City Council - Regular Meeting

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are we on youtube youtube's live so we can keep going okay we're gonna try to do a really great job of explaining what should have been on the displays for you guys and we're gonna roll on is everybody okay with that let's get this show on the road all right sounds good well Welcome. Thank you guys so much for being here. I call this September 8th City Council meeting to order and welcome everybody here tonight and also everybody joining on YouTube. At this time, I would love to invite Pastor Thorpe up for our invocation. Pastor, thank you for being here.

Good evening, council, members. Members, we really appreciate the leadership and all the work you're doing. It's a pleasure to be with you here tonight. Let us pray. Lord, again, we thank you once again for your many blessings. We're so grateful for tonight, for this gathering tonight. We thank you for life. We're grateful for your mercy. We thank you that when we could not see our way, You've always made a way for us. When we did not know what to do, you've always kept us. And so tonight, we thank you for our mayor, our city manager, our city staff, and every member of this council. They have accepted the responsibility of serving this community. And Lord, we know that leadership is not about having a title, but it's about carrying responsibility. So, Lord, I ask tonight that you continue to give them courage, give them wisdom, give them discernment, give them the strength to do what's right, even when what's right is not easy. We're so grateful for the leadership, and also we're grateful for every person and every family that's represented tonight. Lord, when decisions are made, let the vulnerable not be forgotten. When policies are discussed, let the voiceless be remembered. When difficult choices come, give this council the courage to choose what is right. And remind us, Lord, that authority is not ownership. It's always about stewardship. Give each of us a steward's heart. Let us continue to do what's best in the interest of your people. Bless our mayor. Bless this council. Bless this city. Bless the staff. and bless the first responders, our hospital workers, and every person who labors to make this community stronger. And when the meeting is over, may we be able to say that we did more than conduct business. May we say that we serve people and that we serve this fine community. Bless our hearts and bless this fine council. In Jesus' name and the redeemed say amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Thank you, Pastor. Would you join me in standing if you're able for the pledge?

Thank you. All right. At this time, I

um we need to adopt the agenda my only question is if we would want to put the rescue uh on the agenda or keep it in council comments bobby do you have a thought on that let's leave the council comment okay um then i need a motion in a second to adopt i make a motion we adopt the agendas written second all in favor aye all right moving right along consent agenda does anybody have any notes uh renee on page 10 it reads mr bard where it should say miss bard that's the only thing that i found for the minutes um the consent agenda includes to approve the august city council and closed session minutes to approve a budget amendment in the amount of 152 000 for wastewater treatment plant um and $120 for biosolids, dewatering disposal, and $32,000 for a Clarifier 2 gearbox to approve a budget amendment in the amount of $7,000 for state forfeiture drug revenue for the police department. This is for patch and uniform replacement. D is to approve resolutions for the Fall 2026 Graham Water Wastewater Treatment Plant and reliability of the 2026-2036 Water and Sewer System Capital Improvement Plan. E is to approve an amendment for Section 4 of the City of Graham Personnel Policy. This is to establish a separate probation period for six months for qualified in-state lateral transfers for our North Carolina officers. And then F is to approve a tax release in the amount of $2,148.53. Does anybody have any questions?

Madam Mayor, I make a motion that we approve the agenda with the correction that you talked about.

Do I have a second?

Second. Second.

All in favor? Aye. Passed unanimous. All right. Moving right along to public hearing. We're going to start with our rezoning of 1528 East Hardin Street. Aaron, are you freed up from your tech woes over there?

I will do my best.

Okay.

So this is a request to rezone .73 acres located at 1528 East Hardin Street from RG, which is our general residential zoning designation, to B2, which is our general commercial designation, for the purpose of utilizing the existing house on the lot for commercial use. The land currently falls in the commercial corridor land use category, which supports the use of commercial growth of strategically located clusters within the NC54 and NC87 corridors. As you can remember, this was on the agenda last month where council approved the annexation of the property and the property owner is seeking the rezoning of the property tonight for commercial use.

Okay. Council, do you all have any questions before we open public hearing? Okay. All right. At this point, public hearing is open. If anybody wants to speak on this particular project, you're welcome to. Name and address, please, sir.

Hello. Good evening, people, and thank you for the consideration. I took an old house that hadn't been lived in in about 15, maybe 20 years. It was covered with vines. You couldn't even see it from the road, and it's pretty close to the highway. I cleaned it up. I had tractors to come down there and grind out the weeds i put windows in this home i put i put floor joists in it painted it put carpet in it i i restored it for residential but things happened that uh occurred that the um these i can't even think of the name of landscaping down there they uh i had rented it to them on the corner of 54 Highway and the Jim Miner Road. And they were asked to, I asked them to move up because Sheets is building a facility there. And so they went to another location somewhere in Saxbihall, I think. But before I got this house finished, they come begging for them to come up there on the highway where they had more visible from the road. So we finished doing that. I had city water put in down there and I had to pay double rates for that. I would have had sewer put in also, but it was not available for me at that time. So I had a septic tank put in. I cleaned it up and tried to make it decent. In fact, it is a beautiful old home place. It's a two-story. And I knew the family. In fact, when I was a kid, about 12 years old, I went up under that house with one of the people that lived there, and I helped spray for termites. So that was kind of a reason that I was interested in restoring this old house, because I knew all the people that grew up in it. Most of them have passed away. So... I don't know what other consideration that I could tell y'all.

Well, I appreciate your time. I appreciate you being here. It is beautiful. You did a good job. Any other questions for him? All right. Thank you very much. Thank you. Does anybody else want to speak on this public hearing? All right. At this time, I'll entertain a motion.

I make a motion we close the public hearing now. Second.

Have y'all been by there? Oh, sorry. All in favor? Aye. Unanimous. Have y'all been by there? It's really pretty. You did a good job. Any thoughts? Discussion?

he said make a motion he said that he was going to use it for a landscaping company is that are you familiar with the it's aquascapes american aquascape right because they got pushed out of where they were and so they're going to be moving into that okay i just want to make sure i understood it correctly okay um okay that's all i had great bobby you got anything nope okay i'd like to make a motion that we approved the rezoning of

0.73 acre lot of property from r to g general residential from rg general residential with b2 general commercial to allow the existing house on the lot to be used for commercial purposes and that it would be consistent with the current land use plan for the overall goal of occupying the structure on the lot and is consistent with the commercial corridor land use type and further furthers policy 2.2.1 and 2.3.2 as put forth by the Graham 2035 comprehensive plan. Madam Mayor, I second the motion.

All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Thanks for doing that, Jim. All right. Moving right along to our second public hearing. Thank you guys for being here. Y'all have a wonderful night. Remove overlay district. We'll recognize Aaron Holland.

all right thank you mayor and i'm gonna try to describe this without the aid of the visual display but uh basically what we have is a portion of property um it's 0.056 acres of 0.411 acres for a property that's located off of south main street and highway 87 and more street behind the sheets the address is 128 eastmore street that property was a at one point part of a larger piece of property that was split when Moore Street cut through and other zonings have fallen off. It was left with the overlay from the prior property that was still on that piece of property, even though it was not adjacent to Highway 87. So what's being asked tonight from the applicant is to have the overlay removed from this property since it's a remnant from a prior piece of property so that they're not restricted with the overlay conditions and restrictions that come along with being on Highway 87.

And it's no longer applicable that they are part of the overlay because they're not on South Main?

Correct. So if you look at our ordinance currently to be within the Highway 87 overlay, you would have to be adjacent to highway 87 we do have the overlay that does turn down side roads but that's because the property itself is sitting and situated on the street and that's why you see certain properties that do have the overlay that turns down a side road in this case it's not on 87 at all um at one point it was but it's no longer not after parceled out correct okay any questions for staff before we open public hearing all right

Madam Mayor, I make a motion we open to public hearing.

At this time, public hearing is open. Anyone who wants to speak is welcome to. Come on up. Name and address.

My name is Justin Kessler. I'm here about 128 Eastmore Street. I'm representing Angela Hall. She's the owner of the business. We are a small financial planning boutique. We bought the property hoping to uh move our office there from Burlington um and in the um in the prospect of creating a parking area in the front we discovered the overlay district and everything that rolls along with it the difficulty is that we are not connected to City sewer um and um according to the folks I spoke with at the planning board our closest point would be the middle of 87 at Moore Street Um, that's probably costing us more than the property cost us in order to get sewer. So we have a, um, septic tank and leach lines in the back, which restrict us from being able to use that. Um, and so our only avenue for any kind of parking is, is there in the front and the planning board saw it that way as well. Um. We'll probably have four employees and three or four clients a day, as well as Amazon and, you know, the normal delivery. But but that's that's why we're asking. We need to be able to put a parking area in the front and we just can't go. We can't go to the backside of the property. So that's why we're here.

Wonderful. Thank you so much for being here. I appreciate it. Would anybody else like to speak on this topic? At this point, I will entertain a motion.

I make a motion we close the public hearing. Second.

All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Unanimous? Any discussion? No? No. All right. Anybody want to make a motion?

I'd like to make a motion. I move to approve the removal of the overlay district portion from the .411 one acre property that falls under the south main street highway 87 overlay district and it's consistent with section 10.437 the development ordinance and further strategy 2.1.5 per the 2035 comprehensive plan okay all in favor hi all of those thank you guys so much for being here absolutely all right moving right along

to new business this is what we just voted on isn't it pretty um funding request from hrc for historic plaques aaron are you okay to take this one thank you um so you as you just read this is a request from the hrc to

have $650 in funding to install three new plaques on buildings with historic significance, those being Children's Chapel, United Church of Christ, Green and McClure Furniture, and Graham Historical Museum.

