Town Council - Regular Meeting

Y'all look like users walking up to church. They did. They did.

But what he do is each [Music] ready? and um been there like 50 years. Um just a reminder, I did hear from a couple folks that it was difficult to hear. So, if we make sure we're leaning in and speaking, I said I would try to do like a temperature check throughout to make sure they could hear back there. studio Friday.

Good evening. Welcome to council chambers for our October monthly meeting. Thanks for those that are joining us in council chambers tonight and those that are viewing this meeting on the YouTube channel tonight. We will move right into our agenda and first up is our agenda adoption. Is there a motion on the floor to adopt the agenda this evening? Is there a second? Second. All in favor? I. Motion is carried. Thank you so much. At this time, Councilman Thean will lead us in our invocation this evening.

Thank you, mayor. Let's pray. Father, we thank you uh for a gorgeous fall afternoon today. Father, just uh thank you that you remind us uh of your seasons and we're so thankful to be a part of that uh here in the Carolinas. So God, just ask you be with those who are on the east coast of the state that are uh suffering from the devastation of the storms last week. And uh God, we just pray for our meeting this evening. And uh Lord, that you would give us wisdom and guidance. And that uh again, as always, we pray for civility in our meeting. And uh God, just grant us continued favor in our town. We pray it all 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 have one spe special presentation this evening and Janet is going to Are you opening? Taisha, come on up. You've only told me that twice. Good evening, Mayor and Council. Good evening.

Um, I have the pleasure of introducing um, Mr. Jimmy Lintz, which is the chief of Cabaris County EMS, and he told me he's here for support. And then Mr. Matthew Ford, who's with Cabaris County Firefighters Association. He actually did our CPR and our first aid training. And I don't want to steal his thunder, but he's here to present to us for the hearts safe workplace certification. So, Mr. report.

Before I read this off, I'll explain to y'all what it is. The race car trials, which is out of Duke University, is a study of randomized cardiac arrest clusters. And the whole basis behind this study is to improve the outcome of cardiac arrest. And the biggest factor is how long it takes CPR to be started. Every minute without CPR, your chances of survival drop 10%. And this study through some intervention counties in the state, and Cabaris is an intervention county, uh we're doing different initiatives. One is the hearts safe workplace. And this is where we go out and businesses, organizations, towns, wherever, and we teach their people CPR, handsonly, and uh AED training so we can get hands on the chest quicker. and quicker AED usage to help uh raise that survival rate. And that is the whole basis of the program here in Cabaris County. Cabaris EMS handles all the training which I'm there too. And um the firefighters association handles the award process and I'm doing that tonight too. So um I would like to read this uh statement from the association. On this day, the town of Harrisburg is acknowledged for its initiative in achieving the designation as a heart-safe workplace. Over several days, town employees participated in classroom instruction, focused on handsonly CPR, basic first aid, and essential knowledge to enhance workplace safety, and effectively recognized situations requiring activation of the emergency 911 system. Harrisburg is distinguished tonight as the first municipality in Cabaris County to attain the hearts safe workplace status. The Cabaris County Firefighters Association in collaboration with Cabaris County Emergency Services hereby presents the

town of Harrisburg on October 13th, 2025 with the Heartsake Workplace Award. point out. I'll talk every time I see you. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Thank you guys. Thank you.

Tisha, I think you have one more special announcement. So, I was told I was supposed to tell a joke today. The joke is I'm required to be up here today.

So, good evening, Mayor and Council. I'm really excited to be up here. Actually, I'm really elated because I get to announce that we came in first place as the healthiest employer um in the 50 to 199 employee category. Um really excited for this recognition. We did this a few years back during my tenure here and the process was a little bit different. We did win first place that time, but it was in a smaller category. is different now because the application process is very complex, comprehensive, and more competitive. And so this is a time for us to celebrate our innovation, flexibility, and the employee centered leadership that we have here at the town. So in celebrating the healthiest employer is is good to kind of talk about who the organization is that is recognizing us. So they were established in 2009 and they celebrate organizations that put their people first by investing in employee health and well-being. It's a trusted award program recognizing forward-thinking companies that take a proactive approach to employee wellness. And the program's goal is basically to foster a community committed to overall well-being. So how did we get here? How did they recognize us? And this is not a allencompassing program, but one of our programs that stand out is our 3P wellness program. And 3P stands for personal pursuit of points. We have a program that we encourage employees to take an active role in their well-being and engage in activities that strengthen their mind, their body, and their spirit. They earn wellness points by participating in different activities. And once they meet a certain threshold, then they get a day off. And so you'll also see that we have four core dimensions of wellness and this kind of encompasses the activities.

