Town Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening. Would like to welcome everyone in council chambers for our February regularly scheduled town council meeting as well as those joining us on our YouTube channel tonight. Um first up we have our agenda adoption. Is there a motion on the floor to approve the agenda this evening? So move. Second. I'll second. All in favor? I thank you. The motion has passed. At this time, we'll have Councilman Thean lead us in our invocation this evening.

Thank you, mayor. Let's pray together. Father, we thank you uh again for a beautiful afternoon. Uh Lord, just ask that you continue to be with those who may still have some ice in their yards. Uh just make it safe. Had a gentleman today that fell. Uh God, just ask that you be with that family. Also be with Janet and her family um dealing with some medical issues. Uh God, just be with our meeting this evening and just again as always just pray that we interact each other with respect and with dignity for the office and we just praise you and give you all glory in Jesus name. Amen.

Amen. Thank you. Would everyone please rise for the pledge of allegiance? I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

We do not have any special presentations this evening, so we will move right into our public comment section. Um, anyone wishing to address town council may do so. We did have a signup sheet outside. We do ask that you stick to the three minutes. Um, if we're not able to answer any of your questions tonight, we do have your addresses and phone numbers on here. We'll be sure to follow up and make sure that we have those answers for you. So, first up, we have Mr. Balkam. All right. Good evening. Thank you everybody. And for the first time in my life, I will try to stick to 3 minutes while speaking in this microphone. My name is Chad Balkam. I live at 4393 Foxfield Court in Harrisburg, which is in the Bridge Point subdivision. And I'm here tonight uh to advocate for the Friends of Harrisburg Greenways and ultimately uh just building greenways and the ability for for community connectivity as part of this process as we start thinking about long-term planning. Um, one before I really jump into this, just wanted to thank all of you, everybody from the council who spend, you know, hours and hours of your time. I know we all see you here for, you know, every month we see you on TV. We see these meetings. What we don't necessarily see is all the work you put into budgets, all of the time and effort that you put into making the right decisions that that's not necessarily in front of the camera. So, thank you for that. And then town staff, you guys have always been great. We definitely appreciate you as well. Um so as I mentioned tonight I'm here on behalf of a local 501c3 nonprofit which is here the friends of Harrisburg Greenways. Um wanted to provide you some information and a few key achievements and to share with council tonight. First um we have provided some public resources. U we began with mapping the town's entire greenway network. So you now have the ability if you go to our website you can actually see uh you can actually see the mapping uh through that website. So, if you are one of our residents, you have the ability to navigate local trails.

We've also built a toolkit for local property owners who may be interested in rightaway acquisition as well. Um, as far as infrastructure support, we're actively organizing community support for the rail trail project. There's some key focus areas here, but specifically really focusing on connectivity to get people to Harrisburg Park. So, a lot of opportunity there as well. Um, and then ultimately we want to also help support town staff. And we can do that in in a number of different ways, but one uh we can uh develop a we've developed a a grant playbook which is for staff use which helps with identifying and securing outside funding. We all we all like that, right? Yeah, absolutely.

Ron, I know you like that. Um, [laughter] and ultimately we've also been focused on community engagement. So several different examples of that. One is uh we hosted a story walk on the Fuda Creek Greenway. That was great. A lot of positive feedback from residents on that. Um, also helped coordinate a litter sweep on Back Creek Greenway. Great news is is that the folks around here do a tremendous job keeping it clean already. So, there was very little work to do there, but again, we're not only advocating for the growth of this, we're also trying to make sure that we can be a tool to help the community just keep it as clean and and better than we found it. Um, and then also we've held two successful fundraisers. the community is definitely chipping in there and then we have grown social media following by over 300 members. So you'll be hearing more from us. There's others here with the friends of Harrisburg Greenway in the audience tonight. So thank them for coming as well. You'll hear from us again. We'll keep uh kind of stopping by and if we can be a resource for you, please reach out. Uh myself, Jim's here as well. And we just want to thank you guys for for everything you do for the town. Have a good evening.

Thank you Mr. Bacham and for participating. Next up, we have Brett Crosby.

Good evening. Um, I'm Brett Crosby with the Harrisburg YMCA. Uh, we opened our doors on September 22nd and it feels like uh four weeks ago and about four years ago all at the same time. Um, but I thought it'd be a good night just to share a little bit of updates to what's going on at the Harrisburg YMCA. So, a few numbers. Um, if you have not been over, it has quickly become the place to be in Harrisburg. Um, it is busy sun up to sun down. Um, you know, really no space in that building sits empty um throughout the day. So, um, our membership's grown over 150% since the beginning of last year, which, you know, we were upstairs a little quieter during these meetings, I'm sure. Um, so really has taken off. Um, there's 76 town employee memberships right now as part of our agreement. And there's also 1,056 of the residents receiving the Town of Harrisburg discounts. That's that's household. So that represents over 3,500 people um that are using the Harrisburg discount. That also doesn't include everybody in Harrisburg. We have plenty of insurance memberships that are not included in that number. So uh really pretty pretty high penetration rate for residents um enjoying the YMCA so far. Um but what I'm super excited to share with you is some of the impact we're making on the community each and every day. So, um, we've had over 250 or right at 253 people register for swim lessons already. Um, babies all the way. We've already had, I think, a 70-year-old, um, learned to swim, which was pretty cool to um, experience that. U,, we've got 16 teens in our leaders club right now and continuing to grow. It's very similar to the youth council um, that's going on here. Um, our summer camp registration opens next week. We're really excited about that to be able to have the pool and the gym and the park. Um, you know, just trying to figure out, but we anticipate um serving over 130 kids a week this summer. Um, and we we'll probably have a waiting list really really quick. We had it even at a church um down the street in the past. So, um, we're growing our afterchool program

every day. We seem like we're adding new kids every day um between the Y and Rocky River Presbyterian Church. I mean, even last week during the snow we we you know, they canled school at 3:00. We said we're going to offer a kids day out. We had 45 kids show up. So, you think about the impact we're having.

Um, we hosted town basketball. We're still hosting basketball. Tonight's the first night of makeup games. Um, that's been going really well. We had four high schools swimming uh for swim team and starting I think in two weeks the Special Olympics will be swimming in our pool um for their swim team as well. So, it's really cool. Um, but the thing I think I'm most proud about is we've got 341 families on financial assistance and that number has doubled um to make sure everybody has the opportunity to to come work out, to come be in summer camp, swim lessons, um, things like that. And that also includes disabled veterans. So, we have a disabled veteran scholarship that goes as well. And we anticipate being over 200,000 in financial assistance in Harrisburg um, for this upcoming year, which is uh, pretty remarkable. So, um, and if you guys have been in, I mentioned how busy it's been since the day we opened. We're part of the six branch Rowan Cabaris YMCA. There have been two Sundays that we were not the highest visited YMCA in the system. So, literally two days since September 22nd that we haven't been the busiest. So, we feel that sometimes it's crazy. But, um, it's also awesome that we're we're able to be a part of the community and making such an impact. And we're still ramping up. So, we appreciate all your support. Um the last thing I'll share, you know, we we've talked about fundraising. This building cost about 24.5 million. Um we have uh currently about 6 million in debt. Um and we've got about 3 million that we'll be collecting. So of that 24 and a half, we've raised um over 21 and a half um but haven't collected at all. So, you know, we shouldn't have a ton of long-term debt as we collect that. Um you know, we're kind of transitioning out of the capital campaign. Um, but you know, love to get that down as as soon as we can so we can continue to support the community. So, that's all I have. Just wanted to let you guys have an update and thank you all for your support.

Thanks for the update, Brett. And last this evening, we have Martin Wheeler. And Mr. Wheeler, if you'll just state your name and address for the record.

Yes, Madame Mayor. Martin Wheeler. I live at 5541 Prosperity View Drive in Charlotte, North Carolina. here to talk to you briefly just a minute or two about your train station and the train service that comes through. Hopefully in the future you'll be getting a station and we'll be a part of all of that. Uh I'm part of the all aboard Carolina's organization of 501c3. I'm the president of the association. It's been around since 1982 and we were instrumental way back in the old days in the 80s of getting the Carolinian and the Peemont trains going. At that time, our Charlotte chapter president Jim Fetro could not attend, so I'm speaking for him tonight. We're dedicated to the improvement and expansion of rail passenger service as part of a balanced [clears throat] transportation system, and we're not affiliated with Amtrak or the state DOT. We're concerned about the situation that could limit Harrisburg from taking full advantage of future service. [clears throat] In July of 2023, the North Carolina DOT instituted a new schedule for the Pedmont and Carolinian trains. and the Pedmont trains are affected because to achieve a three-hour run between Charlotte and Raleigh, they eliminate some of the stops on some of the runs. So, we're concerned that that situation hopefully would not happen for you here in Harrisburg. And we're working to try to get those reassessed and looked at again by the NC DOT. So, to be short, we would just encourage you to be involved in that, learn more about it. if you feel appropriate, uh, sign a resolution, pass a resolution, send it to your state legislators, and they would be able to instruct DOT to do what they want them to do. So, that's the approach we're taking this time. We'd love to talk with you and be involved with you further down the road as we we all work for this this new bold transportation initiative, which will mean greater transportation flexibility to all of us here in this area. Thanks very much.

Thank you, Mr. Wheeler. And that concludes our public comments this evening. So next we will move to our consent agenda. Is there a motion on the floor to approve the consent agenda as presented? Lex made a motion. Is there a second? All in favor? Thank you. Motion is carried. [clears throat] First up under our communications report, we have our town manager report with Mr. Donham.