This reads $650, but the packet says $650 per plaque. Can you confirm? Is it?

Each or each? 650 each. Yeah.

Okay. Just making sure we get that in there. Awesome.

I thought we had a good deal.

It would have been a great deal. I'll take that deal. Here are my questions. Do we have a policy or set of guidelines? Who can I direct my questions to? Do we have a policy or set of guidelines that we are following that helped us identify these three businesses or how did we come up with these three businesses? Thank you for being here. Yes.

Ben Boyce, I'm the chair of the HRC.

Richard Shevlin.

Co-chair. um yeah so uh we have a list of all the historic uh you know sites and we own that list and we picked off of it what has already gotten plaqued you know taking those off and then just started going down the list and so we just picked a few um and contacted all the the owners and gotten they're okay and written up our little thing on it and that's that's that's where we're at so what qualifies a historic site under your purview there's a whole bunch of guidelines for that great it's it's it's everything in the district in in the downtown pretty much and then it kind of goes out from there a little bit but um it's it's it's a downtown pretty much okay yeah yeah

Um, and then my second question was, is there a local firm that we can get the plaques from? Cause we're going to Florida right now.

Yeah.

So, uh, sorry, here's an invoice from Florida for the rest of the public. They've we've got a quote from a Florida company.

Yes. We, we, we had, uh, four to six quotes, uh, from Illinois to New York, to North Carolina, to Florida. And unfortunately, the local company was the most expensive for the same quality. You buy it twice. They were about $1,300, $1,400. We picked the Florida people based on their customer service during the phase of, you know, getting quotes. And also, they came recommended by our council liaison, Jim. uh young uh and I spoke the guy real easy to work with they shot us back you know their quality pictures and things like that they're probably in your your packets so uh it was like I said they were responsive and they will be there as we need them if we have any trouble with like installing them or anything like that

Okay. Do you have any questions? I was just going to ask, what about shipping costs? Do we know? They're included. It's included with the 650?

Isn't that correct? And the installation hardware.

Yeah, and the installation hardware. Yeah. The only thing I think we have to do is pay the tax, which... Yeah. Yeah.

Any other questions? No, ma'am. Okay. Thank you guys so much. I would like to...

see if there's any other local firms that could maybe put these together um but otherwise i'm i'm okay with the madam mayor they the gentleman with the hrc did look at other other companies and it was during their discussion about how much the price was that i suggested this other company because i dealt with them for um the gun club that i'm the president of this company in florida has been around since 1936 Um, you're not gonna find a whole lot of places that have their own foundries and, uh, and are that old and that experienced. So, uh, they did their due diligence to find a company local, but, uh, I suggested this company and also with the price difference, it didn't make sense, um, just to go local. to spend two to three times as much as what the plaques were costing sure i since the packets came out i've had a couple of individuals come forward and say that there are local places that could be competitive uh pricing and just to look into that they would be they can look into it but they they they should have came to the hrc meeting and it's it just doesn't make any sense to start backstepping when they've already done all their due diligence for that that board

i'd like to make a motion that we approve this i second it all in favor aye post i just because of the local piece of it i like to give our local businesses as much as we can all right congratulations thank you guys for all your work in this all right we're moving on to number four this is acceptance of public streets and right-of-way aaron i know you're juggling a lot over there And pass it to you again.

All right, so development in phase two of Meadowview Glen subdivision has been completed and the streets have been offered to the city of Graham for adoption. These streets have been inspected by public works department, city engineer and the planning department for compliance with the proposed development pattern permitted under their approved construction drawings. All public infrastructure in these phases have been deemed complete and meets the standards for acceptance. The portions of the streets to be dedicated are as follows. Meadowview Drive 50 and 110 for public right-of-way, which includes approximately 0.16 miles. The total length of roadway and extensions of the Meadowview Glen neighborhood is approximately 0.16 miles.

Thank you. Where's Meadow Glen?

If you go down Meadowview, um in the schaffner development it's the new section that picks up right there where it used to curve around where peter lives okay yes it's about he's going well i have a funny question does the width of the road change

I might. I just drove it just to make sure we weren't doing another Riley's Meadow situation.

I know that road is 27 feet, so I'm not sure what the older part is. Yeah. I was just curious. Yeah, I mean, it's wide enough for parking on.

Yeah, it looked awesome. It just looked like maybe it narrowed a little bit, but still very accessible for parking.

make a motion that we approve accepting the roadway in.

Do I have a second? Second. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Passes unanimously. Moving right along. All right. This next one is downtown grant usage discussion. We'll let you tee it off first, Aaron. One second. Okay.

Okay, so at the conclusion of the August 11th meeting discussion about how the remaining funds from the state were to be utilized, staff recommend consideration of a prior item which had been discussed in earlier discussions, which would be to put the money into utility work. There's approximately 330-ish thousand left. that we have that we were saying could be combined with 350,000 that we recently received for utility work from the state that could make a very good project to bring the water line replacement through Elm Street into downtown, a very, very benefiting project. Um, also discussed during a meeting last month was the consideration for new planners and pedestrian wayfinder signage. Um, it was asked that staff look into what quotes would be those two items. Um, we reached out to vendors, uh, the amount that we received vary depending on obviously the quality of the planners. Um, it ranged from anywhere from about 28,000 to about 40,000. maybe a little bit more than 40,000 for the planners and then about 40,000 for away finding signs. So no staff just needs direction on if, if you want us to take any of the money from the $330,000 to go towards any of those projects, if you want us to move forward with using that money in conjunction with the 350,000 allocation on the waterline, we just need guidance from, from council.

Thank you, Erin. I appreciate it. I think that the planters, I mean, I know that these are stock and we would not pick these exact ones, but our current planters downtown are rusting in the bottom and our downtown businesses have requested some facelift items for our downtown. And so I would be very much in favor of having the wayfinding and the planters be included in the downtown revitalization grant funds. It's also come up a couple of times. I know Daniel Alves brought it up last meeting, but the garbage truck for downtown and its leakage. I talked with Megan and she said that that could potentially also come out of the 330 some thousand dollars that we have left um and so my question up for discussion is um would council be willing to get planters wayfinding and a downtown garbage truck for downtown improvements um through the use of this grant fund so how much was the truck do we know

It depends on which model you get. It could go anywhere from $250,000 to $300,000. And as I discussed with the mayor earlier today, the funding agency at the state said that that one was kind of in a gray area, that it may or may not be approved because the $600,000 allocation was for downtown enhancements or improvements. So the truck in and of itself is not a clear yes or no as to whether it would be approved for that.

How long would it take us to find out if they would approve something like that?

They've really been quick in their turnaround. I would guess a week or so. I mean, we have to send a revised scope of work, or this time we would just kind of spec it out to them and say, hey, would you approve this or not? But it is a great area because it could be used for other things in town, which wouldn't be designated just for downtown. So I know none of us want to get on the wrong side of that.

We don't want to make them mad, but... And I do agree that planters are in horrible shape. They've been leaking for a long time and they look awful. Um, and you know, And I agree about the garbage truck. We do desperately need one, a new one, because it really stinks when they're emptying the trucks downtown. So it is nasty, nasty. I was just wondering if they would approve that, because if they would consider that a downtown enhancement, I don't know. It would enhance my nose, but I don't think, I don't know if they'll, I don't know if they'll consider it that, you know, if not, Then I would be in favor of using it, you know, including it with the $350,000 state allocation we got for water lines. Cause we really need to, to do those water projects. We have to do them. So the money has got to come from somewhere, but I do agree. Uh, how much are we going to have to use for the rapid flashing beacons for the, uh, for the crosswalks? Cause that somebody brought that up to me again. It was a hundred wasn't it? And we had allocated like $84,000.

Yeah, it's in the $80,000 range that was allocated from the $600,000 for the rapid flushing beacons.

This has already been allocated.

Correct.

Yeah, correct. We still would have roughly $20,000 that hasn't been spent on it yet. So the purchase of it, we've done that part, and I think that was like $60,000. So we still have about $20,000 to go towards the beacons because we haven't had the meeting with DOT to find out the final things we're going to need to be able to put them up.

Okay.

So we really got probably closer to 320.

If we take out that money. Okay. All right. So when are we going to hear back from the final discussions with DOT on that? Do you have any idea? I want to say it was the 18th.

Yeah, the earliest they could meet was the middle of the month. Okay. And they don't have quite the fast turnaround as the funding agency, so.

I prefer that the money be combined with the $350 to upgrade the water lines.

