Board of Commissioners - Regular Meeting

Thank you very much. Mayor Moore, this board fired a well qualified town manager because one commissioner stated that he does not share her vision. What is your vision? Where are you taking this town? Listen, all I heard was taxes and water bills. John Moore was the one that initiated the talks with PWC, and was creating four focus groups involving elected officials, county staff, residents, experts in their fields to address the infrastructure. Let's look back at the findings that the local government commission detailed. Some of you were on the board that led to the LGC's takeover. Some of you were vocal regarding the 2020 shenanigans, while one alderwoman said, and I quote, the hardest working town manager there is, referring to twice fired Spring Lake Town Manager. Here's an example of an inexperienced town manager. He stated, Spring Lake has had over 300 potholes filled. I want a leader that says, I want the roads repaved. That's the difference between a stopgap and a solution. I want solutions. LGC gave us a blueprint of what we needed to do to regain our independence and govern accordingly. That document is the Town of Spring Lake investigation report dated March 2022. If you haven't read it, do so. Hire a well-qualified town manager. Check. Hire a finance director that's well-qualified. Check. The exhaustive search took over a year to find an experienced and well-qualified town manager and several rounds of interviews. It only took this board a few months to fire him. overlook and completely dismiss more qualified candidates to fixate on an inexperienced person is insanity to pay an inexperienced person more than an experienced and well qualified person is insanity to fire an experienced and well qualified town manager and to pay him seventy thousand dollars to go away is insanity by the way the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Let that sink in. Why bring up the past? You'll need the same mistakes that have been repeated again. Dennis, not sure if you got my emails or not, or if you just chose to not acknowledge them or respond. I am not one of the three. I am one of the 12,000 residents that you serve. Bored? Your search for an experience to work off high town managers is a farce. You telegraphed your choice from the moment you hired him as the interim town manager months ago. But now you're going through the same process just to check the block. Spring Lake deserves better. North Carolina Government Commission, I hope you're watching. Residents of Spring Lake, this board approved themselves at pay rates, approved an interim town manager, more money, and experienced, well-qualified town managers. When you pinch pennies that paid out $70,000 severance package to your inter-town manager, increasing salaries beyond the threshold, remember this is your budget time. I will close with a message to you. A mistake made more than once.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Lackman. Next, Janine Lackman.

Good evening, Mayor and Board. I have lived here in Spring Lake since 2007. Maybe not long, as some of you, but long enough to see this town is backsliding again. Now that the budget cycle is over for this year, what are the priorities and direction of this board? What do the residents have to look forward to?

Mayor Anthony, keep working on that natural gas project. You have advanced it further than anyone else.

Weak leadership. Defined as leadership that fails to demonstrate essential qualities like vision, communication, diversiveness, and accountability can have a direct and damaging effect on employees' performances. Key ways weak leadership harms employees. Low morale and disengagement, reduced productivity, high turnover, damaged culture, and skill stagnation. All five of these listed above are happening here in Spring Lake. If you don't see that, what does that say about your leadership? Parks and Recreation. The Parks and Recreation Center should be the focal point for activities here in Spring Lake. Now that Mendoza Park has been rebuilt, when are we going to see improvements in our other parks? Is there even a plan? When will the residents see improvements on these neighborhood parks? Can you tell Fayetteville-Cumberland County Parks and Recreation to do a better job on hosting upcoming events? Residents want to know what is going on at the recreation center. They can create a daily social media post or even a weekly calendar something. This center is very underutilized. Code enforcement. Does code enforcement exist other than on paper? The updates and slides don't seem to match what you see when you drive around town. Ordinance plus contracted personnel should equal action. How long is the damaged Bobby Darman building going to continue without being fixed? It has been covered up with worn out tarps for over two years now. That's unacceptable. Do better to be better. Be better to do better. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Blackmon. Next is Dave Kimber. You still have to stay with the record.

I'm Mrs. Sandberg, 104 Wall Street Drive, right here at Spring Lake, and here since 98. Okay? And I want to see some things in this town, and I'm sick of it. Fair deal. If you're all talking about what Fairfield is doing in all this, I want to see things here in Spring Lake. I want to see a skate rink in Spring Lake for the children. I'm so tired of the children going to Fairfield to skate, to bowl, and all these other things. We need a swimming pool. We need to do a correction over there with that rent center. You know, everything is doing one of these numbers. And if I fall down, I'm coming to get you. okay and the thing about it is when you're doing something on the roads those things need to be way out on the road so that people will know that you're doing some work on one side of the road this morning it was terrible that track was all the way back i know the camera because they didn't tell people that the road was being worked on one side, and that's not right. Swimming pool, all those things. We don't have anything for the seniors to do. Where are the riding places? Where are places for us to take rides to bus transportation to Fayetteville to the doctor's appointments and things like that? Those things need to be taken care of. Now, you've been in office for quite a while, so let's see something get done here. And I want y'all to understand just what I'm saying. And I want to see a difference. I want to see these things for our children. It doesn't make sense to spend money going to bed here. This is Spring Lake. This is Spring Lake. So do something for Spring Lake. That's what I'm saying. We do suffer from sprinkling. I want to see our policemen out in the community. I want to see them out. I want to get to know them so that the children also, when the other policemen were here, the children knew the policemen. We knew them. So I want to see the policemen out in the community. And if you want to stop by and get some banana nut bread, come on by. And I'm serious. You know, a lot of them know. Go to Ms. Sanders. She got some banana nut bread for you. Okay? That's all. 104 will be the best company ever.

All right. Thank you, Ms. Sanders.

Remember how I walked down the street to get my banana nut bread? All right, we'll have our first presentation of the evening, and this will be Mr. John Webster with the Child Advocacy Center.

Good evening, Ms. Mayer. What moment?

One moment. Did you get my email about the link?

I did. We sent it back. Did you not get it back?

I have been in a special meeting, so I have it. I can pull it up right quick.

If you can pull it up, that's great. If not, I can roll without it. I'm okay either way. I was the same, I was running around, but I had my marketing personal residency in Maine. She said it's too late. While you're waiting for that, I can go ahead and introduce myself. I'm John Webster, I'm the Executive Director of the Child Advocacy Center over on Rowan Street in Fayetteville, and I just want to tell you a little bit about what we do. I know some of you have been on this one for a while, and some have not. But I wanted to let you know kind of what we do at the Child Advocacy Center. And we are a non-profit, but we are the only Child Advocacy Center in Cumberland County. So we're the only ones who provide the services we provide. And I feel like it's a very important service to all the citizens of Cumberland County, including Spring Lake, which we work very closely with law enforcement here. And basically our role and our main bread and butter of the Child Advocacy Center is that we see children, ages three, most of them older than three, 317, who have alleged to have been abused. And they are referred to us by law enforcement, including Spring Lake, and social services. They come to us and they are there for a forensic interview. So they're interviewed forensically on camera and audio by trained professionals who do that. And these cases are, while they're being interviewed, law enforcement, social services, and any other involved parties in the other ring watch it live. And then this is all recorded on a thumb drive. The officer leaves with a disc and is ready for court should it get to that level. So we meet regularly with the assistant DAs in Cumberland County and all of our community partners. We have 19 community partners are present at meetings that I have every other Friday, which I preside over, where we talk about seven-day cases. each of those Fridays. And decisions are made there about the weight of the case, the likelihood of charges in the case, what the VA is going to do with it when it gets to court, and so forth. And it's very, it's hard work, but it's good work. And so that's one part that we do. Another part that we have is I have a volunteer prevention coordinator named Faith Boehmer, who is, she's been with the center for 17 plus years. and it works very hard that we get out and we make the community aware of what we're doing. We show up at most events, for example, we show up with a tent and things like that at different job fairs and different fairs around the community just to make the community aware of what we do. We go in in the fall and we teach pre-K kids about body safety classes and how to protect themselves. We also teach and train adults in storage of children, and that allows them to know how to protect, what to do when they see abuse, how to report it, how to be proactive in that area. Unfortunately, there is a high need in Coverton County for our services. Last year, we saw 531 children came through our door, and if you visualize I see a lot of numbers and I run a lot of numbers in my job, but I try to focus on those 531. And when you break them down and I see one child come through the door and say, well, that's one, there's 534 that came in last year just like that child. It really stops and makes you think. Cumberland County, like many counties in the state, has a huge problem in a lot of these areas. A lot of it's related to, we see a lot more sexual abuse cases, a lot more trafficking cases. Covington County is a hotbed for human trafficking across the state. And we see a lot of those cases come in. We see cases where kids have witnessed a parent being murdered. Any some other violent offenses happen, those kids come through our doors. These kids need and deserve the very best that we as leaders can give them. And we do, in addition to offering those services, we offer therapy. I have two therapists who are trained in trauma-focused therapy. They are in our building every day. They're there right now. They'll be there from 9 to about 8 o'clock, seeing children, just trying to get these kids to get a good start. We try to be a place of hope and healing is one of our mottos, and we work very hard to do that. In a non-profit, we cannot do it without funding, and that's a big part of what we do, is what I do, because I talk to commissioners, I talk to county commissioners, I apply for grants, we want to include a local community foundation for grants. I go outside, of course, we seek federal funding, state funding, different ways of funding what we do. And we desperately need all the cities, all the towns in the county, just to help out in any way that you can. And if nothing more than just supporting us, being supportive of what we do. I do work with your law enforcement here, and we are constantly, I know it's a turnover with people coming and going from law enforcement, same with social services. But we do value their work, and they're in our building every week. So I want to continue to work the spring load as we do all of our law enforcement in the county, including Fort Bragg. CID has come to our building as well, and then we're working with all the local smaller towns and, of course, Fayetteville and the Sheriff's Office. So we have a couple of fundraisers. and i would like for you to consider that one of them is coming up in october and it is their fall gala it will be at the crown center october 17th if you're available and the citizens of spring lake are interested and available we'll have a good band river mist will be there we'll have good food it'll be a good night there'll be a bar there'll be good music we'll be a lot of fun for everybody it's a kid-friendly event we invited kids to come and we do need sponsors for these tables so if this town But so obliged, we would love for you to consider sponsoring a table. I met with Mayor Anthony and talked a little bit about this, and those are $1,000 a table, and individual tickets are $75 a ticket, and it is for the children. The good thing about what we do, all those money stay in Cumberland County. We don't have to send... dues to a national organization. We are fully accredited through National Children's Alliance, but we don't have to pay to have our involvement outside of this community. So you probably might have the video, so I'm going to let you watch it now. I think it's four minutes, is that okay? That's right.