Thank you, mayor. Good evening, mayor, council, community. I have a couple of um items to report before I uh start my presentation. I do have a presentation this evening on the quarterly report, which you should all have in front of you. And for the community, the PDF will be on the website after tonight's meeting if it isn't already up. I did want to take a moment beginning though to thank Friends of the Greenway. It was interesting just our our three speakers tonight. you know, friends of the of the Greenway, 501c3, the YMCA, you know, all aboard Carolina, all partnerships looking towards Harrisburg on, you know, whatever the special interest may be. I I think you know it many times it's very easy for us to get stuck in the rut of thinking what can staff do what can the town council do what can our community do but it's really the these organizations you know you know Brett with you know 20 how many million 21 26 20 anyway you should have built it bigger like I said you should have you should have built it bigger um you know the Y is just full already and and we're not we haven't been open there and I I keep saying we right because these are all very important partnerships, but the friends of the greenway uh an an important partnership, you know, brand new. I see they're bringing in heavy hitters with Chad now uh to come do the do the speaking, right? So, former Councilman Bachmann um coming up here and and uh advocating for for Greenways and obviously for passenger rail station with Amtrak, something that we all have in common. You'll see some of this interspersed throughout our quarterly report. So, I would encourage everybody to to get out and and take a look at that as well as the annual report that we'll we'll produce this summer. Um, and then obviously get involved with our comprehensive plan. A lot of the things that that you guys are advocating for this evening are are tied into that and

those are the decisions that the community has to make for the next two decades as part of our compre comprehensive planning effort with my product placement cut here. Um, and the mayor will have the the next meeting. So, I just wanted to thank all three of you for for coming to speak tonight because that really is important for um all the goals that we have [clears throat] in front of us. I also wanted to um remind people that it was cold the last few weeks and we had a lot of staff out there. So, I wanted to thank staff, our public works folks, our police, fire, really everybody [clears throat] across the board. It's all hands- on deck for us when we get to events like that. And our staff did an incredible job. I also want to thank the community that that reached out. I got lots of emails and calls and texts that that people were very impressed with the work that our staff did and and that means a lot. I mean, our folks are out there. They're leaving their families to get out there and get the roads cleared. They're they're generally driving um a decent distance to get here on pretty tough terrain and pretty tough roads to make sure that our fire station parking lots are clear, that our parks are clear, that the neighborhood roads are clear. So, um, again, wanted to thank staff and thank the community, um, for another successful navigation of both of those, um, winter weather events. We have budget workshop one coming up February 18th. I want to invite everybody in the room and everybody listening at home, please engage. We have um generally each year it depends um how much talking I do at these meetings but um 20 to to 30 hours of debate and discussion on every single dollar that will be spent in the upcoming year. We we decide on every project, every appropriation, every position, any program that is important to you. That is your opportunity to come address

the town council. you also get to to sit there and you know sometimes it's dry. Sometimes you got to sit through hours of conversation, but it's very important. It's your community. So, I'd encourage everybody to to [clears throat] be there at the next budget workshop and at the all the workshops that we'll have leading up to ultimately a budget adoption in June. Um this first discussion will include forecasts, our our look ahead. Um, we'll do summaries of our council survey results and and kind of all of the data that we've gathered so far and we'll discuss the the challenges that we see coming up for the year and the opportunities that we have as well. Without further ado, we'll get on to the Q2 report, which everybody should have a copy of in front of them. Um, not necessarily going to to reference it. I'm going to hit things at at a high level. If you'll remember, we this is a new initiative that that we've begun this year. Q1 was presented in December. Uh this is a work in progress. So, you know, we are refining it as we go. Q2 and beyond allow that trend analysis. So, in December, we just kind of had a point in time analysis to to look at our data. How are we doing? Now, we'll be able to track that over time.

[clears throat]

quarter to quarter, year-over-year. And what we're really trying to do here is is tie all these back to our goals, our objectives, and our benchmarking, as well as tell the story of what we're doing quarter to quarter and not just waiting for a budget um process every year and and having kind of that um check-in every quarter where we can make adjustments. Here you just see our our cover and a table of con contents. 34 pages of information that tells the story of everything that we're doing. This really helps us meet our our goals of communicating our successes, which is one of our main goals that we have for the town, as well as responsibly planning for our future. And it also enhances that commitment that we have to transparency, trust, accountability, and collaboration. anyone that that looks at this can reach out to us and say, "Hey, where where are we at with this? Where what is what is the town's um position or or effort or funding or policy on this this part of of what you're doing and can get those answers if they're not already in here. But I think people will be pleasantly surprised um if you look through here that you'll you'll find generally we're we're touching almost anything that that somebody calls in and and asks about. This is a great place to see us report that out and understand what's going on. We had those uh 11 objectives that we adopted in our five goals that we had adopted three years ago as part of our 5-year strategic plan. Here on on the strategic planning page, you can see the progress on that. Where where are we at as far as the tasks associated with it? We've completed seven of those 11 objectives in in the first three years. So, we got two more years to go, but well ahead of target on almost everyone of our um objectives. There's also just the the soft communication stuff in here. You'll see

some of our awards for the quarter. The 2025 destination visionary award where we're recognized by the cabaris CVB for being a visionary destination. um also the first workplace to receive the hearts safe workplace award for Paris County and we were awarded the healthiest employer in the state this year amongst um employers our size. That's amongst all employers, not government employers, private and public sector. Harrisburg is the healthiest employer in the state. You also see things like our our Christmas uh Carolina Christmas Angels initiative where we supported 29 children and 16 families with um the help of staff and the town council donating to provide a a great Christmas to some families here in Harrisburg that were in need. Benchmarking initiatives. I believe we benchmark as good or better than any community our size. I would dare to say any community in North Carolina. And I think we're starting to be recognized for that more and more as we go to events like the municipal benchmarking initiative UNCC school of government hosted where they had their strategy sessions. You can see a quote by the famous Terresa Sharief our HR director in the back of the room there and and I think just if nothing else in the middle blew everyone's mind away. Some of the things our staff is is doing are doing are extremely innovative and we're pushing the envelope of what government can do and then we're happy to communicate that out to our peers and it is really a surprise to them to to see what we're doing in the way of benefits benchmarking and and really just running government in a very data-driven analytical way. We also had the announcement of Ford Performance Racing School that relocated to Harrisburg in in Q2. That brought 25 new jobs with a $6 million investment right

here in Harrisburg. Throughout the rest of it, you will see data, lots and lots and lots of data that some of our staff love and some don't. Um, but we're going to be data driven. This is the only way for us to measure our results. So you'll [clears throat] see everything from customer service calls quarter over quarter. Last quarter we had 7,325 calls to customer service. Walk-ins were 1,243. You'll see very granular numbers like purchase orders that we had um in the finance measurables as well as how many requests that we've had on the new quick fix app where you can go and and geollocate any problem you have in town and send that directly over to a staff members. And our average days to to request or for a request to be acknowledged is less than a day. So it's 087 days currently. I'm sure as those numbers go up that's going to be a little bit tougher to manage, but so far so good. You'll see basically every department will have some type of success rate, some type of measurable, some type of number that that goes back to those goals and initiatives that we have. driveway inspections, violations, how many athletes we have in um in basketball or winter athletics per quarter. And then you guys are used to seeing fire calls and the deputy calls, but those are also admin in there with a little bit more detail. And again, we'll be able to track those over time. All of this really adds up to what our real the real purpose for this is. Are we getting results? Are we measuring, adjusting, and getting results? We can have all the data we want, but to what end? And this is a way for us to have that accountability and visibility to the public and obviously to the town council and to town management. Um but

then we take this and we make those adjustments and we try to um operate in a way that gets our goals accomplished. And when we did our community survey, which this will be public after we go to our um second open house at the end of this week, um you guys have all had a copy of this. You've seen some of the numbers, but I took out some snapshots here measuring, adjusting, getting those results. What has that resulted in so far? Well, if you ask our residents, Harrisburg is a place to raise children. What is their perception? Our residents would tell you 99.8% of them believe we're excellent, good, or average. Um, if you remove average and and just go to excellent and good, we're at 95% of our our residents would tell you Harrisburg is a great place to raise children. We see similar numbers as Harrisburg is a place to live, overall feeling of safety and overall quality of life coming in at again north of 90% of our residents believe Harrisburg is good or excellent when it comes to quality of life. If you ask them are we above average at least 99% will say that Harrisburg overall quality of life is above average which is remarkable. This this is what we've been shooting for. Um, it sets the bar pretty high since it is our first community survey. Um, it's hard to get over 99% on some of these, but doesn't that doesn't mean we won't give it the old college try. And one of our next goals after just overall quality of life is public safety. Quality of life, public safety, and then you'll see our our um recreation efforts on the next page. How do people feel? How are they satisfied with our public safety? Again, 94% would say we're we're good or excellent. Um those numbers don't really exist in law enforcement or public safety in in today's day and age. It's a um society has gotten a little bit tougher for both public safety and public safety officers out there. So to

to have a community that is this supportive of public safety um to the extent that you feel safe in your community, those being in the 93 94% crime prevention still being in the in the mid 80s and then how people feel about the investment still being very high. Um average good or excellent being at 97%. So we're doing excellent on on our quality of life. We're doing excellent on public safety. And for the things that we've invested in so far in in the parks, we're doing excellent there as well, being at 96% being satisfied with the Carrisburg's current park system. Those have been our three big investments over the past four years. Overall, quality of life, public safety, parks. Um where could where are we doing good but can do better? Well, you you saw Friends of the Greenway here um this evening. 50% think we're good or excellent in our current trail and multi-use path system. Um, another 30% think we're average. And um, in most places I think getting around 80% of average or above would would be good enough. In Harrisburg, that's not good enough. That's something that that we'll continue to um attack in this budget. And I believe in our comprehensive plan, that's what our residents are going to say. And then when you look at the overall walkability of Harrisburg, you see some lower numbers there. So, you know, we're not just trying to tell you all the good things. Like, we we we want to brag and and tell you about our successes, but one of our commitments is to tell you about our challenges as well. So, I wanted to highlight a couple of challenges here that if we if we get into measurables and how are we doing well, we're measuring, adjusting, and getting results. Here's an area where we can make some adjustments, I [laughter] think. Um, and then when we just look at at the the future when we go down this year's budget and when we go down the road of the comprehensive plan, our community seems to um be telling us a pretty direct picture. And I would