I will say that I met with Dennis Rydell and there is another pot of money that is sitting there waiting for us to put an application in. That is, Megan said it's sitting at Public Works and they're trying, no. Utilities. Utilities. They're reviewing. Trying to figure out what we want to apply for. So we've got another pot of money we can dip into for the water enhancement stuff. I do agree that our water lines are in desperate need of repair and we do need to prioritize those. Those funding mechanisms are a little bit easier to come by than a grant source that will allow us to get wayfinding and planters. So I want to make sure that we are just using the pots of money where we can strategically. but yes i hear you that that it should be prioritized um dennis rydell has gotten us another pot of money that utilities is looking at so we don't we don't have it secured yet correct we have to it's up to a million um we have to put in for it's like a proposal

but for the eight or nine counties who are impacted by the tropical storm so it is it's not just for graham or alamance county there is a process and it's open you know basically first come first serve as long as you meet the eligibility and you're approved he said the soonest we can get it in the better so it's not really guaranteed it is not guaranteed no well could we allocate the money

the water line and then if we do get the uh grant then we can reallocate that money out of the uh

Governing body could amend that. I suspect that utilities would put in an application for something related to the plant for that money since it was earmarked at least initially for Chantal damage. So their top priority is unlikely to be a water line replacement downtown for that funding. It would be something more plant related, maybe something that the insurance didn't cover that fema wouldn't give us a reimbursement for or something like that my guess is their priorities would be more plant related versus a downtown line centralized where the damage was which was at our plant correct right would it be a direct correlation yeah yeah ricky do you have any thoughts not right now jim

um well if the the money that dennis ridale mentioned is not not guaranteed and if even if we did get it it would more than likely go to something else um then the you know the water water pipe work would make sense um i'm not convinced that wayfinding signs make any difference even main street america um their own reports can't say that wayfinding signs help anybody because you know we're less than a mile from the interstate and there's really no proof that visitors can't find their way without looking at you know little arrow signs i know you know burlington seems to like them i i just i think for for graham the wayfinding signs might be a a bit of a waste the planners yeah i think the planners need to be replaced um I just, I haven't, in what I've seen and looked up, wayfinding signs really aren't that effective and don't think that they would significantly boost any traffic or sales with any of our local businesses. I think there's other ways we could advertise that would be more effective than a wayfinding sign.

Thank you for your thoughts. in in offering wayfinding last week i was specifically drawing on what catherine had brought us from gala couture and then in the last week we've had another downtown business post on facebook um just asking for patronage and and making it very clear that they needed some support um and i also know that especially outside of the four blocks If you go off of the Court Square, some of those businesses, people do not see CLAT and Frank's unless you know that they're there. People don't know that we have a tea shop in downtown Graham, and so the wayfinding would be a way to showcase those. So that's the case for the wayfinding. Any other thoughts on that, Bobby?

Given our media person is planning to highlight businesses downtown, I think that would give more visibility than that, spending $40,000 on the wayfinding signs. I mean, more folks go to the website.

Social stuff popping up pretty quick.

Said social was planned to launch end of October. So you've got a couple of months for that.

well i don't think you're gonna get wayfinding signs put in october you just need to ask for a time what the only predicament i mean you're gonna if with the wayfinding signs i mean if these are are who's gonna pay for changing the wayfinding sign signage when you know if a business relocates and is not here any longer or a new business opens up um and you know my heart goes out to folks you know because things are tough for everybody right now and i totally understand it i just think that there's better ways of bringing business in to these these businesses i mean all the businesses not just the two that that spoke to you or spoke up here the last meeting um what are we going to do you put wayfinding signs up and their their business isn't hasn't improved any what what's your what's your reason for that i mean we make the signage bigger i just think that there's other ways that we could do it and get more out of it than just a wayfinding sign i mean there's just just in what i've looked up there there is no concrete proof that a wayfinding sign would help them and i i mean i looked this up after because you know i i feel for the the stores downtown that are that are hurting um I just think there's other ways that we could do it as far as social media, things like that would have a greater reach than a wayfinding sign.

Do we have consensus on planters?

Yeah, I think the planters need to be replaced.

May I make a motion?

Sure.

I make a motion that we approve the planters as whatever they have in today's packet. And we used the majority of the funding to go for water line improvements.

Their second.

Second.

All in favor. Aye. Aye. All opposed. I'm going to pose just because I.

Excuse me, just just for clarity. So are we saying 40,000 is allocated to exceed 40,000 and whatever is remaining

If we can get planters done for $40,000, then not to exceed $40,000, and then the remaining go to the water line project and then paying off the $20,000 of flash and beacons. Is that clear enough for you? Okay, awesome. All right. Number six, fall fest event, street closure. Aaron, whenever you're ready, sir.

All right. So Cheryl Rich has submitted an amendment to the approved special events application for the Fall Fest event scheduled for Saturday, September 19th, rain date of October 18th, to include the closure of West Ham Street. The event is expected to run from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., which includes a setup and cleanup time. This item was on the agenda last month, but has since had the applicant submit an amendment to include the street closure for West Ham.

Thank you, Sarah. Does council have any questions for Erin or for Cheryl? I do. I was just wondering why. You want for Cheryl?

Yes. Okay.

Cheryl, can you come up, please? Please, ma'am. Thank you. Go ahead, Bonnie.

Sorry. I was just going to ask what the reason for closing West Elm Street was. Because it doesn't really say on the application. It just says close it.

i know that um it gets really busy we have a lot of people that do come to the festival and with it being on the sidewalks we don't have like a lot of extra space to put you know food trucks we're gonna have we were planning on having line dancing and um some parking lots might work but i think like If we really want to promote it, it's a great space to have for us to put a lot of community, you know, with the dancing and arts and crafts and vendors and food trucks to incorporate with the rest of the Sidewalk Festival.

And have you spoken with the businesses there like C&Z and Gooses and all those people that

Well, I did not talk to them, but I do know, you know, most of them are closed on that day. I know that roasted coffee is closed on that day. So I didn't feel like it would really affect anyone on that street. You know, I just assumed that it would help, you know, anyone that was open on that street. Because I do feel like it will bring a lot of foot traffic and again like for an overflow. I think it's great to, you know, for people to be able to spread off, you know, into the street, you know, we're hoping to have. you know with a few food trucks we're hoping to have some picnic tables and chairs and let the community be able to sit down and you know just enjoy watching the music you know listening to the music and watching the dancing and so I thought it would be something that would make it better okay thank you thank you any other questions for Cheryl there's gonna be line dancing

Well, that would make sense to close the road. Give them some room.

Other questions?

I'd like to make a motion.

I just have one other thing. I'm sorry for you to do that. I mean, I can't imagine that these businesses are closed on a Saturday. But, you know, we've heard from business owners before that didn't want streets closed because, you know, people couldn't get to their places. And I know C and Z is mostly a takeout place. So people are going to want to be able to park near there to pick up their takeout orders and stuff like that. I just, I just don't see a need to close the street for it. That's just my opinion. So.

i'd like to make a motion that we approve the request to close for the closure of west elm street on september 19th 2026 the rain date october 18th from 8 a.m to 6 p.m for the fall fest you have a second second all in favor aye all opposed aye

four four uh three two sorry renee there's line dancing there's pumpkins nobody talk to the businesses you know before we move off of this one um megan recommended that i bring it up here the businesses and the fall festival planners have requested 18 hay bales to go on the sesquicentennial park lot because that's going to be the pumpkin patch which i'm really excited for and because this 18 bales is more than we usually put out from our public works um megan suggested that i put it out to you guys here just for approval that they can have an additional 18 bails does public works put that they don't put those out do they i didn't think public works had anything to do with it well actually we thought public works was doing it and found out recently that there was a local business who's actually been donating them and putting them out this morning oh wow that's correct yeah i don't think that they i mean and this is not a city sponsored event correctly correct no this would be to extend out the fall decorations because they came before the appearance commission who is in charge of the fall decorations on the corners, if y'all are familiar.

Is this on the agenda? I don't see it.

No, Megan asked me to put it in on this line item, though.

Yeah, I thought it was most appropriate to talk about it when the event was being dismissed.

So the request is if we can get consensus to add 18 bales to what Public Works will be.

I think we should ask the event organizer. So approach the company or the businesses that are donating those now.

It's my understanding that Public Works is still going to provide those. Is that correct, Megan?

So if we're using what's been done in the past, then they were donated and placed by an outside agency, and then the Appearance Commission put the stuff that went with it.

So this morning, the discussion went a little bit different. And because the Appearance Commission has never approached the businesses, I don't know if there's time for all of that. Does Public Works have hay bales that we can use?

For this purpose, for the fall festival, she should approach the business.

can i get megan's answer for this first please could you please repeat the question yeah um public works is still going to put out the bail since we're two weeks away and this wasn't brought up to the appearance commission is that correct public works will do however they are directed to do without a doubt but they don't have any hay bales right no they would have to be purchased correct right and i think they're around 750 a bail or if you go with mr westbrook ten dollars a bail

18 is the sesquicentennial park oh we're they want all of them i thought it was just 18.

18 was the additional ones so the ones that typically are you familiar with the ones on the corners yeah um so the appearance commission is supposed to handle that they normally put out like you know the

little things they stick in the hail bales hail wow wow i should the appearance commission has all of the

fall decorations that are in the basement right now and they will be decorating they just decorate them we have a new liaison me and a new staff liaison that did not were not aware of any of the historical asking for donations and so this morning megan had said that public works was no problem going to put them out um So I guess we're sitting with, can we go ahead and get, since we're less than, they're decorating on the 16th. Appearance Commission did not have knowledge or time to go and ask for these donations. Can we get Public Works to put out these hay bales for fall decoration? Put out what they don't have. We would have to purchase them.

I don't agree.

I will say that if Public Works doesn't do it, I don't know if Appearance Commission has enough time to make it happen.

Does the Appearance Board have funding for this?

We didn't fund them.

City Council directed us several years ago to put funding into the budget for the Appearance Commission to do it. It initially started as fall decorations, and then it kind of, once they got their stash built up for fall, then they kind of moved into some other seasons. That money hasn't been removed because City Council hasn't told us to remove it. So until y'all direct us otherwise, that funding is going to stay in there.

How much is it?

$1,500. $1,500.