So physical activities, we sponsor wellness walks a few a year. Um we do quarterly onsite um fitness classes and um we also have our partnership with the Y for gym membership. So those are just some of the physical activities we do more but I only have a certain amount of time to talk today so I figure I condense it a little bit. Um the second core is our wellness exams and we actually do um annually a biometric and fit biometric screening and fitness testing um here on site. And then we also encourage our employees to go out and get their wellness exams such as their annual physical, dental exams, vision, skin check. So that's another way that they can earn points as well. The third is brain power. We have a lot of lunch and learns about a variety of different things. How to recognize if someone's having a stroke, how to prevent diabetes, and just a plethora. We really we actually reach out to our employees and do a survey on topics that they're interested in. And so we're really excited about that. And um each year we get different topics that um employees are engaged in. And matter of fact, we just had our lunch and learn and we probably had maybe 70 employees participate. So it's really really engaging. Um the other thing that we do that's that will fall under brain power is our mental health first aid training. Um we've partnered with Atrium and they've done that for us and so that was really really good. But I mean, we all aware that mental health is a real thing. And so, we try to concentrate and have our employees figure out signs um from their peers because they're the ones to know for themselves, their families, and the people that they work with. So, and then our other is general health, and that's for nutrition, for financial wellness. And so we kind of break it up in categories. And if you participate in some or you participate

in all, you have a way to actually earn your points. My last under general help, which I like really much um a whole lot, is stepping outside of your comfort zone. That can be from jumping out of airplanes or skydiving to standing up here giving a presentation. Um, so you know, those are different things where you're just going outside of yourself and just doing something that you're not used to doing, but why not try it? So, we give points for that as well. Now, what I believe skyrocketed us to number one this year without a doubt is our unique and forwardinking employee benefit. It's the f first of its kind among public employers in North Carolina. I want to go on record and say just in general, but I'm just going to be modest and say public employers. Um, the FC program, the town contributes up to 6% of each employee salary towards a wide range of benefits tailored to individual needs. We break it down into, sorry, into five categories, and I won't list them all, but just a few. Student loan repayment, retirement savings into our 457, home health care, fertility treatment, massage therapy. You have pet care, travel expenses, and actually gas to get to and from work or wherever your family needs to go. And then the last, I will highlight that a little bit, the healthc care assistance where you can take your contributions and put it towards your flexible spending account and also insurance premiums for your dependence to help bring that cost down as well as work site benefits such as voluntary life, voluntary um accident and hospitalization in denity. So, I'm really proud of this program and I think it's going to be a long time before anyone tries it because my peers and I, we talk about different benefits and we kind of copy off each other and when I

try to explain this they say, "Yeah, you guys can have that. Sounds good, but sounds complicated as well." So, um, what does this award do for us? Well, it cements Harrisburg's position as the top employer of this size in North Carolina from a health and benefits perspective. Keep in mind that it's just not for public employment. We competed against private sector as well. So, we're really, really excited about that. It also validates that we're leading the way in supporting employee health, balance, and satisfaction. And we believe employees who feel value and supported bring their best selves to work, which stren strengthens service delivery and definitely deepens community trust. So, how did we get here? Well, thank you to you all for your vision and support in employee first innovation to our management team for thinking outside the box by envisioning and shaping this flexible contribution concept. And I have to say as a sidebar when Rob brought this to us, we were all shaking our head, nah, can't happen. We can't do it. And then he said something like, I have the smartest people in the room. Y'all figure it out. And and we did. And so we designed and implement the program and we maintain it with care and precision and what was created from that was a model admired statewide and who are our benefactors our employees and so we're just so excited about that and thank you for everything that you guys have done to support us in this effort. So with that I'll take any questions and I thank you for your time.

I I do have a comment on this. Uh I I think this program is wonderful. Um you can only pay these folks so much in the public sector. It's those intangibles and other things that you guys are providing. Thanks for the leadership on that. I'm convinced that every penny we spend on this comes back to the taxpayer dressed up as a nickel. So uh there is an ROI on this and uh thank you. I mean I know we've had these conversations. What can we do to make people feel valued? It's the impact page was great. You did a great job. Thank you.

Okay. We challenged you several years ago and you took that ran with it and knocked it out of the park. So, thank you and thank you to your staff. Um, I know it wasn't an easy challenge, but you've, you know, amazed us all with the opportunities that you've presented the employee. So, thank you. Thank you. Okay.