invite everybody to come out and continue to add to that picture in the next um openhouse that we have for the comp plan. And we'll have a a few more p public engagements. For those that haven't engaged um this far, you're not out. I mean, you you'll certainly have the opportunity to give more input, but community safety and appearance still the number one issue. Um, utilities, the effects of population growth. I don't think there's anything on these lists that surprise us. Um, but it is important to understand what order these go in. We certainly have to prioritize. We don't have unlimited funding. Um, but when we go out to our community and we look at our future goals, we want to look back at our, you know, what are we doing? What are we doing well? Are we doing you know so well in certain areas that we can write rep prioritize? These lists will help us do that. As well as u when we go into what do we think what does the community think the town leaders should emphasize the most over the next 5 years. It tells a very similar story. Population growth being number one, community safety impairments being number two, and then access to quality goods and services. So, that's a long way of me saying, um, we have a beautiful report here put together by our wonderful staff. Um, we're going to continue to revise and enhance this to tell that story over time, but I do think it's an excellent tool for trust, transparency, and for us to go ahead and and measure and make adjustments and make sure that we're we're we're getting it right. I think we're getting it right already. When you ask our residents how they feel, right? We look at perception, we look at public safety, and we look at our park system, the three things that we've invested in the most. We're doing really well there. There's going to be additional opportunities as we go into the future, which we're really excited about. I'm excited to uh be able to offer this quarterly report and the annual report as a product where we'll

publish it on our town website. Um it will be a work in progress. I'll ask for forgiveness. If you see anything in here that might not make sense, we'll go back and and adjust it in Q3 and but we will also add year-over-year, quarter over quarter, all our trend results and then we'll adjust these to goals and to strategy each quarter. That is all I had for this evening, Mayor. If I have any questions, I'd be glad to to answer them. Now,

any questions for Rob? Lots of good information. Thank you. Next up, we have our finance report with Brian Lee. [laughter]

Good evening, Mayor and Council. Have your finance report as of the end of January. So, we're about 58% of the way through the fiscal year. You can see the general fund revenue has reached about 77% which is supported by tax collections at 85%. Uh so um great track there especially based off last year right right in line with last year's revenue. Um what we received this week as far as our deposit from the county brings us up to the high 90% uh point. So we'll be collecting motor vehicle taxes for the next couple months of the fiscal year. Uh but everything is is really good on our tax collections for this year. The water and sewer fund [clears throat] collected 9% revenue this month. So it continues to stay about one point ahead of our estimated revenue at 64% for [clears throat] the fiscal year. And then you can see the storm water fund is right on track at 58. Uh looking down through the rest of the slide here, departmental expenditures over operations. See all the departments are there uh very closely together at about 54 55% for most of our departments. So no budgetary concerns across these. And the same for all the remaining general fund departments. You can see our quarterly payment made on the [clears throat] deputy contract that made its way in this month. Uh but nothing to report here out of the ordinary. The water and sewer fund and storm water fund both reached 49%. And salaries across the town at 55% or about 3% shy of our estimation. So now we'll move over to our project dashboard. Here's a look at our single year projects for this year. give you a chance to take in some of those and we'll start with our artificial turf project at Harrisburg Park. So you can see the progress here in uh in the pictures here. So we are at about 25% completion as of the beginning of this month. Um you can see the stone work that's taken place there. Obviously a lot of the dirt that was removed was taken on over to Stallings Park that we showed last month. Um they are finishing

up this stonework and getting these lights moved. The turf um has actually been produced and is on its way to Harrisburg and should be able to be uh installed hopefully by the end of this month or early March. Uh weather dependent on that. The next project is pavement resurfacing under the power bill program. Uh the majority of this work was done in the fall. We had some um some punch list items and some spot improvements to finish up on this contract. That stuff has all been finished up around town. So, this project is done for the year. Uh, so heading into the spring, we can always look at those reserves and see if another uh spring project makes sense. And if not, we can carry those reserves on over to next year, discuss it in this budget process for our fall paving for next year. Here's a look at the multi-year projects in design. We had quite a bit of movement on our projects this month uh from our consultants. And one of the projects that had a good bit of movement uh is actually our in-house um engineering project. So that's the pedestrian facility on Oakley Drive. That's about 50% complete. The survey has been finished on that um project and the layout for the sidewalk. And so they're working on the uh grading plan right now. That'll be the next um threshold that this makes it over. And the next project here is a Highway 49 improvements phase two. This is one of our federal grant projects. uh 1% progress on the um design and engineering contract here over the last month. But the thing that I want to point out is a public engagement opportunity. So the date for that is March 5th. So that's an evening meeting uh much like uh this project here, Caldwell, that just had a public engagement session uh last week. Um so the same thing will happen for the Highway 49 plan. if you have any opinions or uh input to give on that project that'll take place March 5th.

Now moving over to our multi-year projects under construction. Traffic mitigation for Cambridge Drive is at about 55% complete. The covert connection and grading are well underway there. Um a little bit of a slowdown with the weather over the past couple weeks, but that should get back on track and uh we should see the road start to form out there pretty soon. Here's a look again at the parking lot expansion at Stallings Park. Uh so you can see where they laid down the materials there and then on the left side of the screen where the dirt has start where they had started to spread that out. So again, this was all in-house labor. All we did was rent the equipment there. Um so really good value on this project at Stallins Park. Uh we talked about this one last month as well as it was finishing up, but this is the Bat Creek Greenway and trail head right below Bird Church. So the parking lot has been finished out. You can see the greenway there in the background. Um, but what I really wanted to point [clears throat] out here is the projects that we've done in this this little section of town here recently and the value that we've gotten from those. Um so first we know that you know Stalin Park is is here at the the northern side of this map and we put in a a very crucial uh crossing with a um a hawk signal there to protect the crossing over to Chameleia and that gets people over to a stretch of greenway that runs right along Stallings there in front of the neighborhood. And if you can see the green I'm not even going to try with this clicker, but if you see the the green um uh greenway there coming down south from Stallings Road, that's all in place as part of the neighborhood and it crosses the back creek right there with a really beautiful bridge. Um so really nice greenway system going back through the woods there and connecting over in the future to the school lots as well. Um, here's the parking lot that we just constructed as the town's first trail head for uh the greenway system. And then if you remember back uh several months, we got into a partnership with

the schools to use those fields for practices during the week. And so that led to another partnership opportunity with the Berg Church where we went in together on a gravel parking lot. So we we expanded the parking here in a big way. We added recreational facilities at no cost and got access to uh the town's first kind of substantial greenway section in town. So, a lot of progress here and uh we did a lot of that in in coordination with other projects and with other partners. A good result there. Moving on over to our equipment projects. Uh we had one that's now marked complete at 100% and that is the replacement airlifting bags for the fire department. So, you can see those there. Uh we had had um a kit of these for many many years and they were getting a little outdated. So I know the department is happy to have these in-house now. Uh here's a look at our vehicle projects. Quite a bit of movement here as well. We have two trucks in water and sewer that are at 90 95%. So those are just awaiting their accessories and their out their upfit items to get placed into service. And then we have two more that are sitting at 75%. Those have a service body that need to be installed. So once that gets installed by the manufacturer, it'll go through its upfit process as well. And one vehicle has been placed into service this month and that is the fire chief's explorer. For professional services projects, the comp plan is uh the big one going on right now. So as Rob mentioned, we have an open house on February 12th. That's Thursday evening at 6 o'clock at the YMCA. And so that's a drop-in style event that'll give participants a chance to react to the survey, see a draft of the land use plans and place types and more. And then lastly, here is our budget calendar. Uh so we did accomplish the budget retreat on January 24th and our upcoming workshop is Wednesday evening, February 18th. And the remainder of our budget season schedule is there.

Any questions? I do. I have a question. Um the new turf, is there any and maybe Jim's back there. Any associated equipment with that? Do you just install it? You don't rake it or throw little beads down or wash it or There is one piece of equipment and it's um it's something that drags and kind of stands the fibers back up, right? And that came with our contract. So, they'll give that to us when they install it. And um I believe it's every 40 hours we have to drag the field. Um but it's very very minor. All right. So that's capital improvement already been accounted for. No other recurring costs with turf. We don't have to repaint it or change the oil in it or something. There u we do some semi-permanent paint. Um but that's very minor as well. So you can put that on and it lasts for I think 6 weeks or more.

Okay. Um so there is that and there's the drag every once in a while. But as far as I know, that's all the kind of additional costs that go into it. And the other thing, sorry this may be a little out of your area, but if my kid had cleats last year, so you got to buy different shoes and different jersey or something or That's right in my wheelhouse. How old is he? How much he grew? Well, [laughter] he's turning pro. So,

okay. So, maybe a communication program from, you know, Yeah. why we're doing this and why it's great and the hours we're extending and all that. this I mean I think it's a wonderful thing. We just need to advertise our success a little. Okay. Yeah. Great. Any other questions for Brian? Thank you, sir. Thank you. Next up, we have our law enforcement update with Lieutenant Helms.