A report of child abuse is made every 10 seconds in the United States. One in ten children will be sexually abused before their 18th birthday. Five children die every day in the U.S. from child abuse and neglect. Child abuse and neglect is one of our nation's most serious public health concerns with long-term impacts on health, opportunity, and well-being. In 1993, a major change occurred in Cumberland County regarding the treatment of children who have been victims of severe physical or sexual abuse. a small group of concerned professionals and community leaders worked together to create a children's advocacy center in our community. The Child Advocacy Center was created as a safe, child-friendly place where children could come to be interviewed once about the trauma, a place where more than 19 agencies came together with one goal in mind, to provide help, hope, healing, and justice for abused children and their non-offending family members. Since that time, the Child Advocacy Center has been serving the needs of thousands of children in Cumberland County who are victims of sexual abuse and severe physical abuse. Now when a child has a terrible truth to tell, there is a place of comfort to do so. A highly trained forensic interviewer creates a safe and supportive environment where the young victim can talk about his or her trauma one-on-one. Telling the truth about abuse is difficult for these children. More often than not, they are talking about a family member or family friend who has committed the abuse. Sometimes the child has even been threatened by the abuser. The Child Advocacy Center provides a safe, non-threatening environment for children to discuss what has happened to them. Meanwhile, other members of the multidisciplinary team, primarily law enforcement and DSS, may watch on video monitors from another room. In this way, the child feels more comfortable and less intimidated about telling the scary truth. The interview is also recorded, and that recording can be used in court as evidence. The Child Advocacy Center also provides a victim family advocate. Victim family advocates provide services and resources to ensure a consistent and coordinated comprehensive network of support for each child and family. The CAC strives to prevent the recurrence of abuse and victimization for children and families served at the CAC. Sometimes specially trained and certified therapy dogs are used to help put the children and their caregivers at ease. When children come to the CAC for the first time, they are in crisis. These dogs are able to decrease the anxiety children suffer during their first visit to the center in a way that no person can. The dogs help create a friendly atmosphere and help young victims feel more at ease. After the initial interview, the child and non-offending family members are offered evidence-based trauma-focused mental health services designed to meet the unique needs of the child and caregivers through both individual counseling and group therapy services. The Child Advocacy Center works to prevent the occurrence of child abuse through primary prevention. We provide evidence-supported child abuse prevention education, training, and community awareness through a variety of programs available to the community. Volunteers provide many services for the CAC. Making comfort blankets which are given to children after their visit, assisting with office work, or serving on committees are just a few examples of ways you can help. The Child Advocacy Center is making a difference in our community. With the help of a dedicated staff, committed multidisciplinary team members, volunteers, and community support, the center is helping to heal the wounds of child abuse and to help bring the perpetrators to justice. Please consider supporting the CAC financially or as a volunteer. Visit our website at cacfaync.org for more information. Thank you for your time.

I do have some brochures I can help you with. I'll leave those and leave you with all the information. Thank you very much.

Thank you so much.

Thank you. Thank you. Okay, we'll move on to our next presentation, Sister Soul Fest, Erica Clowden.

Oh.

Yeah, I'm going to have to find it, the one that you sent me, because I had it up. I need to be sensitive. Uh, nope.

Hello, my name is Loretta Williams and I am here with Erica Clouden. I am the founder of Sister Soul Fest and Erica is our event manager and everything behind the scenes. Sister Soul Fest was founded in 2020 in Des Moines, Iowa, where I'm from. It was given to me in a vision at a time in the middle of a pandemic. Sister Soul Fest is celebrating seven years this month in Des Moines, Iowa, and our fifth year here in North Carolina, making this our fourth year in Spring Lake. What Sister Soul Fest does is we create a space for businesses, especially those that are not seen. We like to stay in marginalized areas and in communities that are overlooked, underrepresented, and not seen. We give a voice to those businesses, the small businesses, entrepreneurs, and even our youth. What we like to do is expand this year. We've expanded to be more intentional about health and wealth, more about educating our youth about finances. And we've heard some of the other speakers earlier state that letting spring late be on the map. using the recreation recreational center that's where we've had two of our events in the past so we're here asking to we're there again this year um in next month yes next month on the 19th we do have a um opportunity for nonprofits. So nonprofits are able to come, like Mr. Webster just said. They're able to come and bring awareness to what they offer the community, different resources. Also, this is an opportunity for the police department to come and engage with the community, reach out, make those connections. We love Spring Lake. We see that it is a place that gets overlooked a lot of times, and that's why we are just committed to being here and having Sister Soul Fest help you.

So as she stated, my name is Erica Floughton. I am the event logistics manager and the host of Sister Soul Fest North Carolina. So we can make sure people understand. Yes, ma'am. I decided to do Spring Lake against a lot of people's better judgment whenever I was actually finding a location to do Sister Soul Fest North Carolina. They were like, why are you going all the way out there? I said, exactly. That's the whole point. The why. Because they don't get a lot of acknowledgement, noticing, or anything like that. Today, I just found out that y'all had a music wine store. And I was like, oh. I'm glad that I found y'all. And she was like, we've been here four years. I was like, hmm. So I, who have come through and been around here quite frequently, did not know that there was a beauty supply store. How many more businesses around here have been going unnoticed? And as I've done a lot of my passing out of flyers, talking to a lot of the community businesses, seeking out sponsorships, I did take a notice that a lot of the businesses, people don't know they're here. For instance, Ms. Laverne at the edible arrangement she said she's been there 16 years and she's like you would think that more people would know that she's there and i was like honestly i knew you were here i just never came to my bed i'm gonna start coming so now that i made those connections i was like that's even more of a push for me to want to stay and do it in spring lake every year because i feel like y'all don't get something as big as like all the things that happen at festival park so why not let sister soul fest be your one main big festival that y'all have angry So, as you guys can see, we also have different opportunities for sponsorships. For anybody in the community that wants to participate and be a sponsor, there are different levels. Ms. Carly, you can click through. So, as you can see, these are pictures from last year. So far, we reluctantly had it at a different location, and we did not want it, but we did it, and we can definitely say that we've definitely helped over 100 different businesses in the last five years. of us being in North Carolina, and a lot of those businesses have been local businesses too. Yes, between Fayetteville, but also within the Spring Lake area as well. This is a family-friendly event, so that means families are welcome. We want the babies to come. We want the babies to come have fun. We also have had an opportunity to bring... Can you check the remote?

Oh, the remote? Oh, yes. Make sure it's on. Turn it on, please. Turn it on.

Sorry about that, didn't know that was there. So we've had the opportunity of doing some amazing things with Sisters of Soul Festival of Carolina, including bringing on people and bringing people into Spring Lake and into Fayetteville, yes, but mostly into Spring Lake. that most people haven't seen. I'm gonna back up a little bit. Like we've already stated, Sister Soul Fest is taking place September the 19th, which is a Saturday. It happens the same weekend every year. So just know it's the same weekend every year. From 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., it will be, it says proposed, but we have it secured. We do have the gym secured for that date. And also we have, it is free and open to the public. You can't be free. Okay, 399 is the best policy, okay? We do, it is an indoor event. We have outdoor food trucks. There's marketing on social media such as Facebook, Instagram, all the things. So we've been wanting to try to bring you guys in on the fund. So I was told that in order for us to basically push Sister Soul Fest forward and possibly seek some real assistance in reserving the entire rec center, we had to make sure that we were bringing something back to the community.

And we don't do that.