I'm gonna I'm gonna tag two two things on real quick. I I will say, you know, almost 3 years ago, the the town council really challenged us really hard in this area, not just in benefits, but on, you know, what do we do? I don't know if um everybody here was on the board at that time, but and we had done retention bonuses because at that time we were kind of hemorrhaging employees and said, you know, what do we do to um attract and keep our employees and um I don't know if you remember the first thing I said, which well, you got to pay them. You know, people Yeah, at the top of it, you got you got to have good salaries um which the council and and us worked really hard over a couple of um cycles on doing pay studies and and salary adjustments and and we've seen that trick metriculate out through other um organizations around us as well. Uh but the second was how do we do something different? You can only just pay salary so much. How do you make an employee feel valued? And um I think our staff has done a great job and I just want to credit council for pushing us really hard in that category and um I'll correct the quote um because I remember it uh Taiisha and and some unnamed people in the room said no we can't do it. Um we've talked to all the attorneys and they said it just can't be done. I said I've got a room full of really bright people. You'll figure it out. And and so then they did. Um so I get very little credit. I said one thing they they they are able to figure it out and they got uh enough digging to figure out how do we do this and ultimately it became a first of its kind. Our employees love this more than anything

that we do from a compensation standpoint when we do our feedback studies. This always ranks really well. Every time we hire a new person like man I tell you the deciding factor for me was and they point to this because they can really put their money where it really impacts them the most. And if that's something different next year, they can move it along. Ultimately, Healthiest Employer um has recognized us for that and we'll be able to put that on some of our um uh recruitment.

Recruitment. There you go. Brochures. That's where I'm sorry. Uh some of our recruitment brochures so that folks know um that we are the healthiest employer in the entire state. not just in the region, not just in the public sector, u but in the entire state of North Carolina, which is which is a big deal. So, thanks Taiisha, uh thanks to the staff, and thanks to council for pushing us in that direction. Absolutely. Thank you.

I wish we could start all of our meetings off with two fun things like that. Next up, we have our public public comments. And we did have a signup sheet outside. We do have um one resident that would like to speak during public comment. Um Mark, I'll ask you to come on up and just state your name and address for the record.

My name is Mark Monroe. I live at 6751 River Hills Drive in Harrisburg, 28075. Mayor, council, thank you for letting me speak today. I appreciate the time. Um, I I felt like I needed to share some thoughts because I saw the the ball fields and the artificial turf come up for tonight's uh agenda. And uh I I don't know that enough time has been spent with regards to the amount of money that the town's going to be spending on that. Uh initially during the budget meetings, uh Jim had proposed about 2.4 4 million is the is the estimated amount and then it went to 2.5 and then I see in the supplemental agenda notes that it's actually almost up to 2.7 with some of that being credited back somehow or another with sales tax dollars. So I don't understand that. But you know it slowly creeped up from low twos to almost $3 million. And I know when Chief Dunn comes up and and we we talk about fire trucks we all we all get a big lump in our throat. when we have a, you know, these these big paving projects or we have to replace a few brush trucks, you know, we all get we all get a little nervous because that stuff's really expensive. But those are critical things that we really have to have and the the whole town needs to have the brush trucks and the fire trucks. Uh the the ball fields are not really a critical infrastructure and we already have very very nice ball fields. And so, you know, I I can't help but think that spending, you know, $2.7 million is a bit lavish and and luxurious. Um, I I just don't understand how we really can kind of justify that with all of the inflation and all of the issues with the property reevaluations. Um, you know, a fire truck could get burned up and we would have to replace it. you know, e even if we didn't spend

the money and we just put it in an S&P 500, it would get 10% a year, which would make us $250,000. So, I just think that there's a lot better ways of spending that huge amount of money. And there hadn't been a whole lot of discussion about it. There hadn't been really a whole lot of people in the audience or the the people talk about it and it's just kind of gone low under the radar. And I figured this would be one last stab to share my thoughts on the record so that everybody knows that this is a an extremely, you know, this is like two fire trucks, you know, six or eight brush trucks. Uh it's like repaving many streets and sidewalks. I mean, it it's a very very uh big project um for something that's not really a critical infrastructure. So, uh, I've shared those thoughts before. I I appreciate you allowing me to share them again. Hopefully hopefully I won't come up here and talk about it anymore. So, thank you for hearing me out on that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mark. Mark, you know, it's three years we've been working on that. It I know you said there was very little conversation. Three years is a lot of conversation. We've been at it before a few times and I think Rob has a better story around how much where we've come with that. I I've been a big opponent for the last two of the three and I'll just say that we we've had a lot of serious discussion and it's

I'll share one thought and to your credit uh I don't know that the artificial turf is a slam dunk. Uh, I think that there's been some there was some discussion with regards to a lot of facilities pulling it out and not working out the way that they thought it would.