Good evening, Mayor Council. Uh, so we've updated our slide a little bit and threw on a couple new things in there for you. So I'll kind of walk you through those as we go through them. Um, so our total law enforcement related activities for the month of January was 4,193. Uh you can kind of see the trend um just trending upward and that does encompass our security checks, traffic stops, and dispatch calls for service. Uh so still hovering around the average there of 3,882. um from the past 11 months. Uh security checks again uh those a little higher 285 with an average around 1,027 up some from last month as well. And uh lastly, traffic stops uh 138 uh just above our average of 1,028. and non-emergency response time again hovering at our goal objective of around 7 minutes. Uh average is 6 minutes and 44 seconds. Uh January 718. Uh so this is one of the newer ones. Uh just kind of put this in here to kind of show how the uh the trends. Um so these crime disciplines encompass a lot of things. So, um, the way they're reported in in the national incident based reporting system is they kind of lump, you know, crimes against person, uh, a lot of different individual crimes into that category. Likewise with crimes against property and white color crimes and vice crimes. But, uh, just so you can kind of see, so we're going back or we're looking at January in the red, uh, December, and then November in the gray and blue. U not non-reportable offenses. Those could be anything from like a death investigation where it was a natural death. So, uh there's it was

reported something we responded but there's no actual crime that occurred. Um so, and also it could be anything. Uh we take what's called information reports where somebody just might feel like they need to report something. They want it documented. So, there's actually no crime that occurred, but it's they feel like that it needs to be reported somewhere. Uh so those were some of the non-reportable offenses. Um crimes against society, those are like your DWIS, uh things like that. Vice crimes, uh narcotics, possession, firearms possession, uh weapons offenses, things like that. Uh white collars or frauds, um scams, that kind of stuff. Check frauds, uh credit card frauds, identity theft. and uh crimes against property is going to encompass most of your larsenes, breaking into motor vehicles, um breaking entering homes, things like that. Uh so non-reportable is a little bit up, but again, that's not necessarily a bad thing because those aren't really criminal offenses anyway. Um and crimes against society, uh like I said, the DWI offenses, things like that, those are just a little up. Uh for the most part, everything else is trending down. Um they're not super high numbers anyway, but they are going down. So that's always a good thing. And uh moving on to the next slide, you can kind of see how they break down. Again, our non-reportable offenses are 29% of the calls for January or 29% of the reported um calls. Uh crimes against persons, 10. And when we say crimes against persons, like if you look at the assaults up there, seven, most of those are generally known things. you know, is not somebody that's just walking around Harrisburg assaulting people. Those are known individuals. It could be kids fighting. It could be a domestic situation. Um, so again, it's very, very low. Uh, and really the two biggest ones that bring us up to almost 50% is the crimes against property and crimes

against society. Um, which again are going to be your DWI offenses. Um and then um your Larsson needs the motor vehicle theft, property damage, things like that. And lastly, um so last month we had a autistic child that um left home. Um he had a moment, but uh this was actually uh turned out to be a a great story. Um we were able to locate him within within about an hour. So, his parents called uh this is Officer Robinson Church. And this is uh the one to the left there is just a Google Earth view satellite. The one on the right is the actual drone imagery that uh if you can see that hot spot that's circled in in yellow there. That's actually him. Uh so he's 12 years old. He was autistic. Um just had an event and left home. Uh so naturally, you know, he was scared, things like that. So uh we had a great turnout from our first responders. Uh you know, we were there within minutes. um started, you know, getting all the information we needed. We did a reverse 911 call. Um the citizens were al are great. Also, we had uh you know, several calls saying, "Hey, I think this is it or this is him down in this area. They're not sure, but you know, we want to check out every every single thing we can um given that." But, uh anyways, what ultimately led us to find to find him was the drone uh which one of our Harrisburg deputies is is the drone pilot. So, uh, fortunately this time of year, um, you know, the leaves aren't on the trees, so we could get a good thermal image of it. Um, and found him, he he was okay. It was rather cold that night. I think it was around 40° and he had gotten wet in the creek. Uh, but we were able to use the drone, walk a deputy right to him. Um, got him out, had EMS check him out, and he was he was fine. just a little shaken up, a little cold, but got him back to mom and dad and um you know, so just a great bad boy for for the

deputies, for uh the county drone team. And we also had uh the county SBR team. They just showed up as we located him. So, you know, great uh to have that partnership with with the rest of the sheriff's office as well cuz we had tons and tons of resources as we should, you know, to come find this this young man that But anyways, he was located and uh he's doing well. So, mom and dad were happy. But that is all I got for you. Be happy to take any questions if you have any. I do have one question. Sorry. U can you go back to that slide that had the uh January to January? We don't have to look at this every month, but it would be No, the forward one you had forward one uh that one. Yeah,

sure. If if we could see this maybe quarterly and a year-over-year because some of these crimes may be down because it was darn cold in January, you know, they don't go out. But as our community grows and people say, "Oh, crime is up." I'd love to be able to say, "No, it's not." Or, "Oh, yeah, no, it is, and we got to do something about that." But year-over-year might be a better look at this. and maybe a three-year view. Sure. Yeah, that's something we can definitely incorporate in there. I didn't want to have too much going on with the new one because it was it got kind of busy with uh more than three months on there, but Nash. Yeah. Bring it in. Yeah. Yeah. Anything else?

This is very, very good information. This is really good to know what we're looking at, what we're dealing with. Um, of course, you can't, you know, bring it down to zero. people are peoples, but it's good to that we can see what actually is going on, especially that breakdown when you have it by, you know. Yeah, absolutely. And we we use that information to try to kind of identify hotspots um and use the the data um to our advantage so we can try to prevent some of the criminal activity. But again, like you said, people are going to be building, so it's never going to be completely gone, but you know, we do our best to keep it under wraps. Any other questions for

I'll just say thank you again for all the efforts of the night that um our neighbor was missing because I mean there's never a good day for anybody to go missing but the day when the cell phones are down. Oh yeah, that happened. Some of us didn't get the reverse 911. All the deputies were incredibly patient trying to get information out in our neighborhood. Oh yes ma'am. Wild speakers walking the streets otherwise. So yeah. And he really it wasn't that far, but you know, a 12-year-old in the woods it when it's it was uh just getting dark. So, you know what? He got turned around. Like I said, it was around 40° and

and Cole, that would have been a you know, we'd have stayed out there all night looking for him. So, um fortunately, we found him, like you said, within an hour. But, you know, a lot of that comes back to the citizens. I mean, everybody's looking at their Ring cameras and um saying, "Hey, I think you might have came to my house a little, you So, we're trying to figure out the direction and all that, but technology has been been great with with helping with things like that. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Thank you, Lieutenant Helms. Appreciate it. Next, we have our fire department update with Chief Dunn.

All right. Good evening, Mayor and Council. you'll be good to know it's uh we revised our report so it's a little bit shorter than normal but as always we'll start off with our fire marshall activities you can see at some site visits special events planning uh as far as fire prevention events we did host a community CPR with uh 12 persons attending and then to the right you can see some of the inspections that he does complete 38 inspections in the month of January and 31 of those were first time and then total of seven reinspections. And then to the right again you can see the the list of violations that were found in those inspections. As far as operational, we responded to 250 incidents uh in the month of January. And I think uh when Chief Wooten came up, you heard about we uh the fire industry was changing reporting. So now we'll be reporting our times in the 90th percentile. And you can see those there. And we have benchmarks set for those that we're trying to meet. We're a little bit above that now, but we're working hard to improve that. Uh they did have a busy month. Uh in the month of January, we did have uh what we'll call working fires. They were fires. Uh two of those were cooking fires confined within appliances. Uh one was other type of outside fire. Uh we did have three fires that actually had involvement of residential structures. Uh we did have a rather large trash fire or rubbish fire. And then we had three fires that were uh grass fires. And then to the right again you can see uh the correlation to those percentages. Uh to the bottom left you can see if you

can see that box you'll see the total property that was uh involved in all of those incidents and then you can see the uh property loss and that's it. Of the 10 fires, um, which ones, how many were in Harrisburg and how many were like mutual aid of the structural fires or all of them? They were all in Harrisburg. All in Harrisburg. Okay. Busy month. Any other questions for Chief Dunn? Thank you, sir. All right. Thank you.

We have something new this evening. We have a transportation report and the dynamic duo of Devin Houston and Jonathan Young. And I believe Devin is going to start first. So, welcome. Glad to have you.

Good evening, mayor and members of council. Uh start off with our transportation report for this evening. Let's get that started with just a review real quick of some of the projects that we qu uh completed within this last calendar year 2025. If you recall, we had that Roberta road and parallel traffic mitigation improvements. the Highway 49 phase one traffic mitigation improvements which included the financial way extension, Stylange Road phase 2 sidewalk, the Rocky River crossing intersection safety enhancements, and we had some median improvements out here. We had the Farmington landscaping if you saw that Harrisburg veterans concrete median uh conversion and landscaping and then the Highway 49 landscaping which looks pretty good out there. Start out with these construction phase projects. This the these are either in construction currently or will be in the very near future hopefully. So we have the Cambridge Drive extension. This is right out here uh in town center. This is a town construction project contract. Uh performance managed construction is doing that. It was approved back in July 2025. Uh the con the covert is nearly complete. They actually remobilized today to finish that la start the last pour of the wing wall there. out the creek is diverted back to its permanent course. Um, so they're going to finish up with the curb installation and then start building the road bed back up with some ABC stone and getting that back up to prep for the asphalt shortly afterwards. This project is contract to be completed by the end of June and we're well on track with that even with these weather delays. So, we should be finishing in time for that to be done with this project. The next one is the Robinson Church at Rocky River. This is a construction project that will be completed by the developers construction team. This is the development uh Callaway at the corner at this corner, the Robinson

Church and Rocky River intersection. Uh this will provide a dedicated left turn lane on both legs of the Robinson Church intersection here to turn onto Rocky River. So, if you're familiar with that intersection at all, you understand that this is that this will be a huge improvement at that intersection. Uh, as as part of this project, the town is contributing $100,000 as part of an development agreement with that. And so, all of the permits have been approved, the plans have been approved, and all the pre-construction meetings that need to happen have happened with this project. But, it is developer driven, so it is on their timeline. Um, you've seen, you may have seen stakes out there. There is work beginning to happen. Uh and as soon as we have more information, we'll get that out as soon as we can. Uh it is realistic to have it start very soon. Uh anything can happen. I hope to see it start very quickly. The next one is similar. This is Robinson Church at Tom Query. This is also developer construction driven. Uh this is providing a realignment of the intersection and it is providing a dedicated right turn lane off of Tom Query onto Robinson Church. They were not required to provide a northbound left turn lane which we would all love to have, but they are providing a $30,000 in le of type fee towards the cost of a future project to get that turn lane installed in the future. So again, all of the permits have been provided or and approved and reviewed and we're again in the same boat with this one, awaiting them to start. They have the green light to get everything going and as soon as we get that schedule under, we will make all notices that we can and anything that may impact that. The next few are what we have in the design phase and we'll start off with just a quick summary of our transportation grant projects. Uh big

thing to point out here, we have four ongoing grants. All of these are in the design phase. If you look at that first monetary column there, the 20% that's the town's match. That's our portion at 4 million roughly. And the total estimated project cost of all of these is at 20 20 million. So you can see how we're leveraging that 2080 split to get 20 million dollars worth of estimated projects here for our portion of four million. That's it. uh to our advantage in a huge way.