So I have reached out to a few different people. I want you to hear back from them. We've talked to Colgate to see if they will bring their band out to talk about dental hygiene. We also are reaching out to a few different health organizations from around the area to come in and possibly do free blood pressure checks, blood sugar checks, and things of that nature. And we also are looking for mental health organizations get our resources in regards to how to help our people with mental health issues in the area. So, the whole purpose of all of this fun stuff, and I'm putting this up here because this is just part of the different tiers and things as I'm talking and clicking through. We're basically trying to see and ask of the town of Spring Lake to consider becoming a community partner for Central Soul Fest North Carolina by sponsoring the use of the Spring Lake Rec Center. As of right now, we are only, utilize the large event space and the small event space because we want to use the small event space for people to come and sit and eat their food so that way they don't have to be getting attacked by bugs while they're trying to eat and also the larger event room because we want to expand more vendors into that space to allow people to come and shop and things of that nature. We're not asking for like to invest in us as simply because we're a non-profit but more or less because This is an opportunity for not only us to invest in Spring Lake, but Spring Lake to invest in their people. And that's something that we did here just a little while ago, is people feel like things are not being invested into in the community of Spring Lake. So, as you guys can see, this year's thing, you see the gold and the black, this is our golden year. The reason why this is our golden year is because five years is our birthday. So this is very special for us. And if you look As you can see on the hand, the hand is very significant. Each one of those rings represents the year thing that we've been in North Carolina. And as you can see the five is the heart and flame because y'all are the heart of the reason why I want to keep it here in Spring Lake. And also that was something that was very important to me because I was like, the only thing that I kept thinking was, we got five on it. And if you don't know that song, I advise you to go listen to it. It's a great song, okay? It's a great song. But, in closing, this year's theme is Rooted, Grown, and Golden. Celebrating five years of Sister Soul, Fresno, Carolina, and our campaign is We Got Five On It. Everybody can put something on it. Our businesses, our sponsors, vendors, volunteers, community organizations, residents, and hopefully the town of Spring Lake. And it all comes back to something our founder and visionary, Ms. Loretta, has said, we're better together, which happens to be the theme of the morning. We are honored to have the town of Spring Lake partner with us as we celebrate our fifth anniversary and our fourth year right here in Spring Lake. Thank you.

And visit our website. We have a lot of good information on there, and you can see our past years as well in North Carolina, Iowa, and Waterloo.

Just a question really, Leslie. Now, just for clarification, you are requesting sponsorship or partnership so that you could use the full rec center? Correct. I do believe that an appointment with our town manager would be required for that. I would definitely reach out to him. And that way he can make arrangements or discuss that with the rec center across the street and bring that back to the board. Because there would be some discussions that have to be had. We can't just say yes, but we can definitely have that conversation. So that means follow up with Mr. English this week. Were there any questions or comments from the board? Commissioner Cooper.

I just want to say I've attended a couple of them, and I had a really great time, so thank you for coming back.

Absolutely. I'm sorry I didn't say that first. Thank you for immediately choosing Spring Lake. We appreciate you. If there are no further questions from the board, thank you so much for your presentation. Thank you. We'll now move on to Consolidated Annual Performance and Evaluation Reports. Ms. Rashonda? Ms. Ray, you look spectacular. I love that color. Thank you. Just needed to tell you.

Well, good evening, Mayor Anthony and Commissioners. How are y'all this evening? We are wonderful, thank you. I'm back.

Welcome.

Well, I wanted to start with thank you for allowing Cleveland County Community Development to stop to provide a brief update on our program year 2025 county paper. The paper stands for Consolidated Annual Performance and Evaluation Report. And the easiest way for me to describe this is it's HUD's annual report card. It tells HUD and the public what we plan to do, what we actually accomplished, who we serve, and how our federal resources were used during the program year. And our program year is July 2025 to June 30 of 2026. Collin County Community Development administers several federal and local funding sources that support housing rehabilitation, affordable housing, public services, homelessness response, neighborhood investment, and Spring Lake is one of our participating jurisdictions in the County Cutting Academy program. To Mr. and Mayor, I submitted a document to you to kind of go over. Awesome. What happened? I need to apologize. I was a little bit in a rush this time. I apologize. When you said you needed something, I was like, oh, I need to make a correction. Under the star where it says Spring Lake Highlights, we did two projects competing in Spring Lake. That is correct. The total project completion value is incorrect. That number is actually $58,150. So that is the equivalent of two minors in .

So we're not talking about the 181 by, or 181, 853 is incorrect? That's incorrect. And you said it's what?

58,000. $150. That's a big change. That is a big change, and I'm sorry, but that people have to apply for the program, but I got a solution for that. Okay. I'm gonna share that with you. All right. All right, let's get back to it. So, how our funding works, See, CDBG HUD allows up to 20% for our planning and admin of our grants, that is it, and for home we get 10%. The rest of that money for my entitlement allocations goes into all of our programs and services. So, a recap of program year 2025 and community development at a glance. We served 4,562 people through our CDBG funded public services activities. 546 people in 227 households assisted through our homelessness prevention and rapid rehousing programs. 362 people that was encompassed of 326 households through our PATH program. That's our Street Outreach Program for our homeless and incumbent families. That program is run through Community Care. 15 homeowner rehabilitation projects completed and one demolition and clearance project completed. And when you look at all those programs together, it gives a broader picture of the range of work being carried out by community development, from preserving homes to supporting non-profit services and helping households experiencing or at risk of homelessness. and where we are in the cable process. Ladies and gentlemen, I apologize. I am a little bit behind in getting this draft published. I'm almost there, had to put the numbers together. So normally that draft would already be online for you to have in your hands to review and for public comment. I'm getting that out this week. I'm waiting on a few more numbers for that draft that they're gonna publish it without those numbers. We anticipate having it out this week for review and public comment. Once the draft is published, residents and participating jurisdictions will have the opportunity to review parents' accomplishments, community development accomplishments, expenditures, performance, and before the final report is submitted to HUD. In closing, I would like to say Sprint Lake continues to be an important participating jurisdiction in Cumberland County. We also partner with Keno Community Development. It would have been more investment, but we've had it built. So he'll be ready to start rolling this year with his investment on Phase 3 of the Elizabeth Street project. That should be rolling now. So next year we'll have that number. And we appreciate the Town's partnership and opportunity to continue investing in housing preservation as we meet needs for spring. So I did mention that I have a solution for getting that information out there. We've created a door handle. So when our rehab specialists are out and they see a home that may need repair or try to get in touch with that homeowner, instead of us going up to their door, they're attaching these to the mailbox. If they're talking to someone in the community, they'll hand these door hangers out. They've been real successful in getting the numbers out. Sometimes our concentration, it depends on what area we are. This year, I asked our rehab specialists to kind of focus on Spring Lake, give them information out there. Linden, for some reason, you know, Linden, it doesn't get out there. So we asked, you know, the areas where we're not seeing a lot of activity to try to focus on those areas. So I did, that's why I brought you some of the charts. And if you need to hold this, let us know.

That's exactly what I was going to say. We probably need ten times that amount.

Yes, ma'am. I will have those printed. Thank you. And that is it. I just, you know, the little snapshot was a little different. I thought that was something that we don't get from PowerPoint. So I didn't want to do that to you this year, so we gave you that. So if you enjoyed that, if you'd like me to go back to PowerPoint, just let me know.

These numbers are for the program overall, not just Spring Lake specific. When we're talking about the public service, client served, and homeless outreach, that's your organization, or that's for the paper. That's the whole town.

do we have these numbers specifically for spring lake no we don't because depending on like with the homeless some of that information we don't um but if they called and went before data entry depending on where they located at that information to the database i just put the full number for this year now the two projects completed spring lake i try to bring the money to you um and leave the other h and i and stuff out but If they're called for their entry and they're in need, they can get services as well.

Thank you. I had a couple of questions. It says that you do have funding for demolition.

Yes. That is a project to eliminate some of the body wood that's in the National Establishment. But you have to apply for that. So that's the thing you can't apply for? Okay. Any other things? Wouldn't want no democracy like we do today, like a house or... Would it be the town or the homeowner would have to...

The homeowner. Oh, the homeowner, okay. And then the other thing is homeless funding. Because we're starting to see a larger number of homeless in the community. Is there funding that we can get to provide services to them, or do they still have to go to Comfort County?

They'll just need to call 4-Minute Entry. That serves the whole county. And that's the repository for the whole county of all the nonprofits, if they have funding to provide services. the citizen will call them and then when you push the money out, they'll pay. So it could be any of the nonprofits that have money. They can go anywhere. Okay, thank you. And you do have the white flag shoulder here as well? Mm-hmm. Okay. Thank you.

Any other questions or comments from the board? Thank you so much. Thank you. All right, our next presentation is the Appearance and Sustainability Committee Annual Report to send you.