Take it out of that. Can we take it out of that?

Yeah. I mean, that's up to city council right here.

So the pumpkin patch is going to be created for the fall festival.

They want the hay bales to remain up as an extension of the rest of the fall decorations, and the businesses are going to decorate that. Because right now that's an empty lot, and it's not as fall.

Have I talked to GABA about it? Yes.

They've approached the Appearance Commission.

Because what? gaba did about the hay bales i thought you said that they didn't have time to discuss it the hay bales their understanding was that the city was going to do the hay bales okay my only issue is that because this isn't a city event um and if we have you know another event and then the event promoter or sponsor for that comes and wants something Then, you know, they want some decorations or something added out there, and they want the city to do it. But, I mean, just take it, take the money for the hay bales out of the funds for the Appearance Commission. I have no issue with that. I just don't want to, I don't want it to look like anybody that has any money. um can come up when it's not a city sponsored event and then ask for something like that and you know we set a presence where we just do it when sometimes you know we might not be able to um just talking hay bales but um i don't you know it's still it's still money um either way i regret that let's take it out of the just uh i'd like to make a motion that we take the money for the hay bales and the additional number of hay bales requested out of the appearance commission's funds you know i think did not the appearance commission call a special session because we're basically usurping their responsibility i mean again it was communicated to them

that they didn't have funds so i think that that would have been a different they just had a meeting on the 31st but gaba has funds did they not discuss it i was at that meeting i didn't hear anything about hay bales the appearance commission no the gaba meeting oh appearance didn't go to gaba uh there were gaba representatives at the appearance commission okay hmm there's a motion on the floor i've already made my motion so i think somebody wanted to are y'all okay with amy coming up amy can you come up please Thanks for being here.

Thank you. Thank you for your consideration. One of the nice things that I wanted to share about what we're doing with the fall festival, it's also going to be decorations that will stay up through the week before Thanksgiving. So once we all get out there, we put this on the decorations on the corners. We will need to use the park so that we could use it for the pumpkin patch. We're going to get pumpkins for the kids. They can paint on, they can decorate them just fun, you know, community interactive things that we're going to have doing. So they'll be out there for all the citizens to see when you're coming up main street, it's going to be beautiful. When you see the decorations, we're going to be joining the, I think on the 15th is when they're coming to get everything out of storage and we'll go out there and we'll put those decorations out. But we need the hay bales to, as you said, stabilize the decorations as we're putting them out there. So, if that is for consideration, we did come to the meeting on August 31st. That was, I think, 30 some bales they had approved. I'm not sure how the budget and then we were talking about GABA GABA is going to give us some funding for decorations. But the hay bills were not part of that because we had presented it to the beautification committee. And that was where we were going. apologies for the confusion but it would be really nice and if we could also start decorating sooner rather than later would be great um i don't know i don't want to step on toes or know what's right or what's wrong if you could give us a timeline on when we could start getting this prepared for the community would be great so the hay bales that you guys are asking for are for we Do we have the ones for the corners already or are those coming at the same time as what our ask is from Public Works? So 18 are going to go to the park for the pumpkin patch and then the remainder are going to go towards all the corners that have previously been decorated every year. And what I'm hearing you say is that it was donated or funded by a local vendor where now it's coming back to Public Works. is to ask i've not been involved in that part of the organization so but again it sounds like this is an exception this year trying to figure out what are the dynamics how do we approach and how do we get the behave bills approved so y'all plan on leaving all of those there on that empty property yes they will be there till because i mean we just just approved them just to use it for the fall fest right and then you know because it's going to be it's grassy area we'll put it out there and put the grass seed and just let grow some more

Well, we approved them to put pumpkins on that area, but right now it's still a public park, and so it would be the same as putting the hay bales on the sidewalks. Sesquicentennial Park is still a public park.

No, it's not a public park. It's a vacant lot. There's a motion.

There is a motion on the table. Does anybody want to second that? Thank you, Amy. I appreciate it.

What's the total number of bales are we talking about?

that they want the city to buy right the total number 30 have that number from jonathan it's around 30 hay bales combined between 30 not 40 000. and i do think whatever action is taken it would be helpful to understand who's going to be responsible for cleanup so we're all on the same page going forward is it well that would fall on the insurance commission

The Appearance Commission does clean up the decorations. And so I think that we can.

But in the past, they haven't cleaned up the hay bales. So is that going back to staff? Is it going to be the event organizer? Who's going to be responsible?

Can I amend my motion?

I can. We've talked about getting or they've talked about getting Board of Scouts involved. And so I can help to we'll find a way to get the hay bales up.

You got to realize them hay bales, once they get wet, they weigh Every bit of 150 pounds.

Oh, I won't be picking them up, but we'll get somebody to pick them up.

The last two seasons, the city staff came in with forklifts and loaders and loaded them in the dump truck and took them to the city shop so they can plant flowers on it.

Well, if that's precedent, I think that's a great idea. We can leave it with city staff so they can be used as fertilizer.

As long as the appearance commission is right there to help them. Yeah.

I will point out that staff would be picking up the front end of this that they haven't been doing in the past. So just some clarification going forward. Is this now moving to a staff function? Is it going to be split? I mean, what is the expectation? Because, you know, Pullet Works has a lot.

You're talking about as far as the fall festival and the future?

No, really just the downtown decorations. i think that would be the appearance commission would need to handle that does that include the hay bales moving forward that responsibility will the city will take care of it this year and then in the future the city's out of it completely i would say moving forward yeah the appearance commission will including hay bale but this is not a city event correct cities yeah we're just i'm talking about downtown decorations about decorations in general yeah yeah not specific to fall fest or any event so does city council want to continue that 1500 allocation into the upcoming budget year or is that something that you don't want to consider and you have to make a decision today i'm just trying to get it on your radar so we don't lose sight of it i have no problem with having the 1500 all i know is the money for the hay is coming out of that 1500 your motion did you want to amend your motion are we moving forward with the motion with let's just go and move forward with it okay i second this motion renee do you have the motion that was made 15 minutes ago okay it got a second just to reiterate verify how many bales of hay around 30 from the 1500 allocation that is given to the appearance commission and moving forward Fall decorations, while they still may be funded, would be 100% the responsibility of the Appearance Commission, and that includes hay bales moving forward.

Yes.

Is that summarized?

It wouldn't need 30 if it weren't for the fall festival, right? We just need them for the corners, right?

That's what the Appearance Commission has done in the past. Right.

So we're actually having to buy more.

Okay. So we have a motion and a second. All in favor? Aye. Thank you. all opposed aye three two we have hay bales okay um moving on city of graham board and commission appointments um we have three boards that each need one appointment So let's kick it off with the ABC board. We've got two applicants. Excuse me, Stacey Coon and Glen Patterson.

Madam Mayor, I make a motion that we appoint Glen Patterson. Second.

All right. That sounds good.

Do you want to do all of them at the same time?

Or just one at a time? Let's just, I put Glen down for the first one.

One at a time.

One at a time. Okay. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? 5-0 Glenn Patterson. Graham Historical Museum Board.

Madam Mayor, I'd like to make a motion that we select Brooke Flood for the Graham Historical Museum Board.

I second. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Brooke Flood, welcome to the Museum Board. And then Graham Housing Authority.

Madam Mayor, make a motion that we appoint Nicole Cousins to the Cousin Authority.

I want to make a note on that. i thought bonnie brought up a really good point last time we did appointments um nicole cousins hasn't ever attended or she marked that she had not attended the graham housing authority um and sonya carter and jeffrey have both attended and and know their way around that meeting at least a little bit so i would like to make a motion that we appoint sonya um carter when was her the date of um

Nicole Cousins' application.

I can get that for you. Nicole Cousins. Maybe I can get that for you. I don't know. Oh, 82226. Yeah.

I know Nicole does a lot with rental property. So she knows the market. She knows the housing properties in this location. think didn't we have a motion we've had two motions yeah you've had two motions i don't think either had a second on either one yeah ricky you want to do your motion again please i'll make a motion that we approve nicole cousins second all in favor aye opposed aye

um nicole passes three two so welcome glenn patterson to abc board brook flood to graham historical museum and nicole cousins to graham housing authority all right moving on ethics and stability statement this is carried over from july and august meetings and megan i will uh recognize you

Thank you. After the July City Council meeting, I emailed City Council and proposed two items for your future consideration. One would be to re-establish the ethics statement to be read at the beginning of each council meeting. I provided verbiage that had been used in the past. and then the second since the city of civility course that was discussed among city council did not work out as members were not able to attend i asked that city council consider adopting a civility statement that would also be read at the beginning of each meeting similar to the ethics statement at the meeting last month the mayor provided ethics statement and a civility statement that she had drafted that was provided to all of City Council. So we're here tonight to get directions from City Council on if this is something that you want to proceed. If so, what version would you like adopted and where do we go from here?

Could we get you to read the version that you had proposed? All I see here is the ones from Mayor Dickey.

yeah members of council it is my responsibility to remind you of your duty to avoid conflicts of interest i ask if there are any potential conflicts concerning tonight's agenda items and if i recall correctly it was the city clerk who would read those or in the past has read that and did you have one for ethics i did not have one for the civility statement no ability

Do y'all have any thoughts?

I mean, I like the one that the city manager has that's been done in the past. It's short, sweet and to the point. I think the other one's a little bit wordy. That's just my druthers. I don't know what you guys say about that as far as the ethics statement goes.