So the first one of these projects is the main street at Robera roundabout. This was approved back in November for RK and K to get started with the design. It is in the preliminary design phase. They've started with the survey data collection and the traffic data collection so we can start getting that right sized and get the design underway. This one is estimated for advertisement and construction to begin around November of 2027. The next one is the highway 49 phase 2 design. This was approved back in March for the design contract to begin. Uh we have had the 30% design plans submitted in provided comments to them as well as DOT and provided those initial review comments. they are working on those. Uh we have a public meeting scheduled for March 5th right here, similar to one we had just last week with the next project. So that'll happen in here March 5th. And the estimated advertisement for construction of this is to begin in roughly July of 2027. So the big win with this project is every everything along the corridor, it's not completely set in stone yet, but the big win with this is if you notice the the existing curb and gutter on the edges of this corridor, the 49, this portion of it is we don't have to move that to make this cross-section work. So that's a huge cost savings once we get to the construction portion. The next one is the Caldwell Park Extension phase one. Uh several of you were here last week for this uh information session. Hopefully you got to interact with Roman and Aaron that were here to discuss this project with them. Uh this public meeting again was last week on the 4th. We have we're at se 30% plans. They're working to uh address the comments on those and we

expect the 60% plans in early March to get those completed. And then this is at estimated for construction in June of 2027. The next one is the Hickory Ridge Road sidewalk. This one is being designed by Kimley Horn and this public meeting was held back in September. Uh we're at 75% plans and they've received comments on those plans from us as as well as DOT and those are currently being addressed. And this one is estimated for advertisement for construction in March of 2027 and then pass this over to John real quick.

All right. Uh good evening, mayor and council. Um just just a reminder, quick update on the Woodside Drive pedestrian improvements project. Uh you can see here on your screen, this is the extent of the project, the red line. Uh and then using the town's typical section. Again, quick background. This was a new project that we had in our budget this year. Um looking for increased walkability in this area does include the town of Harrisburg street section and then it ties into some other improvements in this area. Uh there was a contract this project was actually approved in FI26 budget and then the council approved design contract with McGill Associates in November. Project's just getting started. We actually had a notice proceed issued on January 5th, 2026. uh survey was completed back in mid January and the consultant is working on preliminary design. Just a quick reminder, there will be a public meeting on this project as requested by council. We anticipate having that roughly in the late March, early April. As soon as we get our preliminary design so the town staff can go through it and make sure everything looks good, we'll we'll have that scheduled make sure we get it out to everybody. So,

all right, back to me. Uh the next one is the Oakley Drive pedestrian improvements. Brian touched on this one briefly. This one uh was is the one that we are designing in house currently just based on on quotes that we got from consultants outside. It was just a we decided we could take this one on in house and try to save a little bit of costs there. And we're at roughly 50% going to be moving on to to finalizing the grading and the storm. Just a little bit of a storm effort there to get that finalized. and then button up the plans. So, we're looking at an estimated advertising date in May for this one to begin construction on that. And we'll make sure that once we get that construction started and everything that we won't interfere with any of the July 4th activities out there at that site. So, hopefully we'll see something towards the end of the summer getting this one underway. And then the next one, the Stalin Road phase one sidewalk remnant. Uh if if you recall, we had the the original scope for the phase one sidewalk for Stylings Road spanned from essentially from one roundabout to the other and just through the process of that project, we weren't able to secure all the necessary rightway and easements to complete that entire project. So the scope was narrowed down. So it left us with this incomplete portion. Uh so we have renewed conversations with the property owners along that corridor in the hopes to kind of come up with some agreeable terms and complete this project. So in in conjunction with those renewed conversations, we've begun the process to re revise those plans, not revise the plans, but take another refresh look at those plans and make sure they're still applicable and make sure any permits that are with those are still applicable and don't need any renewals. And if they do, we'll go ahead and address those and we'll get the estimates updated and make sure we establish a good budget for that so we can be ready once we do have any agreements in place to start movement on this.

The next few are in the planning phase and I'll pass it over to John again. All right. So, uh, one of the things I do want to point out on these is these are feasibilities. What we're looking for here is um obviously some of the alternatives we can we can um potentially apply to a lot of these projects and some of those feasibilities. Also, one of the real goals is to try to get these projects in place. So, potentially be looking for some future funding. So, just kind of want to point that out before we get into uh several of these projects. So, we'll start with Roberto Road and Highway 49 intersection improvements. Uh what you got on your screen there is uh what was originally um looked at in this project. Basically the the area of concern. Um just a quick background. We all know uh this is a challenging intersection one of the busiest in Harrisburg. Couple of factors obviously with the rail crossing access commuter traffic and then growth. Uh town has done several projects over the last few years. Actually Devon mentioned several of those including some of the immediate improvements, some turn late improvements uh and things like that in this area. And then council approved this feasibility study back in uh February of 25. So it's been almost a year. We have been working through several alternatives which again um we're we're at the stage now that we're going to have to start making major improvements that intersection to see the real benefits. We'll talk through some of those. Uh first alternative is a second left hand turn lane southbound on approach of Roberto Road and then alternately a westbound approach on Highway 49. So if you're coming from Concord is the southbound approach and westbound would be coming from Concord as well on 49. Uh design estimate on this one's roughly a million dollars and then construction estimates just shy of 7 million. Um so we're going to talk don't get caught up in these numbers. Um uh but I want I want to put them on the screen so everybody can see them. So synchro is

the software we use to predict our traffic as it looking at it in the future. You're also always going to see a no build situation which assumes you don't do anything. Uh and this is actually a 2050 no build. So we're looking pretty far into the future and then you're going to have a 2050 build. And the build situation is always what you're applying uh when you're adding that alternative to the synchro analysis. So in this particular case in alternative one um just kind of point out these numbers. One of the things I also want to make sure everybody understands is F is the worst you can get. So uh so there there are definitely levels of F. So um I know that looks bad but really what we're trying to look at and focus on is your time setting at this intersection. So one of the good things in this actual alternative is uh if you'll look at this PM peak which is in the afternoon obviously uh you got 163 seconds there um is the predicted uh peak there uh and if you put in this alternative you're gaining about 20 to 30 seconds moving through that intersection. So I know that doesn't sound like a lot but it is of a lot in in the traffic world. So, uh, pretty good pretty good PM movement there, uh, and gain if you're looking at that alternative. Uh, second alternative we looked at um, is a quadrant road in the southeast quadrant beginning at the intersection of Main Street and Highway 49. I'll point it out on screen. It's actually coming right here. This is Main Street. Uh, and it goes at the end of Jenkins and comes behind Publix. does not go through the public's parking lot or their uh loading entrance that actually goes into the back of that and between the storage area and then connects over to the existing light. Um you've probably seen some examples of these. There's one in Huntersville and a couple other areas. Basically, you're trying to eliminate the traffic in in this area in this situation from the intersection.

um does include a southbound right turn lane at Roberto Road and several other incillary um turn lanes would be looked at once you get into a final design stage. It's just over a million dollars for design estimate and then just over a mill $8 million for construction. Again, the synchro analysis I want to point out here um couple of gains that you can see in several areas. Obviously, we we're up to a D. So, we went from an E to a D. Again, I know that's doesn't sound like a lot of movement, but it really is. Or you really, if you look at the PM peaks and the AM peaks here, you can see 121 of no build and you're up to 88 and 163 seconds there, you're up to almost half of that um at the PM if you're looking at this al alternative. So again, really good alternative if um for future in 2050. Final one is alternative three. This is an additional eastbound through lane on Highway 49 and an additional westbound through lane. So, I'd point out um an example of this was actually at 485 and University City where if you cross over that bridge, that's the three lanes is really what you're looking at there. And I know that sounds like something that's not helpful, but if you've ever been over that bridge, it actually gets the people across there and you can get them through the intersection much quicker. Um, so that's what the gain is when you're looking at something like this. Uh, design estimate again just over a million dollars and roughly about the same cost as alternative 2. Again, that synchro analysis a little bit different. It actually gains on the AM side here. So you at 121 in the morning and now if you're if you do an estimate is 94 seconds in the morning that you would be sitting at that intersection. So, a little more gain. You do have a small gain in the PM peak

as well. Um, but not a ton there. Uh, but again, I want to point out that any gain in the F is is is a benefit. Um, this is this is a combined alternative. So, this is taking all three of those alternatives and putting them together is really where you start to see your major improvements here. So, um, again, no build situation. You're an E there in the morning. You got all Fs and then we start to see some major improvements over here with a 2050 build. If you apply all three of these, um, obviously you're at a C, which is really good. Um, most intersections are are at a C or worse in in today's world here and around the Charlotte area. Um, a D obviously is is a little worse, but not too bad. But just look at your gains on your time. 121 seconds here, and then you've got half of that, and then almost a third on the 163 there, pointing that back up to an E for your overall. So again, some significant gains. Um, but you're also talking about some significant significant funds uh to get to that. So what what you'll be seeing and and one of the things in this particular project, town staff is recommending alternative two for um fiscal year budget. You'll see that in your budget workshops um which would include design in FY27 and construction and FY28. Uh we do feel like this is the most benefit for town Harrisburg and the other alternatives would be look at in future budget request. I know that's a lot. All right. The other thing that we have uh remaining is the feasibility study with that we started in June 2025. This one was to take a look at a potential grade separated crossing on Robinson Church Road and as well as the Harrisburg Veterans Road extension to get Harrisburg Veterans Road to Hickory

Ridge Road. So this was this is just to uh to take a preliminary look at the potential challenges, any obstacles, benefits, and impacts that this pro both of these projects could potentially have. So as as John mentioned earlier, the feasibility studies, they're a great first step towards any potential grant applications and funding opportunities in the future. Um so that's one of the the first steps we're taking. This is a draft. We got the draft report just last week. So, we're taking a good look at or on January 19th rather. Uh taking a good look at that and then we'll provide any comments to them once we get the final report. Then we'll take that and we'll go from there and make any sort of recommendations that we may have and thank you very much.

Thank you so much for this information. Um question, can you go back to it's what is it called? The synchro. What is it? Synchro. Yes. Synch. Yes. So what is um considered in the estim the what variables did you put in because it's all an F, right? So that's not good. So what's the estimated growth? Like what factors did you put in to estimate out to 2050?