Good evening, Madam Mayor and Board of Commissioners. I have today for you a report for our last year, fiscal year 25-26. And I want to give you an update on the projects that we have done. We had a total fund of $16,200, which is quite a large amount for us. So the first project that we have is the Beauty of North Carolina, which is up on the board there. That one cost $6,200, and the majority of that was from private donations. The majority of that came from the previous year when we had the Special Forces mural. There was a lot of funding for that. It was a little bit left over that we were able to roll into this project. And we also used $1,000 from the Municipal Arts Allocation from the Arts Council. So that picture that you see there, the two pictures are merged. In the middle, there's usually doors, but the artist was able to remove the doors and just show it a little differently. The next one is, do I need to do that? Oh, the light's not, ah, there you go. Top got cut off. That one is called Embrace the Beauty of Change. That one is located at Boyd's. And that one cost us $3,000. That was also from the Municipal Arts Allocation. And that one, both of those murals were done by Dimitri Borisov. And he's been helping us in all of these. The next one is Mendoza Park Plant Zone. And here you can see the happy little bumblebees. Well, see one of the bumblebees? That's good. We'll just leave it there. So this one, this is a grant that we got from the Arts Council as well. And this is from the Project for Foreprint. And we got $70,000 to do We've made seven games out of the concrete slabs that were there at the park, and we're calling it Mendoza Park Fun Zone. In addition to the games that were done there, there was the hopping game with the bees, and then the hopscotch, and alphabets, numbers, games. There's a whole bunch of different games, and then foursquare, of course, by special request from the mayor. So we have all those games out there for the kids and their families to be able to play those games. And with that grant, not only did we get those games, we had marketing items that we're distributing during the event, within the dedication, and throughout the community. And then we also were able to do free little libraries right here. We've got two little libraries that have been posted, one at the park, and one will be posted at the recreation center. And then the next thing is we're going to have some marketing items. These are the marketing items. We have postcards. We had Frisbees, but most of those already got distributed. And then we still have a few stickers left. And the postcards, I have a stack here that I'm going to leave with the town. I guess I'll give it to Carly so that the town can decide how to distribute them. In addition to that, we have a couple more stacks that we're going to meet tomorrow with the committee. We're going to meet Wednesday with our committee to decide how we're going to distribute the remaining postcards as well. We're going to do a couple of stores here. There's a North Carolina store in Fayetteville that we're going to prepare. And then just come up with some other ideas for distribution. And in addition to all of those things, we also have bubbles that we distributed at the event. And then we had enough money that we were able to get some art supplies for W.T. Brown Elementary School. And so we had like three boxes of art supplies. And then we also had a box of Frisbees. So that's where the rest of the Frisbees went. We took them over there. And in your package, we also prepared a draft letter to the Parks and Recreation that maybe if you decide to use it to discuss with the Parks and Recreation what we've done here, maybe you could send it from either the mayor or the town manager or something that you could distribute from the town, not necessarily from the town. We also did a letter to the school explaining the project. So altogether we had 16,211,000 came from the Arts Council. So, I definitely want to mention that because it was funded by the Arts Council of Fayetteville, Ingram Road County. I'll just put that out there. And $5,200 was from private donations. And we're so very happy about that. So, this week, we're having our Appearance Committee meeting. We will be discussing future projects. We don't know what the next project will be, but it'll probably be a very small project because the new year, we don't have any grants this year. We don't have any money left over from previous projects. So far, what we have is the municipal arts allocation, which usually is about $4,000, but they may be halving it at $3,000. We'll have to check into what the amount is for this year. So, but a positive note, like I said, Dimitri was our artist in some of these projects, and so we encouraged him to apply for a grant for artists. And so Patrick Morrison, he's also part of the committee, and I worked with him, we did some brainstorming, and he did a grant application with the Arts Council, and the Arts Council awarded him a grant to do a mural, and he has decided to do it here in Spring Lake. So that's exciting. We'll get more details soon, because it's just in the very beginning stages, so hopefully we'll have more in the next months too. And... Also, the coloring pages. So we did coloring pages based off of the mural, The Beauty of North Carolina. So we did one that is more that looks like it, like the mural, and then we did one that was like for small kids. And if anybody has access to the town website, it is on the mural page, mural page number four, we have the details of that page and it lists all the state symbols that are listed on that page so it's educational and we're going to try to figure out a way how we can get it to to be linked on that page where people can go there and print it if they're interested and And in addition to all the murals and that, we also have fall cleanup coming up. Oh, there's a picture. I forgot we had pictures of the little free libraries, which you can see here. And I know we have people that are waiting to donate books. Once we get them up in their location, then we'll bring them to the center. And so in September, September 19th, we have our fall cleanup coming up. So it's our town-wide cleanup and we will have notices going out for that as well. And that's all I have of it and I'll give Carly those cards.

I just need you guys to know you have been booked and busy and painting our town beautifully and I love it so very much. But I do have an idea for the next project. How about we preserve our Manchester Park barrier, barricade, and we take those other three back to Spring Lake Middle, WT Brown, and Pine Forest and have them redo them for the year. We provided the supplies, which was just a couple hundred dollars worth of paint and rollers, and we dropped them off and we picked them up. It's a new school year, maybe we can do a new barrier project.

Which schools in Manchester will keep which others?

WT Brown, Spring Lake Middle, and Pine Forest High School. So those are the four that are out there now, and since we no longer have Manchester, we'll keep Manchester and the other three.

Yeah, so we're collecting ideas.

I was saying, just the thought, throw it out there.

Yes, great, great. Any other questions?

Commissioner Cooper?

Yes, I had an idea. What if we had the children at WT Brown do a coloring contest with these? Coloring pages? Coloring pages.

We can do that. And that was the original thought, but when we finish the comic pages and we're at the end of the school year and we're still at the beginning of the school year, so it's something that we can definitely look into. Thank you. uh there we go these posts are gorgeous yeah beautiful my question is oh i'm sorry my question is are they for sale are you just giving away to the uh what we're going to do we're going to give it to the town we've got i've got a bundle here that we'll give to the town for you to distribute however you want to distribute we are going to put some in a couple of floors and like i said we're going to put one some in the North Carolina store in Fayetteville, so we could have some three-way stuff over there, too. But for most of the park, we decided to distribute them. I didn't know there was more in them.

Put them in Walmart. Nationwide, because it's so beautiful, and people need to know where Spring Lake is to look it up. And, you know, people purpose. I'm with you there.

That's a great idea. And that would be another source of revenue. I'm sure you'd have to talk to our manager and attorney about that part first. We want to put the chart before us. Bring a little funds back to the parent's company.

That's right. We'll add that to the list as well.

Thank you. Any other questions or comments? Thank you so much Ms. Holt. Our next presentation is from Impact.

I would like to call Armand and Irina. So we have what I want to do, ma'am, if you could go down, because what I have in my hand, so the MBAC committee, which is the Military Veterans Affairs Advisory Committee here in Spring Lake, we have coins now, and they are numbered, and so we would like to present the number one coin to the mayor. Oh, that's so sweet.

I am not.

I was going to challenge you first because I got one in my pocket.

That was voted by the committee.

I don't have any fancy speech or anything for everything.

Oh, and it is a poker chip style coin and it has all of the branches of service on the back.

Thank you. That's so sweet.

Okay, so let me put my gangster back on because I'm turning into a big softie and stuff.

That was really sweet. Aw, thank you all. Okay, now that I've gathered myself, we'll move on to our next frequent thank you. All this is, and we'll do an update on our kiosk from Mr. English.

Sure, so just wanted to let you all know that we are moving the kiosk that was at the drive-through, we're moving that to the Parks and Recreation Center. which will give our citizens now an opportunity to pay that water bill. Is the mic on?

I have no idea. You know the sound system. Okay.

Okay. So this will give you an opportunity to pay the water bill. We're right now in the process of getting pricing, pricing quotes from... and then get you all a thumbs up. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. Our next one is the Piedmont Natural Gas Contract. So, a quick update on what's happening there. We are pursuing getting our natural gas line installed with Piedmont Natural Gas. We began this process allocating funds for this process in our last budget cycle we allocated There was a grant, I'm sorry, from the state OSMB funds, $250,000 that was allocated to the beginning of our natural gas line. We also allocated an additional $300,000 in this year's budget, contingent upon receiving funds from the state. However, when the budget was passed, Spring Lake did not receive any money fiscal round. I was very shocked. But I have been in touch with our state delegation and they have let us know that this is a priority and funding will be available in January. So we have already spoken with Peabody Natural Gas. They are aware of this situation. This project is still moving forward. However, with the delay in funding from the state, we have to press pause for the moment. I am in discussions with our county commissioners to possibly propose additional funding from then to continue this project to keep it on this timeline because the longer we wait, the more the cost goes up. And right now it is at a very nominal rate in terms of natural gas lines. So we want to kind of move on this as quickly as possible. Attorney has went through the contract, and I know he has some feedback on it, but we can discuss that at a later date once we have properly secured the funding for the project.

Agreed.

Are there any questions or comments from the board? Hearing none, we shall move on to our new business. 9A, Resolution 202614, a resolution declaring surplus of personal property. Mr. Overton.

The town appropriated money to buy 10 new vehicles, three pickup trucks and seven police vehicles. Because we are buying these new vehicles, we now have 11 vehicles here that we would like to declare a surplus. One is Steve's truck in the public building department. Deanna's truck in the storm water department. That truck was wrecked. Mr. Rosario drove it into a fire hydrant. It cost $9,000 to fix it, so I'd rather declare that surplus a waste of money fixing it. And then one other old truck in the street department. that we are going to declare a surplus. We're also getting rid of the, we bought a Tahoe, a new truck for the fire department, so we're declaring the old Tahoe from 2014 a surplus, and we're getting rid of five old police vehicles. A few months ago, Anderson Creek Fire Department donated two ambulances to the town. The intent was that one would be used by the fire department as a rescue vehicle, the other would be used by the water and sewer department to haul around tools and meters and supplies. Unfortunately, we cannot use either vehicle for the intended use. One of the main reasons is that you cannot attach a trailer hitch to the ambulance. because the only place to attach it is the bumper and it will pull the bumper off if you tow anything. So these are old ambulances anyway. We're getting three new pickup trucks. We're getting a Ford F-250 for the street department with a utility body, and we're getting an F-350 with a utility body for the water and sewer department. Right now, we don't have any trucks with utility bodies, and that is really what we need. Hopefully, we will declare these 11 vehicles in surplus, put them on sale for GovDeals, and hopefully recruit part of the cost of buying the new vehicles. The three new pickup trucks will cost us a total of $185,000. The police cars will be about $63,000 apiece, including the cost of the car and outfitting it. Okay?