And you know, if we buy Chief Dunn a new fire truck, that's going to work out. Uh, brush trucks are going to work out. The we we've had some major increases with the trash pickup and we've, you know, we're bringing some of that in and some more of that might come in. But all of those things are a guaranteed return on investment. But we're not even sure that the ball field, you know, I mean, I hate I'm going to be around. I hate in two or three years we say, you know, that turf was hot and Ron was right. This didn't really And then it was like, yeah, and it cost us $3 million, you know? So, it's just it's just it's like, wow. I mean, it's like Las Vegas. I'm sorry.

I did chuckle with you, though. You made the comment that it's not critical infrastructure. I understand that, but there are plenty of others out in this community that see it differently than that. So, I I understand. Thank you.

So, let me help um at least calm some of your concerns. I know I won't calm them all because we did talk about this in several um budgets, including this one where where uh you had mentioned it before. Um so, the the costs aren't aren't up in that 2.7. um it is 2.5 which is what the budgeted amount is and that includes a contingency amount in that 2.5. The addition above that is you know and this is something I I just don't like the way North Carolina does it is as a taxexempt organization we can't buy things um tax exempt. We have to buy them pay the tax and then we submit a rebate at the end of the year and the state pays us that back. So, what we didn't want to do was have a a big expenditure like 2.5 budgeted and say you can you could spend 2.5 on fields. Um, however, you need to reduce it by 7% tax, so you can only really spend like 2.3. Um, so this gives us the authority to spend up to the 2.5 um knowing that we'll get revenue on the back end of the 170,000ish that um is a tax. So, that's really an accounting thing. But, you know, I just want to alleviate that. And then

Thank you.

And then there there there is a couple there are a couple of items in there that are ad alternates. And so the the base level of turf is about 2 million, which is, you know, right around what Jim's saying. If you just get your bare bones um turf, it's going to be about $2 million. Um in order to get the best bang out of their buck though, I think you guys will see in Jim's presentation and Mark, I think you'll like the presentation. Um, our staff spent an enormous amount of time really thinking this through on how do you get the best use out of it. And we have two big light pillars in the center that if those were moved out as part of this, they're going to dig all of this up. You know, feet um of dirt are going to come out of the field. While you're in there, if we can relocate those lights to the exterior. Now, we've got one big huge multi-purpose area that can live a lot longer than the current um programs that we're offering right now. We don't do lacrosse right now. We kind of have a very small um flag football program. Those things can get a lot bigger. This could be big enough for a cricket field if we have um a a season that you could do something like that. So I think as as you get down multiple years and we start looking at our programming there there is an option for you know very little for like $100,000 can we move those right now and not redo them later that's built into this cool play we've talked about the the heat and stuff that is also built into this that's an adder but all that gets you around that 2.2 too. And then we still always like to have the excuse me contingency amount in there between there to say you don't know you know we get into some bad soils. You get into we we want to plan for the unknown even though it is the unknown. So you know I think our original estimates are are good. we intend to to be at those original estimates, but if something

goes wrong, we have some cushion there and also we'll have new revenue coming in on the back end for for the tax. So, from the from the cost standpoint, I I think those all line up, but it's not intuitive unless you um hear my long diet tribe on it. The uh the other things are just I think as Councilman Smith mentioned, this is the third year before we could kind of get unanimous consent on fields in the community. uh we've we've had back and forth. Um also I I've seen over those three years the field condition deteriorate to a point that I think added to some of the uh pent-up demand to get artificial turf fields. Three years ago the fields were a lot easier to maintain. Uh, we have so many athletes playing on these fields now that I think if we didn't do artificial turf, we're probably looking at an off season where you can't do anything and you resaw it in that off season. So, we're probably at about, you know, 70,000 a field at this point cuz this spring people saw our fields. I mean, they're just um they're still recovering right now and and so I think the time is now. Um, and I think when you see Jim's presentation this evening, uh, you'll see all the work that went into it and really the extraordinary value that we're getting on it. This, uh, not to steal too much thunder, but this field will be, uh, the highest product available anywhere in the country because we are, um, sensitive to it's our first and we don't want to undersshoot it a little bit. So, the same product that the parent the Carolina Panthers play on, the same that 14 other uh NFL teams play on, the same that uh um are is throughout the country and the number one product out there will be the same thing that we would have here for the same cost that the budget and value brands were were selling on this. So we we looked at 10