You know, given the experience of the members of the council, we have all been dipped from our professional experience in regards to ethics, integrity, and civility. Why do we need to be, why does it need to be brought up each council meeting?

Megan was the one that proposed it, and so I think if you have an answer to that, Megan, other than just everybody needs a reminder every once in a while.

I will say as politely and gingerly as possible that maybe the July meeting wasn't as productive and civil, perhaps, as it could have been, and I think one thing that's certainly frustrating for staff and i'm sure council feels the same way is to walk out of here and feel like you know you didn't really get a lot accomplished i certainly don't expect the five of you to agree on every single thing i think disagreement is perfectly fine i think there's a civil way to disagree with people and and everyone still walk out of here and and have nice professional relationships and then there i think there are not civil ways to disagree with people so my goal in suggesting that was to make the meetings smoother even if there's dissension that's no problem to have a positive interaction for the people who come to the meeting, who watch it on YouTube, that even though they may not agree with the decision, they understand the thought process behind it and thought that everyone had their fair turn to just speak and be heard.

So more in regards to civility, a civility statement or a conduct statement.

Well, that was the, that was the second part of it was yes, was related to the civility statement.

I mean, I, I don't, I don't have any problems with taking the first line of Mayor Dickey's civility statement, members of council, it's my responsibility to remind you of your duty to conduct tonight's meeting with civility, professionalism, and respect, and just add that to the one that you had for conflicts, as far as ethics goes, and just make one short, brief statement.

I think that's enough. Here's a statement I drafted in regards to the civility statement. As the city council and to all those present, we have the responsibility and duty to conduct tonight's meeting with civility, professionalism, and respect.

That's basically the same thing she said. Same thing.

And I do think since our mayor has a vote that it is helpful for someone else to read that, whether it be the city clerk or me or whoever. Right. And I just think it could help set the tone for a more positive meeting experience for all.

Yeah. Sure. Absolutely.

Do with that what you would like.

Any thoughts on this side?

I would like to amend what you read.

I agree with Megan's statement. And we appoint Renee to read the statements. And I'll make that motion.

Let's get Jim's thoughts first. Jim always gets cut off.

Jim has some thoughts. I don't think that we need reminders. We've all taken an oath when we took this office and we were voted in. I don't think we need reminders to be decent human beings and be nice to each other. I know sometimes our passion gets in the way, but we all come back try to center ourselves as much as possible. And I'm sure we can all find some balance between each other. I just don't think we need a reminder just to be decent people up here and be decent to the citizens that come and attend and watch on YouTube. That decency is a two-way street. I don't know if anybody gets on Facebook and reads some comments from some of the public, but that decency part is a two-way street. But we're up here, we're elected, so we take our shots as they're thrown and given. I just don't think that we need it. If the council votes that we do want those statements read, then yes, I'm in full agreement that Renee should read them because I don't think any of the council members here are in a place to lecture to the rest of us at all. So, yeah, that would be, if we decide to do it, then I think that would be Renee.

Any other discussion before Ricky makes his motion? It's about you. What do you think?

Well, would you read your ethics statement one more time? Well, I'll just ask her.

I can hold my thought.

It's okay. Go ahead and read it first.

No, go ahead. Because you haven't had a chance to. Right.

My thought is whatever is going to work best for this board. Megan suggested it. I drafted something for us. And then it came back around in emails and everybody said, no, we don't need that anymore. And so whatever is going to work best for y'all and for the board and so that we are in the mindset of being respectful and civil and ethical um but i'm not trying to to push an agenda i'm just trying to do whatever is best for for us as as a board did you want megan to reread and i think so

i just want to make one more comment i don't see anything wrong with this just having a gentle reminder at the beginning of the meeting as long as it short sweet and to the point i i don't want a big long statement but just something short like the one the city manager read about conflicts of interest and maybe just you know the first sentence of uh the civility statement that mayor wrote i would be fine with that like i said You'd rather have your statement, is that what you said?

Because if Renee's reading it.

Would you, Mayor Dickey, would you like me to read those out together combined for the benefit of the council and the public? Is that?

Yeah, that's what she said. He just changed some of the wording around to be for her directing it to council rather than the way the mayor worded it. But that's fine.

yeah i think that does his go to the members of the public as well is that what he likes i don't know he says to the members of the public this says members of council it's my responsibility to remind you of your duty to conduct tonight's meeting with civility professionalism and respect is the must as the city council as to the council and all those so it's both which is fine with me that's that's fine

could all do with the little reminders yes if you would like to read it out before ricky makes a motion the original ethics statement that was provided says members of council it is my responsibility to remind you of your duty to avoid conflicts of interest i ask if there are any potential conflicts concerning tonight's agenda items And then the civility statement as prepared by council member 10 says as a city council and to all those present, we have the responsibility and duty to conduct tonight's meeting with civility, professionalism, and respect. Would you like to make a motion?

I make a motion that we approve what she just read.

To be read as city clerk.

You don't want to recite?

You don't want to recite?

And that Renee read it.

do i have a second second all in favor aye aye all opposed all right oh three two three two and if i may we will likely bring back a change to your rules of procedure just to incorporate these statements in the order so that will likely be on the consent agenda for next month okay thank you thank you megan all right

Is everybody signed up for public comments that would like to be signed up for public comments? Yes. Wonderful. You got it. Come on down. Sorry, guys. I forgot my reminder statement. We jumped into ethics too fast.

Okay.

Sir, appreciate you. All right. First up, Keith Westbrook. Oh. Who?

Name and address, please, sir. Keith Westbrook, 604 Trockwater Court in Graham. First thing I want to do is tell you how much I appreciate our police department coming over there to the high school the first two days of school. And if they don't think it made a difference, come over there and look. They won't let nobody pick up the kids on the side of the road no more. That's a blessing because kids was walking across traffic to get to their ride. To me, that's important. But anyway, I do want to appreciate Officer Flood. He was there. He said it won't happen no more. The school seems to have a good handle on things. So I do appreciate our police department for doing that. Some of the things I want to talk about tonight was ask questions of things uh one is the pedestrian plan uh is there any i know we got a plan is there any timeline as far as implementation of any of this plan first off ie i'm not going to stop advocating for east elm street for the rest of the sidewalk to be done because it's also a safety hazard go any morning and stand out there if you want to see it they walk down both sides of the road that's a highway highway 49 the kid told me the other day i said you're walking down the wrong side of the road you're walking with the traffic and that's bad anyway because of that bank all the way down through there and cars can't see you real good his reasoning was because when i get down there i can't get across the road makes sense right well the d.o.t says we can't put a crosswalk across there because there's no sidewalk, which is BS because we have one right over there on Ivy road at South Graham. So, I mean, there's a lot of things I don't understand about this, I guess, but as far as I just curious why some of these projects that we talk about in the meetings, uh, I either flags around town and they do look bad by the way. uh different things uh we talking about downtown beautification about that money i don't think the money should be used for the water line that's where we get grants for what does that have to do with beautification fixing the garbage truck should be city funds being fixed that truck should have been fixed that truck should have been fixed a long time ago i think we should use our city funds to fix the truck it it has nothing to do with downtown beautification obviously it stinks I smell it all the time. Just, just the truck rides around. It's like a magnet of stink, but I don't think it's part of downtown beautification, i.e. either the water line either. Now the water line's coming to East Elm and then going down to the businesses there. I don't know what the plan is from there to get up to downtown, but yes, I agree a hundred percent with the water line projects. But we got to get the funding from the right place too. And I knew my time was up, but anyway, thank you for your time.

Appreciate it. Richard? Richard Wright? Name and address please, sir. Thanks for being here.

My name is Richard Wright. And I live at 236 South Marshall Street here in Graham. Mayor Dickey, it's fine to see you. Council members, always good to see you. I just want to say right now that it is an honor and a pleasure, especially now, here in the shadow of 9-11, that here we are after our country was attacked and thousands of people were killed. here we are back again doing our democratic duty talking to each other getting stuff done that's who we are that's who we're always going to be so thank you you guys and ladies for being out here i'm here representing i'm the try and the triumvirate of leadership for the sesquicentennial park citizens committee just want to let you know where we're at what we're doing we have right now a total of 60 pledges that have ranged from five thousand a five thousand dollar check that was provided to us all the way down to a ten dollar bill that was dropped at Jane's place. And that, of course, you know Dr. Sam Powell is going to match every single one of our pledges. Also, I want to thank you all. You kind of shamed us because the board, the city council, said, you know, we've had this thing going on for two years, and y'all haven't done anything. Nobody's done anything. And so y'all decided to sell the property. Well, that kind of got our attention. And so we appreciate you getting our attention. We've got to 60 pledges. And also, if you've looked at our thread, our websites, we have hundreds of people who are talking. And, you know, I run out here all the time. People stop me while I'm running. Everyone who stops me says, you're that guy who's at the city council. You're that running guy. And then they say, we're behind you 100%. And I would say online by phone with people, I've seen 200 people at least with their children who have been talking about the sesquicentennial park and how it needs to be put back the way it was we have uh completed our llc application and for the people who are not part of the legal guild that's um as a limited liability corporation and so we have uh also have a ein number which is an employee identification number which will actually clarify our tax status on that i want to let the board know one thing that i forgot to tell you all the other day we are not going to come back to you for one single penny not one penny are you going to hear from us if we get that park we don't want your money

thank you richard i appreciate your time i hope those folks see eric chrisman name and address please sir my name is eric crispin 11208 albright avenue in graham i have an observation a comment and a question