Any questions or comments from the board? Mayor Broussard?

on page uh 76 um look now i don't know if it's the type of area but if you look at the last paragraph it says leave is 185 thousand eight seventy six twenty two the purchase was previously authorized on the budget then it says to the board for the board's information purpose only

There's no board action, but then it says down here request approval. I don't need any action to buy the new vehicles. You already approved the new vehicles in the budget. What I need is your action to declare the old vehicles a surplus. It's two different things. Okay.

Any other questions or comments? I'm now in between a motion for Resolution 2026-14, resolution to clear the surplus of personal property. Commissioner Cooper?

So moved.

Is there a second? Commissioner Thompson? I second. Any discussion? All in favor? Any opposed? Motion carries. All right, we'll move on to the next resolution.

we need to table this the resolution to declare the 161 acres surplus we don't own it yet okay so the next one we need to do but this one we need to say

So because it's not there, we're not even going to table it. We're going to remove it. It'll be tabled if we were already in the process of it. But no tabling. We'll just remove it from the agenda and discuss it at a later date.

Either one's fine. Now, the next one we definitely need to discuss.

I just hope so. All right. We'll move on to this one, too. Minimum bid for foreclosure sale for spring-length property acquisitions. And this will be with Mr. Overton and Hutchins Law Firm. Before you start, would you introduce yourself?

Yes, Your Honor. John Mandelak, on behalf of Hutchins Law Firm. Thank you.

And just so everyone knows, he's a partner in the firm. He's been doing this for a long time.

I'm just going to give you a brief introduction and our attorney will answer any questions that you have and also kind of tell you what the process is for this foreclosure sale. We have approximately 161 acres of land out on Manchester Drive across the road from Fort Bragg that we are getting ready to sale.

All right.

Okay, the foreclosure sale is happening next Monday, August the 17th. It's being handled by the Hutchins Law Firm. It's 161 acres. We're tabling the resolution for right now. The decision the council has to make, if you happen to set the minimum bid price for the foreclosure sale, that's what it will start at. Hopefully somebody will bid higher than that. One five-acre parcel has already been sold by the Hutchins Law Firm for $75,000 last year to a developer. That developer has expressed interest in acquiring more of this land. I don't know how much more. Last year, the property was revalued. The new property assessed value for all the parcels combined is $3.1 billion. Okay? This is what we paid for it. We paid 1.7 million for all the buildings that were there, and we paid 1.7 for the lane, or a total of 3.4 million. However, all the buildings have been condemned because they have been torn apart. Last, in the 22 audit, we recognized a loss on the buildings as an impaired asset of 1,569,000. Because the buildings were not maintained. Now, we'll talk about how much we got in. Before we closed the loan from Truist Bank, the town purchased the first two parcels of land prior to closing. $336,000 that they paid for those two parcels. We purchased the note receivable from Truist Bank, so we now own the note. We don't own the lane for $450,000. We paid the last five years of back taxes and solid waste fees totaling about $50,000 minus the $73,000 that we received from the sale of the five acres. And so far we have incurred about $12,000 of legal fees from the Hutchins Law Firm. That brings a total to date that Spring Lake Property Acquisition owes us $775,000. Now, we will have some additional legal fees from the Hutchins law firm as they move forward with this sale. And we will have, probably within the next few days or weeks, another year's property tax deal and solid waste fees from person, I mean, from Cumberland County. So that's probably gonna put that total up to close to 800,000, okay? The loan from Truist Bank, originally BB&T, was three and a half million. The approved interest that was not paid on that was 256,000. When the town defaulted on the loan, Truist closed the escrow account. There was $315,000 left in it at that time. They applied that to the principal and they also applied the $450,000 we bought from the note. Truist Bank then forgave the remaining debt of $2.9 million. That's $2.9 million that we did not have to pay. All right. Now, before the town defaulted on the loan, the town did pay the interest for about a year and a half on this loan. The total interest paid was $236,000 before default. So if you take that $236,000 plus the $775,000, the town has about $1,012,000 invested in this land so far that was taken out of the general fund. $1,012,000. So to discuss the minimum bid, I would prefer to do that in a closed session, not here. I will say this. The million dollars that we have in it, a million twelve, comes to about $6,300 per acre. The million seventh original purchase price of it, is about $10,600 per acre. That's not counting the buildings, the golden buildings. And the original amount of the loan was $3.5 million. Now, I will turn it over to our attorney, and he can answer any questions and tell you about the procedures for the savings. Thank you, sir.

Ladies and gentlemen on the board, just to get you quickly up to speed, I'll let you stand.

Do you mind pulling that mic up? Certainly.

Thank you. Is this better? It's much better. So to get the board up to speed on where we stand with foreclosure and the next steps to carry forward, this was a judicially conducted foreclosure. So it was a civil action filed here in the county. We do have the complaint filed. We've successfully obtained an order for foreclosure sale. So the step we are at now is more towards the end than it is to the beginning. The date outlined in the slide will need to be adjusted. The new projected sale date is going to be September 2nd. The reason that got pushed back a couple of weeks is because we do have a substantial amount of parcels and one of the things we need to do before we sell the property is to run a legal advertisement. You said that September 2nd date is in lieu of the August 17th? So we did receive a proof this afternoon about the rough cost for our publication. It's going to be $3,500, which, frankly speaking, I think that's rather reasonable for the amount of publications we're going to be running.

Can you explain to them why so many pages, like what all is in a publication?

Yes, so the publication basically includes the notice of foreclosure sale, so it gives the date, the time, and then In this case, it's the description of the property. So each separate parcel we have, we list in their legal description. So if one is one page, that's coming on there, and the very next one snaps on. So that's what got us to a 13-page group. But I checked through it. I talked with my colleague Claire before I came out here this evening, and we both believe that would be a fair and reasonable price in light of the amount of content we're going to be publishing. The foreclosure sale itself will be held at Courthouse Steps here in Pembroke County. The Board does not have to be present for that. They can choose the opening bid and we can open with that. We'll announce that entire legal description. It will take some time, but that's what we legally obligate them to do. And at that point in time, once we're done reading it, we'll open the bidding. Town of Spring Lake will have the opening bid. And I believe at some point in time, now in September 2nd, we'll have to come up with that bid amount. Without getting into too much detail, the minimum bid I would suggest would be what you have in the property right now, that was decided a couple of minutes ago. So that 1.1 area would be the minimum I would go. the board does have the ability to go up to everything they're owed, plus their collection costs and attorney fees. So that $3.5 billion note that was purchased, that debt that you didn't have to pay for, you can still bid. So if you want to make sure we have a higher price, you can go above what you have in it, because that $450,000 that was shown on the slide, that was to buy the 3.5. So we do have some flexibility as far as what we're for and what we're scaling will be. The bid process itself is one opening bid, so we can't go to a point where we open up at our lowest and then we have competitive bidding and we keep on popping up. We just have to count one opening bid and we're going to see if people will come above that. Once that bid, whatever it is, is out there, assuming we are the high bidder at the sale, there'll be a report of sale filed, and it won't count. And once that report is filed, there is a 10-day period where any interested third party can go to the clerk's office and file an offset bid. That bid process, it would have to be a 5% increase of whatever the town's bid was, and then also be a 5% deposit to secure that bid. unique to North Carolina, unlike any of the other 49 states, that upset bid period resets itself with every successful bid until it's a 10-day period where there is no upset bid. Whatever that looks like, whether the town is the last bidder or a third party on that 10th day when there is no upset bid, the rights of the parties are fixed. You don't have to go back and forth to do that. And at that point in time, if the town's the high bidder, a deed will be tendered by the substitute trustee to the town. If there is a third party bidder, basically we would send a demand for funding the bid because they only have to bring 5% to secure it. They need 95% to return us before they would in turn receive a deed. As far as the recommended sales process, since we do have multiple tracks, There is the option to sell them piecemeal, but our preference and suggestion to the board is to sell it all at once for a couple of reasons. It's administratively difficult to split these many parcels up, and then you'd have to take the dollar amount and assign a certain dollar amount to each parcel, where if you package them all together as one unit, makes adjusting that and valuation a lot more simple. I'm happy to field any questions the board may have.

mr just uh briefly i just want to make sure everybody understands because uh you and i get it and i think people who have done real estate get it but not everybody um so if we if whatever the town sets the bid at whether it's the a little over a million plus that the town actually has sunk into it or the full amount Regardless, let's just say we're the high bidder with whatever that minimum bid is. No one else wants this. Can you explain how the town doesn't actually have to then pay to the clerk of court $1 million or $3 million?