That's a great great great question. Uh typically growth factors are around 2%. Um and you use it essentially across the board. So it doesn't matter what you're applying that growth factor to whether it's a planning anything. Uh it's the same thing on that synchro analysis as well. That's about what the growth factor is in in North Carolina as well. Ours is actually a little bit higher obviously. Um we do see a lot of growth here, but it's a little bit higher than it is across the board and across nationally. But that's about what that is right there. So if our growth continues to grow in the speed that it is, right? So we going to be like F plus like what do we do? You know what? How does that work? How does that work? That's a great question. That's a great question. I'm just curious. I'm just curious. How does it work?

Yeah. So um well one thing I will point out here is we also are looking at 2050. So this I mean you know we're talking about 25 years into the future at this point. Um what you typically see in those situations is you start to see an evolved um corridor plan. So for example 49 by that point you might be looking at a larger corridor along there or you start to see some of the other alternatives come into play. Maybe you're directing traffic before they get to Harrisburg or potentially some other alternative that you you don't necessarily see right now. Although I will point out um when you come to our comp plan meeting on uh Thursday night, you will see some of those things from an overall perspective and not necessarily related to that thing. And you'll you'll be able to see the transportation network that's kind of planned uh in some of those. So, anybody that shows up there, we can talk through some of that as well. It'll all be driverless cars by then. [laughter]

Thank you so much. Yes, ma'am. Mayor, I can't let a good transportation uh presentation go without um adding a couple things. And I want to thank Devon and John. You know, we have so much going on in the transportation realm that you and we had discussed this as a group. We forget everything that we're doing. It's hard to just keep up on all these things. So, there was a good chunk of these that that we went through that are local stuff like, you know, Cambridge Drive and and and some of the stuff that we're doing. Keep in mind, vast majority of these big ticket items that that we're presenting are not our responsibility.

They're not our asset and they're huge numbers. Um, this one, two, three combined that John put up, it's like $24 million. This is not a road that the town has a responsibility for. However, we have jumped in on these in in several areas. That's how we got Caldwell Extension at $6 million worth of grant monies. This is how we got the the 112 million um that we're spending on 49, right? That is a DOT road. These are DOT responsibilities. Um but we've taken the the tract that we're going to look at them and we're going to try to find solutions. If we can help that process along by doing design and then shelving the plans and looking for grant funds or offering it out to DOT when something comes through, that's what we're going to do. But, you know, I I um I commend our staff for for really diving into this. And I commend the board, too, because no other towns are doing this.

Basically, when when the community comes to um the council and says, "Well, traffic's a mess." Most councils say, "Well, not our that's DOT." call your representative, call your state legislature, do XYZ. Um, so we are doing something about it and we're, you know, we're one of the largest recipients of state funds thanks to the work that that we've done here. I think you know some of the work that former Councilman Patrick did with kind of forcing us to do plans and then certainly the the the work that Councilman Smith has done as a representative as our representative to the MO and and lobbying for our projects as we go through there. So, um I I wanted to point out that I think there are several good projects here. I don't know that we'll be paying construction on any of those that we don't have [clears throat] that type of um local property tax dollars. Um but it is good for us to at least do what we can acquire property like we did for Veterans Extension knowing that hey, we're going to try to get DOT money to do something like that. Um designing Caldwell Extension knowing, hey, we can go get federal money for that. So, just wanted to clarify those two because I think some of these problems can seem daunting when we start looking at them if we remember, hey, we're trying to solve the state of North Carolina's problem and we're just we're just a town. Um, but we'll do our best.

Any other questions? Thank you, gentlemen. That's a perfect segue into a couple mayor's comments that I have tonight. Um several of us attended the uh elected officials breakfast hosted by Central um a couple weeks ago. We had a great discussion with our state treasurer um Mr. Brryer. And and just to kind of piggyback on what Rob said, us having a seat at the table really means a lot. Um just to have that face to face with the the people that we we need to be interacting with for some of these big projects. So um thanks for all that attended that. We have been really busy over the last little bit. Um we were able to squeeze out our budget retreat before the ice storm apocalypse happened. So um lots of work to be done there. [clears throat] In the meantime, we had our housing summit and our Caldwell Extension public engagement meeting. We are really looking forward to this coming Thursday. So I need everybody to mark their calendars. So, if you've been part of the one Harrisburg, um this is something that I am incredibly proud of and thankful for our staff and our council for putting the time and effort into that. Um to get 900 responses on a survey is really kind of unheard of. Um and I think that really goes to show we were trying to meet our residents where they were at. We had 12 neighborhood meetings, five stakeholder meetings, two popup booths, and already one open house at the YMCA. Um, so the second one is happening this Thursday night from 5:00 to 8 at the Y. Even if our residents went to one of the 12 neighborhood meetings, this is a really good one to come to because now you're going to get to see all the visuals. So if you went to the one that we had um I think was it October, my months are running together.

Yeah, September, October when we had the first one, about half of the gym space we had some visuals up. This time the entire gym is going to have visuals and a lot of that you're going to see some of those responses from that comprehensive plan. So I think it's a really good take for all of our residents to be able to come and see some of this put together. So please mark your calendars for that. Um also mention we have our next budget workshop on February 18th and then on March 5th we have our Highway 49 um public engagement. All of this is on our website. It's all on our social media. We will do our best to continue to get that out there because again having our residents show up and giving that input is really critical and and we've we've seen good progress with the one Harrisburg project. So I'm hoping that will trickle down to some of these other items. So that is all I have this evening. Are there any council comments tonight?

Um I'd like to Brian's still here. Congratulate Brian. Um, I think it's a signal not only to Brian his investment in our community, but our investment in him. And I was telling Rob before the meeting, the best place to find new employees is old employees. So, uh, I think it's a message to all those in Harrisburg, there is a path forward. So, congratulations to you.

I'd just like to commend public works and fire department and everybody for the work they did last week getting those roads cleared off. Um, most of us probably saw the forum and people were asking when when are the they come to clean my neighborhood. Um, I think that was uh we are not responsible for state maintain roads. Just make sure everybody's aware of that. U but our staff did an incredible job getting those neighborhoods cleared off and I think there were there were many neighborhoods where you could you could get out of the neighborhood but couldn't go very far once you got out. So, uh, I saw the the plows were were going through, um, courtyards over there early in the morning, and I know they worked all night the night before, but, uh, kudos to you guys. That it was great great work for our for our town.

Back to back. Very helpful. Any other comments? Okay, we will move into our public hearings. And first up, we have the Berg Property Annexation. and Shelley is going to present that [music] to us. Thank you, Madame Mayor. Uh, madame mayor and councel. This is you. Yeah. Okay. So, Mike's going to recuse himself from

I'll mention this this property uh is the B church property. So, obviously Mike has a conflict of this and we'll call you back in regard. Thank you, Madame Mayor and Council. This is a request to consider annexation petition H202501 for the purpose of incorporating an 8 acre parcel into the town's municipal boundaries and furthering the property owner's plans for future expansion. Staff re uh staff's recommendation is you conduct the public hearing and adopt the annexation ordinance approving the petition. The subject property is located at 7155 Hickory Ridge Road. It is an 8.1 acre site and is located within the town's extra territorial jurisdictional area referred to as the ETJ. As such, it already has a Harrisburg zoning classification. It is residential estate. The site is developed with an institutional building and is home to the Berg Church. It operates under an approved conditional use permit. Any action taken here tonight will have no effect on the existing zoning or the approved conditional use permit. This petition has been processed in compliance with state law. The granting of the petition furthers the property owner's plans for future [clears throat] expansion and community presence. This council's consideration and action qualifies for the one meeting process. Staff recommends that the town council conduct the public hearing and approve the petition by adopting the annexation ordinance. I will stand by to answer any questions you have after the public hearing.

Okay, perfect. Thank you, Shel. At this time, we'll open the public hearing. We did have a signup sheet that was outside of council chambers. We did have one individual sign up, um, Jeff Young. And if you would just state your name and address for the record, sir. Thank you. May

and council members, my name is Jeff Young. I'm a community planner, landscape architect, uh assisting the church with their annexation process and been involved in their overall planning and uh uh design team uh in the process. As you know, the church is very dynamic collaborator with the town in a number of different areas. uh and we appreciate your consideration of the annexation petition and uh look forward to it being approved and also appreciate the guidance that Shelley has provided to us in the process. Thank you sir.

That concludes public hearing. Council, are there any questions that you have for Shelley? Okay, we have provided a recommended uh recommendation uh for a motion on the screen. There are no questions. Is there a motion on the floor to approve approve the annexation of the 8.1 acre parcel located at 7155 Hickory Ridge Road as described within the draft annexation ordinance? Motion is second. Second. All in favor? Motion is carried. Thank you.

Our second public hearing of this evening, Shelley's going to join. The other council. Oh, yeah. We need to drive. Yes. [laughter] Poor Mike. Kicked him out. Get him out of timeout. He can come back to the parking lot. I was like, that was quick.

Wow. He's coming in. Shelley is going to It's a request to reszone a 3.85 acre site from neighborhood commercial to conditional general commercial zoning district for foils. Think Mike probably had a little extra time. We were quick foil. Welcome back.

Thank you. Almost forgot about you. Thanks, Shelley.