observation is that how nice it is to have green space downtown, that the merchants could have an event and that the whole community could get around to decorate pumpkins. Without a green space, that is not possible. We've got one. We need to keep it. My comment is last week, last meeting, the mayor pro tem had received several, several complaints and concerns about parking on the sidewalk. And it brought it to the city council. The city council take action about it, directed the police to do this stuff. And the mayor pro tem did exactly what he's supposed to do, is listen to the citizenry and take action. Well, we have 450 people, more than 450 people signed a petition about the park. The place has been packed about the park, having to raise money on our own about the park. But you refuse to help us. Richard said we didn't need any money. We already own the park. The city of Graham owns the park. But now you're going to get rid of it. So I'm wondering, maybe we could have an explanation as to what the difference is of the citizens' complaint and citizens' request that that needs to be addressed. My question is about flock cameras. I see them popping up around Graham. There's one on city property. Was that a council decision? The flock cameras are privately owned. All the information that they claim goes to a private company. There's some good use for it. There's some nefarious use for it. It's all generated. It's all analyzed by AI. So I could drive by in my old Dodge van. It says there's a blue Dodge van. Next time I drive by, there's a dent in the front. Oh, it's got bumper stickers on the back. All that's compiled, so I'm being surveyed and surveilled without my consent, without a warrant, but the flock cameras know where I'm going, know what I drive, and know how many times I pass them. There's one down on 54 right before we get on the highway. There's one up by Jim's Tasty Freeze. Brunton's covered with them. I read recently that they have accumulated more than 20 billion bits of information from the flock cameras. Does the city have an agreement? It would be nice if the citizen would know. So if you could explain that and what the purpose of the agreement is, and how much money it cost us to get information back, how much money you had to pay the city to get it there, how much the flock camera people paid to put them there. We'd appreciate some openness on that. Thank you.

Thanks, Eric. Appreciate you. Corbin? Thanks for being here. Name and address, please, sir.

Hello. My name is Corbin Gregg. I live at 404 Eden Court in Graham. And I thought I'd just share, because I've heard a lot of talk about water lines today. I wanted to say how much I appreciate that. I recently did a family trip to Los Angeles. And from talking to people there, they were recently having a lot of problems with their water lines. And part of the reason is because they've been preparing a lot for the Olympics, and they've been allocating a lot of their money trying to get the city all nice for the Olympics. But because they allocated their funding away, they've been just putting off and procrastinating on water line upgrades. and i think the main thing to understand because they had water lines burst closing roads due to flooding it's like whack-a-mole just repairing these water lines and it was actually causing a lot of devastation i know los angeles has a lot of issues but i would actually say a lot of those issues they experience is because they prioritize a lot of big things like getting ready for the olympics well they forget about the boring mundane things that actually cause the city to run and i don't think having all those great things is actually worth anything if the infrastructure that gets the basics running are falling apart so i really am just saying that i want us to continue to emphasize and remember how important the boring things are because really a lot of the interesting things we can do privately like you know fall fest or i think and i've heard us talking about privately organizing events the public can handle a lot of those things themselves but the things we really depend on are our water lines and if we don't maintain those then we're going to end up like los angeles which they got a lot of problems and i would rather learn from their mistakes than have them ourselves i think their water lines there the person i was talking to said running on 100 years old and i just i think that that really is a statement of mismanagement and not good allocation of priorities so i've heard a lot of talk about water lines and i just want to encourage i'm very actually encouraged by hearing all that talk just from my recent family trip and i hope we continue to remember the importance of that infrastructure because it is important thank you thank you so much thanks for being here all right that is the end of public comments city staff comments megan

Do you have anything?

No, I do not. Thank you.

Renee? Aaron?

A couple of things. First, I have a request. We've had numerous water line, water, excuse me. Water meter boxes that have been ran over and bus on Winston Street, where it intersects with North Street. There's an apartment complex right there. Our utilities department has reached out and has asked if I could get consensus from council to be able to make it where there's no parking on that street, that stretch. It's about 160 feet. there from that intersection back so that we could keep from having to go out and replace all those meter boxes because people are just driving over and parking over top of them and it's busting them. And if I can get council consensus, I would bring back an amendment to the traffic schedule to have no parking along that stretch of Whitsitt. And I may make a motion that we approve.

I think we're good with just consensus. We got consensus. Yes. You have consensus.

Thank you. The last item I have. So council had directed staff to look into three appraisers. to provide appraisals for the 6th Constantinople Park. There has been difficulty getting three that have the correct designation to be able to perform commercial appraisals. Plenty of residential appraisers, but there is a shortage when it comes to those who have the commercial within the area. Then of those who are able to do it, Either their timeline would not work or the difficulty of being able to do the appraisals with the restrictions on top of it made them where they weren't willing to join on. And I went from Forsyth County all the way to Wake County and everything in between. So I did secure one appraiser that would be willing to do the appraisal. Um, I also was able to re uh, reach another local appraiser that was willing to work jointly with that appraiser to do two opinions together because of the difficulty with the restrictions. Um, so I just need counsel to bless that so that we can give the green light. Um, either you would like for that one appraiser to go forth with just one appraisal. or two appraisers working together with two opinions together making one appraisal for council?

I'd go with number two.

I would go with choice number two as well.

Choice number two, just to confirm, is the two appraisers working together to have a stronger, more valid singular number. All right. Yep. Yes. And so this negates asking for three appraisals. We'll just get this one number back. Is that correct? Yep. Okay. Okay. My only follow-up question to that, and this is more for Bob and Brian, the correspondence we received from Carolina Holdings this week or last week, Um, what implications does that have for this whole process for declaring the park surplus?

Well, just from our conversation a while ago, it looks like we have the city of Graham has provided everything that they had. to uh mr cox every defect or every uh all we have on the condition of the property has been provided to him so that was one thing the other item was we are selling the property as is so as long as we uh disclose any known defects of the property and we allow the buyer to do an inspection i think we would get the protection of the as is condition now if we conceal or if anybody you know uh well if we conceal uh defects or or you know misrepresent them in some way fraudulent and don't don't allow inspections then you're not going to get the protection of the as is so

Is this document a letter that we need to pass off to the appraisers?

Yeah, I think that would be wise to do that. We should get the correspondence over to the appraisers.

Okay. And you'll include that in there?

Okay.

Awesome. Thank you. Anything else for me, Aaron?

The last item was that it was brought up about the parking over sidewalks. That was an item that Mayor Pro Tem had asked about last meeting. We looked into it. There were two areas that we knew addressed parking over sidewalks. We actually found a third area that addressed it that had a better enforcement pattern to it than the other one. So I think we're fine right now. I asked the police department about the possibility of working on a compiled citation book that would help make this a little easier because we have stuff all over the place. So in the future, we'll come back probably with something that will make this a little easier when we're trying to look these things up. So no action would be needed currently.

great brian bob you guys have anything all right moving right along to city council comments jim you want to kick us off tonight boy no i'd like to go last okay bonnie do you want to kick us off i'm not going to be much help because i don't have anything okay bobby okay um

the north carolina hall of fame barbecue is having a cook-off october 9th and 10th and i've reached out to the council to see the port council see if they would support a first responders challenge where we would ask them to have the city manager reach out to the other community's city managers to see if they would pick a team from their first responders to compete. And then if the port council would then donate to a charity of their choice to the winner so i'm waiting to hear back from uh the port council but if they agree with that uh we would have to pick a team did you say september 9th and 10th or october so if the port council agrees we will have to select from the police department fire department how we picked the team could be a lottery could be a draw of a card but to represent Graham in the cook-off. So I will keep the Chief of Police, the Chief of the Fire Department apprised if the Port Council agrees.

Okay. A lot of questions there, but we'll see how that plays out.

Could be fun.

Okay. Anything else? Nope. All right. Ricky? Good. Okay. Jim?