Yes, good question, actually. The town, since you are the creditor in this account, you do what they call credit bidding, where... A third party would have to bring 5% certified funds since the town's already owed the amount of money in that tourist account. They can bid up to what they're owed, plus attorney's fees, collection costs, and they'll have to come out of pocket for that. Nothing has to be reduced to the clerk. The trustee doesn't have to hold anything. something some states do and in north carolina we are one of the states that do allow credit days so it doesn't make bidding at your foreclosure show any more expensive whereas some of our western states in the lower 48 they do require the lenders to bring money on the table mr burgess would we be able to sell the timber off that lane uh if we are the last high bidder we get that deed yes

Mayor? Somewhat, but I'm not kind of understanding. It says here, I had it highlighted here, requesting the board to establish the minimum bid amount, as you were stating, and authorize Hutchinson Law Firm to participate in the foreclosure of the sale. But at the back here where it says, board approved minimum bid. And I think Mr. Overton said we would discuss that in closed session? Okay. Because we don't have any numbers beside the one.

So technically, Carly and I were just talking about this. So right now it's just on for discussion, and it worked out anyways that the foreclosure sale date got moved back. We'll have a meeting in, I don't care. August 12th. August 12th. So 4th. 4th. 24. 24. I was like, we already went for that. 24. So we can vote on it then and actually have a resolution setting the minimum bid. But tonight is just for consensus and discussion and any questions y'all might have. So just to piggyback on what he's saying, you know, look, in truth, the higher we set the bid, the more likely we are to be the highest bidder. All right. Or in the off chance someone does want to bid that much, great. You know, we just made a lot of money on behalf of the citizens. If we are the high bid, it doesn't mean we're just going to sit on that land. Then we can declare it. There it is. Yeah, surplus. There it is. I'm used to looking at the back for me right here. Then we can declare it surplus. And if we do end up with title to the land, to Commissioner Burgess' point, We can do whatever we want with it. It's legal, obviously, but we can sell the timber. We can recombine it and subdivide it the way y'all see fit and get rid of it. And exit. And exit, yes. There's all kinds of things we can do. On the flip side, if someone wants to, you know, just for example, if y'all do set it at the full debt amount plus cost, let's just say that comes out to $3.5 million plus and $3.67. Look, if somebody wants to pay us that much money for that land and... you know uh chief jarvin and where's jason then get some new vehicles thank you are there any other questions and we will discuss this a bit more in closed session that's it thank you so much for coming thank you all right we are going to continue

All right, we are now moving on to agenda item AB, award of contract for the, I can't say mama's tree name. Wapiti Drive Storm System Improvement.

You have a letter here from our engineers, McGill and Associates. They bid it out for replacement of a storm water drain system on the PD Drive. This is being paid for by Golden Leaf Grant. The grant is about, I think, 800,000. Let's see. Unfortunately, the lowest bid here was presented by the Fred Smith Company at $1,091,000. We did receive three bids. The highest bid was $2.8 million, almost three times the low bid. We did receive one other bid from Vision Earth and Pipe of $1.2 million. The low bid from Fred Smith is $1,106,000. Unfortunately, the grant is only $800,000. So I just want to move forward with this grant and award this. We may need to either renegotiate it or find another way to come up with another $300,000 to pay for it.

Mr. English, recommendations?

Well, I thought the Treadsmith had one to bid. They've got the lowest bid, but the low bid is $1,106,000. The Golden Leaf brand is $800,000.

Right.

So there's a difference.

Right. So I think we come to, yeah, let's come back to the table and discuss this at the next board meeting. Yeah, we need to negotiate this contract. So let's come back to the next board meeting with some answers on the YP project.

How much time do we have on the grant?

Deanna did get us an extension on the grant, I think till the end of the year.

Yeah, I'll find out for you, ma'am.

If we can't get this contract renegotiated, what's the next steps?

We'll speak with the Golden Leaf Foundation to find out.

Well, we'll find out what the timeline is.

Yes, we do have.

We have over a million dollars in the stormwater fund, probably about a million and six in that fund. Okay. So there is money available to pay the difference if that's what you choose to do. Okay.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Mr. Overton and I sit down and discuss what the next options are. We can bring that back to the board. That's a budget review.

I'm sorry, say that again?

If there's a budget revision, we can bring that to you, but we don't know tonight.

Any other questions or comments? I have one. Is there any mention of change orders in this contract? Yeah, for the bid.

No, this is the first bid. This is the first. You don't get a change order until you have the contract started.

Okay, right. But don't they make you change orders in the contract? In the bid?

There could be change orders if they run into something unexpected, but there are no change orders in it right now because this is the original bid.

Right, but I'm saying, is there, like, something we can put in to where it would have to be within a certain amount? Because couldn't it get, like, really...

That is a question for the engineers and the architects and the construction company.

Okay, thank you. Well, we've got time to address it again, so as long as we've got to the end of the year, we can figure it out.

Next.

I'm sorry, Mayor, are we tabling this?

Yeah. Yeah, we have to table. Yeah, we need to table because we've got to figure out how we're going to pay the difference.

Not a table. Okay. Not a table. But, yes, we can revisit it, but it's not a table. Okay. Not a table.

I'm confused. If it's not table, what is it?

We can revisit a table. Do you have a date to come back for a table? If we put a date on it, a concrete date, we can put it as a table and come back to it.

Yes. Just next meeting in two weeks.

Next board meeting in two weeks. I just want to make sure my notes are on. I know you're on.

Any other questions or comments?

If you have budget amendment number one, this is to the capital project fund for the wastewater treatment plant. Our current budget is a million and five. They have finished most of the repairs at the wastewater treatment plant. What this additional budget amendment is for is to put a SCADA monitoring system at the wastewater treatment plant. This is going to be paid for by FEMA from the Hurricane Florence funds that they have. So they've agreed to pay the entire cost of it. The cost is about $323,000. We did have $31,000 left in contingency. So we're going to move the $31,000 from contingency and increase the FEMA funding by $300,000 to pay for this. So just request your approval to approve this budget amendment. And I think it's already been bidded out and the bid was $322,000 to install this system.

Questions, comments? Mr. Cooper, I was just going to make a motion to approve. Do you have a question? go ahead uh i make a motion to approve uh budget amendment ba2 f5 2027. wait a minute one minute budget amendment one one amendment one Oh, I make a motion to approve VA 1, budget amendment 1, FU, FY 2027. Mayor Croson? Second that motion.

Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Motion carries. All right, we'll move on to our next budget amendment, budget amendment VA 2, FY 2027.

This is the change, budget amendment approving the change order for the Regina Street Sewer Line project. This original project was just to replace the sewer line. However, they had to also replace the water line, which was in the way of the sewer line. And there are some storm water repairs that need to be done there. We're just approving a change order of 29,400 for those repairs. And we still have money left in this fund because it's under budget. Moving around so there's no really additional clubs. We're just approving the budget amendment and the change order of $29,000. The contractor is SKC. Once they are finished, which this is the last thing they have to do to finish it, then Highland Paving will come over and repave the street out of our power bill funds. And this project will still be under the $825,000.

Do we have a timeline on completion for this project?

Two weeks. I have two weeks for payment. Two weeks for payment.

Y'all hear that Regina drive?

It's coming.

Two more weeks. Just bear with us.

Yeah, so.

Mayor Proctor. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'd like to make a motion that we approve budget amendment B.A. 2.F.Y. 2027.

Commissioner Burgess.

I second.

Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion, yes. All right, legal. Thank you so much, Ms. Carlton. We'll now move on to agenda item eight. excuse me, 9G, Ordinance 202605, an ordinance amending the town of Spring Lake, FY26-27 rate and fee schedule to revise special event vendor and food truck fees. So when we established the rate and fee for First Friday vendors and food trucks, we were in a very, very, very, very, very, very different financial situation. And the town was unable to provide competitive rates for food trucks and vendors. However, we have established the festival, we now have consistent sponsorships, and we want to let our community know that we hear them. One of the things that I've gotten, feedback that I've gotten since we started is that they felt the vendor prices and food truck prices were too high. And although it is on the lower scale of events, first friday is not a for-profit event we are not trying to do this to make money we are doing this to for community engagement for place making for our craft makers and our food trucks our small businesses to have a space to be able to engage with our residents so i am proposing that we amend our rate and fee schedule to adjust those fees for vendors and food trucks to Right now the food trucks are $75 and vendors are $50. I suggest we cut those in half and do $25 for vendors and $50 for food trucks. And subject to questions or discussion, Commissioner Cooper, Commissioner Thompson, Commissioner Jackson, in that order.

So are we going to keep non-profit free?

Non-profits will always be free. Okay, that's all right. Commissioner Johnson? I was gonna make a motion.