Thank you, Madame Mayor and Council. Uh this is a request to amend the Harrisburg zoning map resoning two properties from neighborhood commercial to a conditional general commercial zoning designation for the purpose of establishing a building supply company with ancillary outdoor storage. It's staff's recommendation that you conduct the public hearing and approve the resoning petition as conditioned. The subject site is located at 3350 Highway 49. It is developed with two commercial office warehouse buildings and is just under 4 acres in size. According to town records, previous uses on this site include automotive repair and service and truck servicing companies. Now, the property owner is Mike Torrance of Foils, Inc. Their proposed business operation at this site is associated with the existing Harrisburg business foils recycling. Now unlike their existing business, a recycling scrapyard, this facility will be a retail establishment of materials with no dismantling operations on site. The property owner is simply transferring the sales operations from their existing site foils recycling to this proposed site. The image on the left represents a location map. The subject site is located on the north side of Highway 49 in our eastern corridor. The image on the right depicts the subject properties. Again, the site operates as one but consists of two properties with shared circulation and a shared access uh to Highway 49. The site is approximately 2/3 developed with a

healthy stand of trees on the northern third of the property. The map on the left represents uh the environment uh the natural environment of the area. So in the area there's flood plane, floodway, a stream and as you can see it's heavily wooded providing a natural buffer between all the businesses adjacent to Highway 49 and the residential district. The image on the right is the town zoning map. Again, the subject site is located in the neighborhood commercial zoning classification. Adjacent zoning districts include residential districts. Further to the east is the employment center, which is comparable to a light industrial district. So, um the image that you see here on the screen um is of the site. Now, it's considered non-conforming as it relates to current design and development regulations. Town staff has worked closely with the property owner and their development team to bring the site into compliance uh with our adopted plans and ordinances. The site as uh the site plan as uh provided in your packet and proposed here tonight is in compliance with the highway 49 corridor plan. It includes rightaway dedication, installation of a multi-use path, street lights, and the installation of a center landscape median within Highway 49. Other improvements include streetyard landscaping, paving of the customer parking lot consistent with ADA

requirements, proposed site and street lighting. Uh the applicant is proposing to remove some of the existing gravel area uh located at the rear of the site uh and replant it with saplings adding to the existing canopy. Uh the site is also in compliance with all of our buffer requirements that uh consist of planting, fencing, and other landscaping. So this is the resoning site plan. I'd like to point out a couple of the improvements again. uh the compliance with the Highway 49 corridor plan, a landscape median within 49 east of their driveway, installation of a multi-use path, street trees, landscaping and paving uh of their circulation area. This case was presented to the planning and zoning board at its January 20th meeting. The discussion focused around buffer and screening of the proposed outdoor storage as well as a need for a right turn lane into the site. Now, staff did share with the board that town staff and NC do worked closely in evaluating this project and determined that a right turn lane into the site based on the site's intensity and use was not warranted. After public comment and deliberations, the planning board considered the decision criteria and the required findings, then unanimously approved a motion to recommend that the town council approve this petition as condition and make the required findings. So in summary, this is a request to reszone two properties from neighborhood commercial to a conditional general

commercial zoning classification for the purpose of allowing ancillary outdoor storage for for building material business. As designed, the property comes into compliance with adopted plans such as the Highway 49 corridor plan and other sections of the unified development ordinance. Staff's recommendation is you accept the planning board's recommendation to approve as conditioned. I'm just going to mention a couple of the conditions. Uh some conditions of approval include restricting future use such as salvage or scrapyard activities, automotive repair and sales, self- storage facilities, and so forth. They require all uh they obtain all required permits and the development needs to be consistent with the resoning plan considered here tonight. This council's consideration and action qualifies for the one meeting process. Staff recommends that the council conduct the public hearing and approve the zoning map amendment H202502 as conditioned and make the required findings for reasonleness and consistency with the Harrisburg areas land use land use plan. So, um I will stand by to answer any questions you may have after the public hearing. Thank you, Shelley. At this time, we will open the public hearing. Again, we did have a signup sheet outside of council chambers prior to the meeting. We do have two folks that signed up to speak. First up, we have Bridget Grant. And Bridget, just state your name and address for the record.

Good evening, Bridget Grant, land use consultant with Morin Van Allen, 100 North Triion Street, Charlotte, North Carolina. Mayor, members of the board, it's a pleasure to be here tonight on behalf of Foils and the Torrance family. Shelley did a phenomenal job going through all the site basics. So, similar to Mr. Young, I'm happy to answer any questions should you have them. Thank you. Thank you. Next we have Mike Torrance.

Good evening. Mike Torrance. Uh 8 851 Burge Concord. Um Foils Incorporated is a family business. Um I've been around forever, unfortunately. A good thing and a bad thing. I got uh my son and my daughters are also uh they're fifth generation. I'm fourth generation. We're right up the road. Okay, this this system that we were doing at the uh center that we have now, the recycling center, the customers have to come in and they buy new and used metals, steel, angle, iron, aluminum, channel, that type of thing. Um, they have to come through a recycling center yard and pick it up. Matter of fact, we sell to all the municipalities here, Harrisburg, Charlotte, Concord. We help all of them. Fire department, whatever we can do, we'll help anybody. Um, so the goal was to move the facility from there to um right up the road up here, the these partials. Um, and have them outside. They'll be out of sight, out of view. Uh, I like I'm a neat freak. I like everything neat. So, you ain't going to have to worry about that part of it. But be happy to answer any questions you have or anything we can do for you. But I appreciate everybody. Thank you'all very much.

Thank you, Mr. Torrance. Council, do we have any questions for our two folks that are here as well as Shelley? Um, I do. I'm not sure exactly who. And I appreciate you coming in. Um, one of the questions I have because I've actually sold you a chain, you made me a great deal on a chain. I'm a customer. Um, but is there anything we can do about since you are a neat freak beautifification or hiding? I mean, it's a scrapyard. It is what it is, but is there anything? I know that's out of scope for what we're talking about here, but for that other piece of property, have you thought through that? Uh you're talking about the actual recycling center. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We planted years ago. I mean, it's about $40,000 worth of trees. Yeah.

That are all the way up all the way up the the side there. Uh we actually build a burn almost 22 ft high. Yeah.

To try to do it. The only thing you can't do is where the fence is. We the only thing we thought about doing there you can um um we want a roll gate that's automatic. We've had it hit like 15 times. Uh [snorts] just public people you you'd be surprised. So we've replaced it. So the only thing I really know about the actual entrance down there is uh maybe putting the uh the same thing we're talking about doing up here putting the lattice or something where you couldn't see inside the you know the fence you know that way down through there. I I know it's out of scope for here, but I implore you because that is like one of the entrances to our town and second only to Morehead where they get to see the landfill, you know, welcome to Harrisburg, you know, and uh but u again I know that's out of scope and and you guys have done a wonderful job of securing this place and making sure it's going to be presentable and taken care of. So I applaud you for that.

Thank you. I have comment. I have comment um similar to um what you just said. So, it is kind of the entrance to Harrisburg and so um and it might be out of the scope, but I just want to say just because I I'm curious in terms of the aesthetics of the building outside like is there and I know it's recycling. So, have you are you all going to touch that in any way or is it just the storage unit in the back that you are focusing on? I'm sorry. I want to make sure. Are we talking about the if you go back? We talking about the new building. This

Yes, ma'am. So, um, with all the improvements, um, as far as the buildings were bricked and stuff earlier when when we bought them to come in compliance. So then, like I said with the asphalt, the trees, the landscaping that we're doing in the front, it uh, and I don't mean this bad, we cleaned it up, okay? It was I I I wish you had pictures before [laughter] that literally I'm not I'm exaggerating. I pulled at least 62 cars out of there. Pulled trucks, campers, um old bodies of uh I don't even know what they were

to be honest with you. Um and stuff. So, just a tremendous cleanup. Um when when we got the property, what really happened was um it was own general commercial and then what happened was when I purchased the property, there was a lease already there. And as a gentleman, I I honored the guy's lease and let him stay there. Okay. Well, as soon as the lease was up, that was very, sorry, very much we want to clean it up. So, we we went there and cleaned everything out because like I said, the the idea is um I want when you come in, you drive in, you see it's you won't see anything from the road, by the way. It's it's 21 ft down. So, when you go down, I thought you were talking about the other scrapyard. I'm sorry. um that when you come in, you won't see anything. There's nothing in the front.

Okay. There'll be no um like racks or anything in the front at all. It'll be parking like you see now, what you see up through there. Yes, ma'am. Yeah, I want to look good, too. Okay. Thank you. Yes, ma'am.

Um should the residents expect any additional like noises, odors? Is there going to be any chemical uses there that they'll be detecting? We we do we do have to chop and saw, okay? But it's with inside that building and you won't see it. Now, there could be occasionally outside, I won't say that, where we have to take a torch, something that comes in, we got cut it down real quick. But most of it will be done inhouse by saw or a chop like a machine that just chops it and and it's so far away from anything else, it shouldn't I can't imagine anybody hearing anything. Okay. And as far as the trees in the back, like in the flood zone, like are those those going to be intact or are you

Yes, we haven't messed with any of those. Okay. I didn't remove anything when we got through the property. All we did was clean it up.

Now, we we did put some uh you know, millings down just to make a a a road, you know, in there. We done, but we didn't take anything out. If it wasn't already there, we didn't take it out. Any other questions for Shellyley or Mr. Torrance or Miss Grant? So, the only I'll add to some of the questions we've just heard. So, looking at the aerial photograph, uh there's no proposal to touch any of the nice uh these are hardwoods. Um the tree stands in the back. In fact, they're going to remove a portion of the gravel circulation area and replant it with saplings. Additionally, I think you'll see a big difference in this site. They they've worked hard and with us for over a year on nailing down uh the site designs and it includes uh landscaping like you would see in a brand new development along the frontage with uh street side landscaping and multi-use paths, street trees and street lights adjacent to the tree or adjacent to Highway 49. paving of the parking lot as well and the additional buffer landscaping on the sides and within Highway 49. Okay,

are there any signage rights out there? Are they allowed to put sign out there? Let's see here. Let's see. So, there's no existing You're talking about signage? Yeah. So, they will have to comply if they propose to do a sign along the front edge, a monument sign. they will have to comply with the town's current ordinance as uh that would go for any walls on this on the building as well. That'd be under separate permit.

Do you have the motion up there, too? Yes, they do. Thank you. With that, is there a motion to approve H202502R as conditioned and make the required finding for reasonleness and consistency with ballot? Madam, Madame Mayor, I think we need to close the public hearing. Oh, did I not do that? Yeah. Public hearing is closed. A motion to approve it. Second. Yeah. Second. All in favor?