All right. I'll take my glasses off for this one. Uh-oh. oh i want to return tonight to an issue i previously raised concerning the mayor's graham community committee the use of our political campaign website to operate and promote it the collection of information from graham citizens through that campaign infrastructure i want to begin by making an important distinction i'm not standing i'm not sitting here tonight claiming that i have proven a violation of law I have asked the North Carolina League of Municipalities and elected officials for guidance because I want the legal questions answered by the appropriate authorities. But while we wait for those answers, there are facts sitting directly in front of us that I believe deserve attention. And frankly, my concerns have increased rather than decreased. When I raised this issue last month, last month's meeting, and I raised my concerns, the mayor responded that if the city would allow her to put the community committee on the city's website, She would not have to put it on her campaign website. I found that response troubling. The reason a privately created committee cannot simply be placed on the city website and presented as a city committee is fairly obvious. The council didn't create it. To my knowledge, the Graham City Council has never voted to establish the Graham Community Committee. We have never defined its purpose. We have never established its membership. We have never adopted rules governing it. We have never authorized it to act as an official advisory body of the city of Graham. The mayor certainly has the right to organize a private group of citizens. I told the mayor during that discussion there are plenty of other ways to do that. She could, for example, create a Facebook group or another private community forum completely separate from her political campaign infrastructure. Instead, this committee continues to be promoted through Chelsea Dickey for Graham, her political campaign website. During the same discussion last month, the mayor stated she would put a statement on the website addressing the campaign donation issue and providing clarification. I took her word at that. Just checked about five minutes ago. There's no statement. As of my latest review, there is no clarification about it. The Graham Community Committee remains on the Chelsea Dickey for Graham website. The page continues to describe it as an application-based committee and asks interested citizens to apply. The same page continues to provide links for political campaign donations. That is no longer a hypothetical concern. I raised the concern publicly. The mayor acknowledged the concern. The mayor said she would provide clarification. As my latest review, the clarification is not there. I believe the public deserves better than that. The website says Graham community committee. It says the committee committee brings neighbors together to help shape what's next for our town. It tells citizens there is a seat at the table. And then it says, this is an application based committee. That wording matters because of an ordinary Graham resident sees us Graham's communities committee promoted by the mayor of Graham. I believe it is entirely reasonable. for that person to think that this has some official connection to the city or the office of the mayor, but it apparently does not. So why isn't that stated clearly? Why doesn't the page simply say the Graham community committee is a privately organized group created by Chelsea Dickey. It is not a committee of the city of Graham. It has not been authorized by the city of Graham council and participation does not constitute appointment to a city board or committee. That would resolve a large part My concern becomes greater because of where all this is happening. This isn't being operated through a neutral community website. It's being operated through Chelsea Dickey for Graham. That's a political campaign infrastructure. The website contains campaign material. It contains political contribution links. It directs contributions through ActBlue. And elsewhere on that same website, citizens are told, Chelsea wants to hear from you. Your voice matters in shaping Graham's future. Then they are directed to vote at ChelseaForGraham.com. That's not a city of Graham email address. That's a campaign email address, so I think we need to ask a question that has become impossible to ignore. Where does the information collected from Graham citizens actually go? I want to be precise here, very precise. I do not presently have any evidence proving the information collected through the Community Committee is being transferred to act blue campaign consultants, campaign volunteers or anyone else. I'm not going to stand here and claim that it is. I am concerned and given the way that this system has been structured, I believe that that concern is reasonable. Citizens are being recruited for something called the Graham Community Committee through a political campaign website. They are being asked to apply. The same website solicits political contributions. The same website directs citizen communications through an email address beginning with the word vote. And despite my previously raising this exact concern, I still do not see a clear disclosure explaining what happens to the information citizens provide. So I want straightforward answers. Who receives the applications? Where are they stored? Who has access to them? Are they maintained in a campaign database? Are campaign consultants or campaign workers able to access them? Can the names and contact information be used for future political communications? Can they be used for fundraising? Can they be used for voter outreach? Can they be shared with ActBlue or another political organization? If none of those things are happening, say so. Put it directly on the application. Tell citizens exactly who receives their information and exactly how it will and will not be used. That is transparency. The mayor's explanation is that she's using the campaign website because committee cannot be placed on the city's website does not resolve my concern. It actually highlights it. It's not a city committee. Don't make it look like one. This is a private organization identified as a private organization. If this is mayoral outreach being conducted personally by the mayor, say that. And if political campaign infrastructure is collecting the information, tell citizens that before they submit it. The answer can't simply be the city wouldn't let me put it on its website, so I put it on my campaign website. Those are not the only two choices. I've said this before and I'll say it again. Everything I'm describing may ultimately be determined legal. If the League of Municipalities and election officials tell me that North Carolina law permits it, I'll acknowledge that. But public officials should aspire to be something beyond simply asking, can I legally do this? we should ask, is this transparent? Is this clear to the public? Could a reasonable citizen misunderstand what it is? And would I be comfortable explaining exactly where this citizen's information goes? Something can be technically legal and still be a bad practice. Something can be legal and still create an appearance of impropriety. And something can be legal while still unnecessarily damaging public trust. And it can be fixed very easily. The remarkable thing about this situation is how easily much of it could be resolved. Put a clear disclaimer on the community committee page stating that it is not a committee of the City of Graham and was not created or authorized by Graham City Council. State exactly who operates it. State exactly who receives the application. State whether information collected through the committee is maintained separately from campaign information. State whether the information can be used for campaign communications, fundraising, or political outreach. and provide a separate method of communication for residents who want to discuss city business without submitting their information through political campaign infrastructure. That's not an unreasonable burden. That's basic transparency. I'm continuing to raise this. I know some people would prefer that I simply stop asking these questions, and I'm not going to do that. not because i've already decided that something illegal is happening i haven't i'm continuing to ask because these questions have still not been answered i raised them directly with the mayor i suggested an easy alternative the mayor said she would add clarification i have not found that clarification meanwhile the committee remains on the campaign website the campaign donation links remain the campaign email remains and graham citizens continue to be invited to provide information through that infrastructure at some point trust me is not a substitute for transparency this isn't about preventing the mayor from talking with citizens she should talk to citizens so should i and everybody up here and i just lost it this isn't about preventing the mayor from creating a private community organization she has every right to do that is about preventing legitimate campaign activity. The issue is much simpler. Citizens should know which one they are participating in. If they're dealing with the city of Graham, tell them they're dealing with the city. If they're dealing with a private organization, tell them that. If their personal information is being collected through political campaign infrastructure, tell them exactly what happens to that information before they hit submit. I have asked outside authorities to tell us where the legal lines are. I will respect those answers when they come. to date i haven't heard nothing out of state board of elections or county board of elections i have heard from league of municipalities and i've um i plan on asking bob to respond um but you know regardless of where the minimum legal line is drawn i believe graham citizens deserve a higher standard you know we were talking about ethics and civility um and you always talk about transparency this falls right in there clear disclosure clear boundaries accurate information and no reason to wonder whether civic participation is being mixed with political campaign activity until those questions are answered i will continue asking them because that's part of the job i was elected to do and that's all i got to say about that and i would like to have bob's comments if i can bob can you speak into your mic please thank you uh

Really, there's a lot of facts you've asked for, which, you know, is not up to me, you know, because I don't know. I don't know the answer to that. I'll just have to go through and look at, you know, the legal issues and address those the best I can. But that'll take some time, you know, to do that.

Fair enough.

But the bulk of this starts with the factual inquiry. So, but anyway, we will look at the legal issues

aspect of this and uh and make some forecasts okay we can get back i appreciate it you're welcome all right anything else jim yeah okay would you mind sending me that i just read date yeah there's a lot of questions there that i can respond to um better once i'm looking at them because there was a lot there okay um thank you all right

May I make a comment? I want to thank Megan for keeping us out of the state auditor's office and off their shortlist. Because here in the last Thank you, Megan. Here in the last 90 days, there's been a lot of cities got on the shortlist real quickly. And she is doing a fantastic job.

Thank you, Ricky. All right. um a couple of updates i wanted to touch base on um i can't remember if we had said this in this meeting yet but i know it's in past meetings um we've gotten communication from city staff that the benches will be going up this week um so that's exciting news for fall festival um The banners were, city staff was giving directive at the appearance commission. And so our city staff is working on finalizing those designs before sending those off. There's no timeline to when those will be ordered and up, but it's just an ASAP. And right now the city staff is fixing those designs. The Discover Graham Instagram that we'll be highlighting our local businesses is set to launch the end of October. there are our facade grants and our downtown beautification grants are live if you don't know where the links are for those and you are a local business and want to apply for those check out the graham facebook page scroll down a little bit but that's an awesome opportunity for local business owners Railroad closures are coming up. Check the Facebook page because it's going to have all of our updated information. But they are doing maintenance on our railroad crossings and they will be closed so you will have detours. we have weekly movies in the park thanks to our awesome graham uh parks and rec department so check those out on their facebook page we've got the 9 11 run walk this weekend we've got esperanza on the 26th this month and we've got fall festival on the 19th and so please come out and celebrate with us um additionally i wanted to banner update we got that keith um Eric, we do have an agreement with FLOC, and I can get more details about that and present it in some fashion, whether it's at next council meeting or whether we just put it out for people to know that we are actually in a formal agreement. And then, Erin. i've gotten some notes from downtown business owners that some of our waterline meter are this plastic or metal these days the ones that you were just referring to i guess are the same things well you have a mix that's out there um most of them i think downtown are metal though there i think there's some that are plastic and they're broken and you can step all the way through is my understanding i mean we do have some that are

A real hard plastic. I get with Tanya on them.

Where should people report those if those are either missing or broken?

They can call the main customer service number at City Hall and I'll help them with that.

Okay. We get the calls all the time.

Great. I would like to request, I know that I'm the board liaison for appearance commission and we were able to hear from the appearance commission back in may but i would love to get the rest of our boards on a rotation to do some kind of presentation to this board and that would include abc planning appearance graham historical museum hrc rec commission and graham housing um jim you're on hrc hrc and planning are you planning no one's planning no one's planning um is there a way that we've done this in the past because i think all these boards are supposed to um come and present to us it says at least in the appearance commission that it's like an annual presentation of what they're working on well i know the appearance commission would come and do a annual thing yeah can we get the other boards to do that as well is that just a request that we make to

I think it's harder for some than others. I mean, a planning board is reactionary to the applications that they're presenting. So I'm not sure what they would come and present because what they are looking at comes to council. It's not like a project they're working on.

I think the HRC is pretty much like that too. I mean, you're reacting to somebody presenting.

Even if the presentations are these are the majority of the projects we're working on this is what we would like to see this is our vision for how this board could operate better or from the appearance commission if they wanted to request more money or anything like that but a formal something that we can hear reports of what these boards are actually doing is that something we can request i guess whatever council wants

I think the boards now report to the council when there's a need. I don't want to get the role of report just to report.

I think that's what the city council liaisons are for. We should be reporting if there's something that they need or they require or there's a special project they're working on that they might need something for. That should come from us. That's what the liaison is for.