Okay, well, Commissioner Jackson? With that being said, with all the changes and stuff that we had, and the fact that it's not supposed to be for profit, and then considering the fact that these vendors have to get the food, buy the food, make the food, and if we don't have a whole lot of participation, it's really a waste of money on them. And to be able to keep the food vendors there and the other vendors doing it should we have something in the town. I suggest that we even go a little further, a little less than $50 and do the food vendors at $20 and the other vendors at $10. The money that we make can go back into the budget to help fund somebody else. I understand that it's low. I do understand that it's low. But to get First Friday up to where it should be, we may have to go low before we can go high. So make sure that these food vendors, with all the food that they're buying and hoping the crowd is coming, don't waste any money on their part, and then they don't want to participate at all. We may have had maybe 35 to 50 people out there, and can you imagine they're cooking for 100 people at the minimum, and they're wasting money doing that. So when it comes time to do it again, they don't want to come out. And food vendors and the other vendors and non-food vendors are just as important to Fourth Friday as well. And some of these vendors are our residents. so they're trying to make that separate hustle to help pay their bills so i suggest that we go lower it's not it's not for profit it's what we can do for the community so i don't see how that would affect us because we're trying to give back to the community but it also will help the community grow now as we grow we get more participation out there then of course just like we did a rate change today we can do it again but right now maybe for the next three projects that we have for alpha the process that we go just that low so they can see that the community will come and invest back into food vendors as well as the non-food vendors.

Thank you, Commissioner Jacqueline. Did you want to go ahead and make the motion? Commissioner Thompson? Or if there was any other discussion?

Commissioner Cooper? Thank you. I think we need to build and I'm willing to donate money to pay for a food vendor each first Friday going forward. Thank you. We appreciate that. Commissioner Jackson? You're last. I'm last. Did you want to go ahead and make the motion?

To change it? Mm-hmm. Okay, but I'm not going to make the motion to change it.

It is perfectly fine.

I'll make the motion to change the special event fee for the food vendors to $20 and the non-food vendors to $10.

Is there a second? Commissioner Burgess? I second. Is there any discussion?

so in order to do this we have to do it by ordinance so i will have to redo the ordinance and we would have to table it to the next meeting so you can approve it because the budget the rate fee schedule gets approved through the budget ordinance so in order to change that i have to do it through we have to do it through an ordinance

Commissioner Jackson, can you amend your motion to give staff permission to go ahead and prepare the ordinance to change the rate for First Friday vendors and food trucks?

I'll try. I'll make a motion that we give the staff time to fix the ordinance and make it right and make it look good. Yes, ma'am.

Is there a second? All right. Any discussion? All in favor? Motion to amend our ordinances to change vendor fees from current charges to $10 and $20.

And I'll bring back the ordinance on the 24th for the board to approve. Thank you.

Just a quick question. So you can't promote the event, just not promote the fees?

Yes. all right um agenda item 9h discussing discussion regarding zoning ordinance chapter 42 article 3 special uh uses and permits commissioner jackson um i want to talk about because we have some new businesses trying to come in the area and just from hearing some of the things some of them

I don't think Spring Lake needs any more smoke shops or any more of those 357 things or whatever you call it. Yeah, which actually they smoke shop. So I don't think we need any more of that, but I just wasn't sure on how to do it. So I just wanted to bring it to the board's attention.

So I know we currently have an ordinance that states that they cannot be within 1,000 feet of each other, and I am absolutely in favor of making that more restricted.

Actually, it's a half mile, Mayor. Half mile. It's a half mile.

Well, we need to definitely tighten it. Is Mr. Porter... use the restroom. I just want to make sure that he is here when we're talking about this part because I know we don't want to overstep.

We also have our planning manager here as well if you want her to chime in. She's the one to help after our turn.

Commissioner Hoover? No, I was going to say we already have an ordinance that says, like she said, to have now, and it also can't be a certain distance from a church or a school. Now, the ones that would be great, but we can't do anything about it. But we have a really good ordinance in place for that.

But this isn't, you're not, just for clarification, you're saying this because you don't want any more to be able to come here. Mr. Porter.

Okay. Yes, ma'am. Sorry, I was on a conference call.

It's okay. Please keep your conversations to a minimum. Are we legally authorized to prohibit future smoke shops from coming to the town?

Coming at all?

Coming at all.

I do not believe we could prevent them from coming at all.

You can... Ms. Hanford, you can't speak out during the meeting.

Thank you. So, one, I would have to research it, but I don't believe you can just have an outright ban on a particular type of business. Now you can zone it to certain areas, but you cannot just say this type of business is outright not allowed. Y'all might, certain people may not like vapes and I understand all the health concerns and for kids. At the end of the day, they are legal.

It's a legal business.

But I'll be happy to look into it. Please do.

According to the documentation here, it says the town of Spring Lake Municipal Coal regulates smoke shop and tobacco stores through strict zoning criteria. While the town cannot force currently operation shops to close, the town has legal authority to prevent new ones from opening in specific locations.

Yeah, specific location.

Right. I know the mallet and stuff like that. So when you look into that, because when we created this ordinance, if you look into that, I think any new ones coming in is in there.

Well, all I'm saying is you can't just say, at least I believe, I'll have to research this because this is on the fly. You can't just say smoke shops aren't allowed, vape shops aren't allowed in Spring Lake, period. You can regulate where they go through zoning, but you can't just say they can't come.

But we already have so many here in those particular distance that we're talking about.

Yeah, but we have no idea in the future what new buildings might be rezoned as commercial and might still qualify even under that zoning. That's all I'm saying. But you're going to look into it? I will be happy to look into it. So, yes, you can regulate just like you can with adult entertainment or something like that. You can regulate where it's at, but it's pretty hard without getting sued for violating people's rights to just say you can't come here anywhere, period. You've got to have places where they could at least hypothetically go to.

could we potentially and i know this is just a question that you can look up in your in your process could we potentially increase the space in between in our zoning so right now it's half a mile quarter mile if we in half a mile could we potentially increase that space uh that i believe we could and i'm assuming it's what is it a half a mile from a school or is that what it is no from each other from each other so we can increase that distance i would assume so but i would have to research that

Yeah, I mean, Spring Lake's only so big. Exactly.

We also have our planning manager who was instrumental in shaping this as well, so it's up to the board if you all want to have her add some information to it as well.

Was there anything that needed to be added?

Come on up, Lynn. Hello.

Hello. Mayor and Board of Commissioner, yes. Attorney Porter is correct. You can do more restricted on this area. I was here and helped rip this ordinance. You can go to the half mile to a mile. I also do a special use permit. Tobacco sales currently is only in your matron as CP, which is commercial properties, and C3. So that's up to y'all how y'all want to proceed with this. Okay.

Thank you.

So when the special use has authority, there you go.

Yeah, but what she's saying is we don't have that in our order.

We have to do it. There's a due process and it goes to plannings for them. There's a public hearing and so forth that can change anything that is of importance.

Any other questions or comments? Go ahead, excuse me, Commissioner Jackson.

And help me clear up this. So am I to understand and help me tell me if I'm wrong, we don't have any more clubs that can come to Spring Lake, right? Yes. So the clubs can still come?

As long as they meet all the terms and conditions. The only reason the, I can't remember, it was a plush?

Yeah.

Look, here, allegedly, we certainly alleged it, that they were doing very nefarious activities. So it wasn't because they were a club. It's because allegedly they were a club with violent murders and selling drugs. Allegedly. But I think Chief Garman would say not allegedly.

So we all know as well in this for the answering cells for tobacco, it's only 2% of the gross floor of tobacco. What does that mean? 2% of the gross floor of cells. So whatever they make, you get 2%? No, no, no. It's only on the cells they can have. Oh, tobacco. So if you, yes, you've got, it's supposed to be 2%, 200, which is lesser. They can't have no more than 200 square foot of tobacco sales. That's why you can make that more trigger if you need to. But that's where you have your, you know, convenience stores that comes in, like your Circle K's and your other big ones, you know, that might potentially get sales. I just don't. Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you.

So we will hear back from Mr. Porter once he gets through this to see how we can move forward with this because I want you, Commissioner Jackson, stronger restrictions are necessary. All right. We are now moving on to our next discussion regarding the creation of the Special Events Planning Committee. So I'm excited about this one, and I want to thank Commissioner Jackson so very, very, very, very, very much for bringing this back to the forefront. So we have our Special Events team, which is comprised of Town Staff, Police, Fire, Planning, Streets, the Manager, who am I missing? Police, Fire, Planning, Streets, Sanitization. And so what happens right now is people who want to host an event goes through the special events committee and basically the town makes sure that it's logistically feasible, that if roads need to be closed, that those proper precautions are taken, that permits are in place. things of that nature. However, I know it is the desire of members of this board to create a community-driven special events committee that will do more of working with the town, with the other committees, to create somebody who's kind of organizing Christmas, Thanksgiving, working with NVAC on Veterans and Memorial Day, doing something for the towns for our birthday, things like that. community-led, community-driven committee that's organizing the special events for our town. They'll work directly with Cumberland County Parks and Rec to bridge that gap because right now we are missing a lot of things that's happening at the building that we own and the property that we own and the town that we govern. And so we have to find ways to bridge that gap. And so Commissioner Jackson has so gracefully volunteer to be the staff liaison to create this special events advisory committee comprised again of the citizenry so if there's anything you'd like to add to that we do have a family affair holly um very good first girl on main street she has um gladly accept that challenge that you want to say is the So again, please stay connected to our social media, SunshineList, make sure you're checking emails, all of those things, the town website, that's what I was trying to say, to look for meeting invites while we formalize this committee. Commissioner Jackson and I will get together and we'll discuss when we're gonna bring that to the community, but please help us spread the word that we are now building this community for, or building this committee for more community engagement and so that we can actually begin doing our town-sponsored events again. Any other questions, comments, discussion from the board? All right. So we will now move, oh, we're almost done. Well, we're young. We still are. All right, an update on the Veterans Park Grant. Mr. English?