I. Motion is carried. See, it's a team effort up here, guys. Forgot Mike. Forgot to close this. Great. We do not have any old business this evening, but we do have one item for new business. It's consideration of contract for fireworks for the Harrisburg July 4th celebration. Um, and we've got Jim Spina's going to start us off and Sean. Yes. Get the dynamic duo again

about the heavy hitter tonight. Uh, good evening, Mayor Council. Uh it's happy to be here tonight to talk to you. Despite, you know, the last couple weeks of crazy cold weather, we've been busy dealing with summer and uh starting to think about um of course our July 4th celebration. [clears throat] And with that um some of the plans, some of the bigger plans are really going forward and one of them is about fireworks. And so with that, I'm going to turn it over to Assistant Director Sean Marble and she'll take you through uh with uh giving you more information. Good evening, mayor and council. Tonight, we're here for the consideration of the contract for fireworks for the Harrisburg July 4th celebration. So, some background. So, this year, our nation will commemorate and celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. This year at our July 4th event, we will also be celebrating the 29th year of the event. And the event has been having two nights of fireworks for over 20 years. So, fireworks location change. So, this year we will be shooting the fireworks from the YMCA parking lot area, specifically the grassy area at the top of the parking lot. Um, once you pass the YMCA sign on the left, in doing so, this will free up space on fields one and two at the park. This will not only allow people to spread out, um, but it will also give us room to add additional elements to the event. It will also protect our new beautiful artificial turf fields once those are done um from potential fallout if we were to shoot the fireworks from parking lot F. And it will also allow for additional parking not only inside the park in parking lots E and F, but also allow for an additional access point from Harris Depot Park for patrons that come to the event to be able to walk over. So this is an overview of the new site.

You can see the YMCA. Um that parking lot area there. Hopefully you can see the amphitheater lawn and the field down there where everybody's going to watch the fireworks. And that red circle denotes the fireworks fallout zone. So the cost for the show last year the fireworks show was $33,250. The proposed fireworks show for this year is 70,000. Additional funds were added to the July 4th budget last year to be able to celebrate the 250th anniversary of our nation this year. So some of those additional funds will go to cover the additional cost of the fireworks. So the cost impacts. So this year we could expect a highly choreographed show both nights with different soundtracks and designs to give the audience two completely different experiences from one night to the next. We'll get the highest quality shells and special effects from around the globe. You can expect to see an increased shell count by over 850 over the course of two days. And then also, we want to make sure and provide a show that's truly impactful and in celebration of our nation's 250th anniversary. So, popularity of the fireworks, right? We we put on a great event, but we know one of the biggest draws is our fireworks show. So, from the data in this chart, this is from last year. you can see the attendance increase um on the third and the fourth between those hours of seven and nine. We know people are really coming in during those hours to listen to the music and get ready for those fireworks shows. So, a little bit of additional information. So, unfortunately, our past fireworks vendor was not able to make the YMCA site work for them this year. Um they've also not been able to provide a choreographed show for us. Um the current contract that is proposed is with Pyro Techchnico. Um that is the company that did our fireworks show at

Rockinberg in 2024 and 2025 and we got great feedback from all of those shows. Um Pyro Technica provides fireworks and special effects for ACC championships, NCAA championships. They did the Super Bowl last night, F1 racing. They also do local events, Cannonballers, City of Raleigh, and Asheville downtown. Just a few examples, as well as the town of Harrisburg. And that concludes my presentation. If you have any questions, please let me know.

I I have one question or one condition, and that is that should this get approved that Mr. Spina and Councilman Thean go visit the residents and courtyards and let them know that we won't be littering their roofs anymore. [clears throat] We thought we thought right away that one [laughter] of the first things that we thought we could move into today is that courtyards would be very happy. Yeah. I mean, usually about 15 minutes after that fireworks show, we start getting Yeah. So, I I'm just excited that would be a a better option all the way around. I joked with Jim that Debbie would not have to call Mike uh at 6:00 a.m. the next morning. Cory will have to get out there on the roof.

Um not to be Debbie Downer. What if it rains? We get our money back or There's a contingency plan in there. Opportunity to reschedule shows for later dates. Okay. Yeah. So we we keep that as a credit for July 4th, 2028 or something. I'd have to go back and review the contract. I don't want to give you incorrect information. I know there are stipulations in there about rescheduling shows within a certain amount of time. And do we have a cuto off that if again if it looks like it's going to rain, are we going to hang on till 11 and try to do this at midnight or what what are we doing? I think that's going to be an internal conversation amongst management, staff, the fire department, the weather, and and the fireworks vendor. Of course, off $70,000 worth of fireworks on an empty astroturf field. So,

absolutely. Okay. Is there any um drones this year at all? Is I mean that's separate from this, but is there a effort around any of that activity? Not not at this time. We're going to go with a upgraded firework show and get some choreography in there. That might be something in the future we'll be reconsidered based on opportunity. Just curious, is this the same company that you used the last day at Rocking the Bird? Yes, ma'am. I was there. It was Yes. Okay. Great show. Great company. Okay. Yeah. When you say it's synchronized, is that with the amphitheater sound system or is that what we're doing?

Correct. Yeah. Yeah. So, the sound production company that comes in for the bands, that sound will be what is the music playing for during the fireworks show. And are we streaming this live for those who don't want to go get out in the crowd and watch it at home or do we have Definitely an option. Yeah, for sure. Okay. Well, public information not [laughter] my wheelhouse, but I guarantee one of them can do it. Any other questions for Sean or Jim?

I just want to say, you know, Sean, you you look at this, we're trying to get well in advance, right? Sean's done an awful lot of work on this far broader. She's kind of our expert in the field, our subject matter expert and uh between she and uh McKenzie as our defense coordinator, they've done a lot of work already because this is a big one, right? 251, right? We know we've got great support from Rob Lee to do this and from you all. So, we're excited. Like I said, it's a good kickoff for us to get this done early.

You know, the the only feedback I would share with you, and I I found it interesting, but my um 20-year-old last year came up to me and she goes, "Dad, can't you update the songs?" And I was like, "Yeah, I think they're working on that." But yeah, that was the the one comment from the younger generation was, "We don't know some of these songs." [clears throat] We all Yeah. Yankee Doodle Dandy is a classic [laughter] I don't for all 250 years. Well, she was even calling out firework from Katy Perry and I was like, "But isn't that more common?" And she's like, "But there's better stuff."

Give her Give her Lee's number. He's really [laughter] in charge of all this. Yeah. Any other questions? If there's not any further I'm sorry, go ahead. Yeah, this is all within within the budget. It's just any contract over 50,000 comes before the council.

A lot of those go on consent. This one was significant enough that that we thought we'd give you a presentation so that you'd understood the the show difference. Um since most of your constituents will be looking the wrong way, but we will make plenty of announcements [laughter] before the show. Hey, okay, fireworks are this way. Don't don't try to line up. Um when people come in for July 3rd, they're going to notice a big difference because the field will be different. We normally have half of the park fenced off. We can't use that back parking lot. We can't do anything. So immediately um the environment look completely different this year for the third and fourth as compared to other years.

I'd also like to speak to the importance I I really pressed the opening up of the Harris Depot and to get more people in and out and not only just to get them in, but we have an emergency or some crazier weather, we can get them out quicker. So, I think this uh whole change will be great for the view, but also for us for staging the event a little bit better. And does it expand the viewing area for folks that don't want to be in the park like and typically what we've done in the past when we get a new vendor or we change locations is we'll have them probably come out at some point and do a test shoot because to your point you know we know people like to set up outside of the park and that way we can say

hey there's great visibility at Publix or the credit or wherever it may be so people know and also don't go here because you're not going to be able to see the show. So yeah, that would be my goal is what we've traditionally done in the past. Anytime we've switched anything,

um I I do want us to try to bring the drones back and give it another chance. Like I understand, you know, this is very traditional and probably not for the July 4th, but in general, maybe some of the other events we could throw in that and just give it a try. It's on a small one. Yeah. And hopefully prices went down in those. Who knows? I'm still angry over the last drone show. So that's [laughter] it's a sore subject for Jim right now. You had to bring it up. Well, the thing is we all know it. So we got to do it again to give it another chance and that way we'll erase the other one. We're certain the game depending on likes that opportunity.

Yeah. Well, I'm scared to say it, but next year's the 30th year of July 4th. So in Harrisburg [laughter] repeat I said next year's the 30th anniversary of our July 4th celebration. So anniversary, maybe we can say, "Okay, modernize it." One of them being that, but you'll forget it. We're in budget season for next year. Okay. [laughter] That's right. Good point. Right. Yeah. And I'll say that the same drone company did something for one of the games at Coastal Carolina and it was phenomenal. They did they did an amazing job. So, it wasn't the drone company. It was the the synchronized music that sent sent me. We just sang along. It was fine. Everybody else was fine. I'm the only I was the only one picky about the

We'll just have we'll just have music playing and Yeah. And we actually talked about it as part of of this year, but being that it's the the 3rd and 4th and the 250th that that traditional um Fourth of July was was something that that that overrode. But I do think there's there there is an opportunity for a drone show pro and we would probably look at that like on the 3rd. So you're not having two years or two days of fireworks um or or vice versa. But most people like fireworks on the fourth if you can um split it up. But they it's like you said it's budget season so we'll have that conversation.

Additional question. The area that you've outlined there are a lot of trees there. So I mean I guess the cleanup is not going to be as extensive as as it would be at courtyards but what does that look like? And is this stuff the I mean harmful environment. What is was the background on that? Yeah, that's that's definitely something we work with the fire department first of all. They've been part of this whole process to make sure that area is safe and they'll they definitely require some cleanup afterwards. Um but traditional fallout like we would have a year. So we'll do our best. Pretty wooded where it is now, right? Not worried about his ceiling. Burn down the Y. Dear God, please [laughter]

the Y has been great for this whole thing. going to 24 million. Yeah. All right. Any other questions? No other questions. There a motion to approve the contract with Pyro Technico for $70,000 for two firework displays for July 3rd and 4th at the 2026 Harrisburg July 4th celebration event. Motion approved. Whoa. Stereo. One and two. You can pick a motion. Motion approved. Second, Chris. Second. All in favor? Motion is carried. Thank you guys so much. Thank you all.

Um let's see here. I did not have any action items written down. Did I miss something on that too? Okay, perfect. Um with that, we do have a quick need for a close session this evening to discuss legal matter and a property acquisition. Um so with that, is there a motion to move into close session? So move. Second. All in favor? Thank you. So that means the crowd has to disperse.