Do we have a liaison for Graham housing now?

I don't think so.

Can we get Graham housing and ABC to come present at the very least then?

I think you can certainly make that request, but, um, keep in mind that city council doesn't appoint all the representatives on those boards.

So I know that ABC does, um, like they're, they're doing a Mebane presentation soon. So I would, I'm curious. I would like to hear that as well.

You could go to the Mevin thing when they talk about it. I could.

I could. Okay. I would like to, along the same lines of what Keith brought up with the PED plan, and I talked to Megan about this briefly, but I would like, we pay a lot of money for our strategic plans. um our pedestrian plan our graham parks and rec master plan um i would like to receive updates on what line items we have checked off from there this can be especially called meeting if you guys want to have like a work session around just where our strategic plans are sitting um but i'm interested in the plans that we've intentionally made how how well we're doing with those and how we can either fund other plans or articulate a different path that we want to choose for the city can I get some kind of consensus or do you guys have thoughts on that um because we pour a lot of resources in here and I would I would like to see those come to fruition if that's what we've already adopted

Oh, you're wanting to have special meetings. Is that what you're saying?

We can have a special meeting or we can have an update on a strategic plan from now till next year because I know there's a lot of them. But like Keith was saying, where are we with the pedestrian plan? How many of the items have we checked off? Which ones are next?

Like a year in review.

I don't know the last time we were given a formal update of what's happening.

I don't either.

This is my first year. Well, I mean, I was just thinking about the difficulty. The petitioning plan, I mean, we have to also remember that that is a That's the plan that we utilize whenever we're trying to get funding for certain projects. To Keith's point, I mean, the East Elm has been something that we've always tried to get back on the radar, but that's not a city. That's a state highway. So we're at the mercy of the state as far as the funding and any project. We just can't go out there and start working on it. At the same time, You know, Mayor Pro Tem can speak to this because he's the representative from Graham on the TAC. We have projects that we submit for scoring. Again, it can score very well. It can score the highest for the area, but it's part of a region that has to compete against other high scoring projects, which may not get funded. I mean, we can provide those scoring sheets whenever we submit those. It just doesn't guarantee that any funding is going to come along with it. Not saying we won't get any, it's just that we only could do so much locally before we had to turn it over to a higher level. So I mean, that's something that we can provide, but that doesn't give, it doesn't go any further, I guess I could say, from local, influence because it goes to a state level that has to review it. And then whatever happens from that, you know, it trickles back down to us.

Sure.

And that's true. What Aaron said. We're very lucky on this spot eight cycle that the city of Graham has four of the top scored projects that will be moving forward. And it's taken five and a half years to get them to this point it's not like it happens overnight um and you know we were just lucky that uh our points stayed at the top and our projects stayed at the top and i can gladly share that that's not a problem

Yeah, I think that and not all projects or not all plans are going to be the same. Like Graham Regional Park is a different, like that is more in our wheelhouse and in our control. I know that we have those. I know that we fund them. We don't talk about them from this setup quite as much. And so I think it's just helpful for us to get a, we're 15% of the way complete through this plan or something. Last thing, I'm interested in talking about what would work best for this council. Um, I know when I came on the cadence had been the mayor met with the city manager to go over the agenda a week before the council meetings. Um, I know in June, um, Megan decided that that was not what we were going to do anymore. And then council backed her up. So those meetings have gone away. However, I think that it's going to be really helpful. for us as a board to move forward with some kind of contact like that back in place. And we can do it a couple different ways. We can start having work sessions a week before so they're public and everybody can come and ask questions if it's something that you don't want just me meeting with Megan about. Or we can do it one-on-one where all of us have a standing meeting with Megan and Aaron and Renee. But I'm interested in exploring what you guys would like to do, because I think that those meetings are very valuable in how productive we're able to be up here.

I think, you know, I had suggested, like, a town hall necessarily with all the council members, but something similar to that. But, you know, not everybody was... agreeable to that but um do i i think that it would be an advantage to maybe some kind of session prior to a council meeting um if anything just to all of us have some kind of balance and get together and um because we really do need to start communicating with each other um and if having a a meeting before

the meeting um then sure i think i think it bears some discussion there's other boards that have like a standing noon meeting on monday for a tuesday meeting or something just uh we're coming together we're going to ask a lot of questions and then we can make our informed decisions maybe that much more effectively but i think we have to be careful when you start saying let's all get together

prior to the council meeting oh it's a public meeting still it's a work session meeting we could all it could almost be perceived that this pre-meeting turns out hey the formal city council meeting is just a rubber stamp because we've already decided all all the issues

you start to separate and you have more of your public hearings and more of the formalities in one meeting and then we're able to you don't have to make a single decision during the work session yeah but what do we gain from it i mean today you know we got the agenda a week ago did anyone have any issues with the agenda I have questions and I don't know if how much that's me being a new mayor and how much that I'm just learning, but yes, I, I gain a lot from being here and asking questions. And so if a meeting with me and Megan and Aaron and Renee is not something that council wishes to allow, then how else can we form a space to do that? Is that a work session? Is that everybody has their own one-on-one meetings?

I don't know if anybody, if you guys remember when we had that, um, the work session, the budget work session, you know, it was our hideaway. Tom said we were hiding over at the board of elections building. Um, you know, we, I thought we, we, we found, you know, a bit of common ground and we all had a, had a pretty good time. Um, and I came out of there. feeling a whole lot better about everybody than uh than we went in and i just i do think that that there we should have something that i mean i just some kind of i don't know if you call it a work session um but you know i guess it would be a work session um we just come together and discuss the agenda especially there's certain items um you know we could do that and discuss that as a council and then i believe the the effect that it would have would be the the the actual council meetings and the the following week would probably go a lot smoother um and that's just how i feel i think i think that it would be a benefit if you know if we think about it and and you know try to do that i think at one point and i think this was before prior to covid

I remember that city council had. a meeting the day before the council meeting at like noon or it was either 10 o'clock or it was in the morning so it was sometime i think before noon um like 10 o'clock in the morning and it was it was called a pre-agenda meeting but it was basically just council got together went through the agenda that we'd been given or they'd been given excuse me and you know prior approved it before You know, the Tuesday meeting or the, or the meeting that night, whenever it was, I don't remember when their meetings were at that time. And then I think that stopped during COVID. I could be wrong. but I think that's what happened. I think COVID hit and then everybody went into the Zoom thing and that meeting was gone. I'm not sure if that's why they stopped it, but it was around that time, I do believe. So I think back in 2016, 17 and 18, they were doing that or something similar to that. It wasn't really a discussion about the topics necessarily. It was more of a, this is what the budget is, this is what the agenda says is gonna be on it. know and if we wanted to if they wanted to pull something off they pulled it off then and and then approved it so that we didn't have to go through the whole like we do now before the meeting we we approved the agenda you know they approved it like the day before um i think it was the day before and i'll have to do don't don't quote me on that but i think it was the day before um the meeting uh i don't know if that's something like what you're talking about really honestly i mean i don't think we need to discuss the topics in you know before the meeting because that would be kind of redundant but it you know if if what you're talking about is just going over it and saying going through it reading through it and saying this is what we have you know boom i think that and adding time for questions of staff of of clarifications

Okay. I mean, even if it's because, you know, we haven't seen each other. I mean, of course, you know, some of us would go and run into each other. We were all at a wedding, a beautiful wedding, by the way. Even if it's just, you know, catching up. Hey, I haven't seen you in 30 days since the last meeting. you know how's everything going even if even if it's just that you know getting to know one another and and then you know hey we get together and a meeting breaks out you know I don't think there's anything wrong with that I just think though we get the agenda a week before the council meeting

and if there's something on it that needs to be you know it's a proposed the items on the consent agenda if that's something that you someone has an issue with one of them bring it up then says hey I'll pull it off the consent agenda and put it on under business uh you know I just feel that when you have a pre-meeting you end up repeating everything you did at the pre-meeting. Because otherwise, we could be accused of keeping the public, you know.

Oh, but it would be in public.

It would still be a public meeting.

And it would be on Zoom.

Yeah.

Zoom, but YouTube. YouTube.

Do you have consensus to ask staff to put it on for a Monday before? The October council?

Why don't we do it the first Tuesday of the month? We could do the meeting on the first Tuesday of the month.

My only question is, do we want Tom to be able to read the packet before so we can ask clarifying questions? And the answer could be either way. Because if we do it the Monday before the meeting, then we would have time to read the packet, or you can do it the Tuesday before they put the packet out for everybody.

And I'd kind of like some time to go back and look at what they were doing pre-COVID and see what their process was.

Can we table this and bring it up the next meeting?

In October?

Sure.

Yeah. Okay.

Absolutely.

All right. That is all I have. Thank you guys for hanging in there with us.

Now we've got a closed session.

At this time, I will entertain a motion.

Madam Mayor, I would like to ask that the City Council consider going into a closed session in accordance with North Carolina General Statute 143-318.11 to consult with an attorney employed or retained by the public body to preserve the attorney-client privilege between the attorney and the public body for current litigation. Do I need to do the rest? Steven B. Wall and Todd Dean versus the City of Graham et al. File 26CB004657-000. I second the motion.

All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Five. Oh, Mr. May. Thank you guys so much.

We just need to make a motion to adjourn.

I'd like to make a motion we come back into open session.

Second.

All in favor? Aye. Make a motion we adjourn.

Second. All in favor?

Aye.

Both times.

Miracle.

It's a Christmas miracle.