So with the Office of State Budget Management issuing us a grant last year, right now I have $17,000 left for this particular grant for Veterans Park. Again, you talked about when the money may go away. The Office of State Budget Management does not tell you when the money's going away. So this could go away any day. I would like to prioritize this. As I continue to work with the community, I'm considering working with our Veterans Committee and having some conversations, and maybe Commissioner, you and I, Thompson could really have a conversation about how we can work together with our community to figure out how we spend the $17,000. It's not a whole lot of money, but I think engaging the community would be great. And we could spend it. I mean, that's pretty much it. I mean, we just need to have a conversation. Maybe you and I can talk tomorrow about it and bring it back to the board. Thank you. That's all I have.

I know, I was just looking. State budget allocation. I guess that was, that's the business budget.

Right, so the state budget allocation, I believe we are, that would go into our, the water and sewer.

Okay.

Yeah, the water and sewer. Am I on that item now? Yes. Okay. Nine L. So yeah, we had a conversation about that today. We have $5 million, and right now that grant is coming from the Department of Environmental Quality. What I'm making sure is that as we get caught up on our audits, I will be receiving a letter of intent within the next, I would say, week or two from the Department of Environmental Quality letting us know we can move forward. We have to follow that letter of intent process. And so as Mr. Overton and I were talking earlier today, this will be a project. We won't get started likely on this until next spring, which is a good thing because that gives us time to catch up on our audience. So at first I was concerned, like, oh, my goodness, this is a loan from DEQ. Everyone's thinking, oh, it's a grant. This money is not just given to us. It's a commitment that we have to make. And so while it's going to be low interest, it's going to come from the Department of Environmental Quality. We still have to make sure our audits are caught up. So while we're doing that and we're committed to that, I spoke with you all about that today. We will be in a better position to receive these funds, but I'm not going to deny the funds. I am gonna move forward. Once I get that email from DEQ, we're gonna move forward, okay? So just know that, and we're gonna continue on with our audits.

What's the interest rate?

Right now, we don't know specifically the interest rate, but they're always fairly low. They're almost saying like no interest, but there's a small minimal amount.

Commissioner Cooper, thank you. Will we get approved? Don't we have to go through the LGC to get approved for that?

That's the point I'm making about that. You know, they're the ones saying you don't have your artists called on. So we have to show progress. And once we show progress to the LGC, they can't deny us getting $5 million, which they are saying, I'm sure they are saying, you need this fund. You need this fund.

So it is a combination of a grant and a loan.

Correct.

Is there any matching funds for the grade?

Right now, there's no matching funds, which is a good thing. We don't need, yeah, this is all coming from, we were selected, you know, amongst several hundreds of other towns. No matching.

Any other questions or comments?

All right, we'll now move on to 9M, a locally administered program. Our last fund grant update, Mr. English.

So I did receive another grant from, we did, a must-virt part. Now this is a matching of $300,000, and you and I talked about that, Mayor, you serve on the board. We will be meeting with the city of Fayetteville, Parks and Rec tomorrow and you're invited to participate. What we want to do is find out how the process works because we want to make sure the board is fully aware, engaged on how we're going to match this $300,000. Jimmy and I, Mr. Overton and I sat down today and talked about where the funds are going to come from. So we want to make sure that they're there and we're committed to the must for the park.

The $300,000 match, is that what Parks and Rec said? Because through FANPO, no, it's nowhere near $300,000.

And again, that's why we're having a meeting with Mr. Gibson tomorrow to hammer this out.

Yeah, it should be more around $25,000 to $30,000 match. That's even better. That's much better.

Okay. Definitely. That call, and I hope you have an invite. If you don't, I'll give that to you this evening. Right. That's what it's saying. What she's saying is that it's...

Right. It's a thrift fan call. We just had this discussion. It's a significant...

Well, this would be the Musburg Park, you know, to build out. This would be a great opportunity for, you know, tourism. We bring folks to Spring Lake, but we have to make sure first it's financially feasible. We could do this. So I'm looking forward to the conversation tomorrow.

So a bit of background about Musburg Park. It's something that you've heard mentioned from before, but it's been kind of a pet project for many, many, many, many years in the town. We were granted or gifted a large piece of land, 33 plus acres, scenic overlooks, walking trails. It was cleared out with the desire to move forward, but then COVID happened and the progress that was made had to be unfortunately paused. So we are going back to this project so that we can make sure we finish it because the best project is a completed project. So we are going to make sure we get that one done. So we applied for some funds through FANPA, which is Fanville Area Metropolitan Transportation Organization. And we were awarded $1.5 million for greenway trails, walking trails, basically to revitalize this area. Now, this is not going to be your standard park. There are so many covenants on this land to keep it natural. So with us being a military community, a community that, you know, it's outdoorsy, we've got a state park here. Having these walking trails with this scenic overlook, and I'm telling you guys, when we finish this park, this is going to be a prize for Cumberland County. There is nothing like this in our area. The closest thing you're going to get is Rolling Rock, Raven Rock, way up the street. But we're trying to get one right here in our very own backyard. So we will get you updated some more once we have this meeting tomorrow. All right, we are finished with the bulk of the meeting. I will keep my updates to a very, very, very, very minimum. First Friday was great. Come out to the next one. Guess when? First Friday of September. You are more than welcome to be there at 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., and Chief German's going to be dancing for us, so you definitely want to come. I'm kidding. Well, maybe not. You got some moves back there.

that when Chief Drummond dances, and people start throwing dollars and fives, that it's not against the board, and we don't get any of those.

We said no adult entertainment. So check that policy out.

Yeah, I'll check it out.

Okay, and you heard it today in our public comments. There is paving happening on Bright Boulevard right now. That is through DOT. We cannot control the times, the hours. And it is right in front of my house, y'all. So everything now takes me an additional 15 to 20 minutes to get through our teeny wee little town. So please be mindful of that. Fort Bragg has also shut down All-American for repairs. This will be shut down for the foreseeable future. However, our new garrison commander, who just took command a few weeks ago, has taken the challenge of our outgoing garrison commander that he will have this All-American gate open before his tenure is over. So he's got two years, and he has publicly accepted that challenge, so we're going to hold him to it. I've mentioned it before, we have applied for our DCIP funding. I have been watching this very closely, communicating with people who are connected to it, and they were very, very, very excited to see Cumberland County's first community applying for this DCIP funding. Camp Lejeune gets it all the time, and this is hundreds of millions of dollars. We have applied for a $20 million grant that will go directly into our water sewer infrastructure. This grant is for 22,000 feet of sewer line, 22,000 feet of water line, and a new water tower. So if we are awarded this grant, although it is not 80 million, it is a significant portion of that, and we are hopeful that we'll get this grant. And that is all I have. Mayor Fulton?

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I didn't realize The month of July was awesome to be off. As I served, we never was off that long. So I can't compare with, at first I was saying, well, why? We need to have the meeting. So anyway, I want to thank you for that. The National Night Out. I want to thank our law enforcement for our department. We had an awesome time even though the rain, it rained earlier. We got to meet some of our law enforcement that I have never met and I think that it is, a must that we meet our law enforcement and our community, as well as Ms. Stanford says, they get out in the community. So when I see you out in the community, thank you. When you receive the calls, then you know and you're looking to see that you need to be out in the community. But that National Night Out was an awesome event. We thank you for the hot dogs. We thank the children for coming. The young lady who got dumped so many different times. Commissioner Jackson. and told the chief we thought that she thought that she needed to get some time off. But I saw her the other day. I saw her the other day. She did look great, and she had a great attitude. So again, thanks for that. I am the chairperson of Woodland West for over 40-some years. We always try to make sure that front entry looks nice. It's taken care of. It's strictly a volunteer. I paid $340 on last year to make sure that signage was right and the grass was cut. So I live in the community. I don't have an Airbnb, but I live there. So I call if it's a situation which was videoed and that I couldn't handle. So I do want to thank you all for coming out because we live there and we want to make sure at each Deerfield and everywhere else that you go and you got a front entry that it looks nice. I served on the Parents Commission for many years to make sure that our entries look nice and will continue to stand firm. So again, I'd like to thank you all for participating and coming out to make sure that it is safe for me to be out there as well as any other citizen when it carries an altercation could occur. So thank you very much. And thank you all for coming out. Absolutely.

Commissioner Thompson? Yes, we had our lunchly cleanup. Of course, Mr. Charles was there. And we also had Adele's helping hands, Lakeisha Edwards. There was Zachariah, Dayton, Kashawn. Arianna, that was Commissioner Cooper's granddaughter, Kyrie, Javon, and Jake Kendra, and also Coach Reedy. They were also a part of the AAU basketball travel team that came out. And also, this past Saturday, we helped raise money for the suicide prevention cookout for a college at Harley-Davidson. $400 was raised for that, so awesome job. Thank you. And also, we're looking, if you're interested, we have some slots opening up for the veterans, I mean the MBAC committee. If you would like to be a member, you can put in an application. You come up here to the front desk right here by the door and grab one because we want to make sure that we keep the number of people in the committee.