice for the proper meeting okay perfect all right okay so if anybody wants to send mark and i any of their thoughts or anything because i'm sure that there will be

Some issues that everybody doesn't agree on, but we will put everybody's thoughts in there.

As well as some issues we may not be aware of.

Exactly. We'll keep in touch with the chief as well.

When I read it, I don't remember. Is this a Word document? Could you make sure we get a Word document?