different companies and we were able to convince the uh market leader to come in and and provide this at at really a basement bottom price. So um sorry Jim, but I had to I had to at least he has much better pictures. Um and then and the last mark and I I I'm only going to mention this because I wish we could do it too. If we could put our earnings in the S&P 500 and and we're allowed to do that, um, a lot of our financial models would look a lot different, but we're restricted to these, uh, very modest returns that Brian somehow turns into at least medium returns so that we can get, you know, 3, four, 5%. Um, but that we're not allowed to invest in in anything except for what the state tells us we can invest in. And, um, it would make the financial picture look a little bit different. it would incentivize savings a little bit more. Um, but it's just not something we're allowed to do. So, um, if I could get 10 or 12%. Uh, Brian did have his work cut out for him a lot a lot more than he does right now. But, um, those are the ones that that were there. And I I do think that once you see the presentation this evening, um, you'll see the need and and the value in it.

Thank you for those details. I appreciate it. Thanks. Thank you, Mark. All right, that was it for public comments. Next is our consent agenda. Is there a motion on the floor to approve the consent agenda as presented this evening? [Music] Any motion on the floor? Is there a second? Second. All in favor? Motion is carried. Thank you. Communications and we will start with our town manager.

Thank you, mayor. Good evening, mayor and council. Couple of quick updates for you this evening. Um progress report on Veterans Park. We are um on pace to open that by the end of the month. The last couple of items are being completed. Um primarily the u decorative concrete surrounding the the fountain that had to be brought up. Those of you that have been in there remember that was kind of like a like a pebble finish to cover some um concrete that didn't turn out great when the project was originally done. So, that's all been removed and um that's one of the last things that'll go in. We would anticipate opening the park by the end of the month and doing a reopening ceremony just to let people know, hey, it's done. Come check it out. we can kind of go around and look at the different elements that that were added into the park and then do a full rededication on Veterans Day in November. I didn't want to mix those two and take away from the veteran ceremony with looking around at the different uh construction things there. And and Jim will be putting out a program on the rededication shortly. The other project that we have in the hopper is the playground at um Harrisburg Park. Those of you who have been over there, you'll see the turf is in. What a dramatic difference that makes than the the dead pan dirt that that was kind of there in between the bathrooms and the playground. So, that's already made a a huge difference out there. We're uh soon be installing the playground structures which will be for the younger kids to kind of separate some of the rowdy uh you know toddler kids from from the very young kids um that'll be over and and more entrapped in the in the corner there where we have the the fencing and easier to keep an eye on them. But we'll be doing a a ribbon cutting for that by the end of the month as well. And um last two things I had is everybody got an email request out individually

for some feedback on the historic farm mill site. So we've gotten all of that. We've compiled all of all of those summaries and our next step is to meet with McGill for a uh concept plan and an estimate and a build out that then we'll bring back to the council probably at the at the next council meeting. we we would try to get um something there to move forward with so that we can bring a budget and a plan and a schedule. Um but certainly before the end of the year. And last and but not least, we'll be putting out some communication shortly about all of the efforts we've been doing on our placemaking and our sign upgrades. Um you guys may have seen some of these around town, but um on tonight's agenda, we have one of our final gateway signs, which is similar to the two signs that we have on 49, which will be on Rocky River Road as you come in um adjacent to the Farmington um really the Chick-fil-A there kind of a little bit closer to the county line as well as um planters. You may have seen some of our pedestrian crosswalks. Uh John designed, built, ordered um some some planters there. And so we have some some fall plants that that we've put out as well as upgrades to our wayfinding signs. We had kind of a dozen or so of those that that were missing or damaged due to accidents over the years and we've uh added some additional ones. Uh the sign at the the YMCA under construction as well as the wayfinding um coming into that site as well. And then we will also we have designed when I say we I mean uh Lee Connor has designed um welcome to Harrisburg signs which are um a take off of our um gateway signs uh a smaller version but similar elements. Uh can't wait to roll those out. But we'll be putting out some communication to the community just to u remind folks of all the different things

we're doing to identify Harrisburg and give people that sense of you've arrived in a different place and here's what that place looks like. That is all the updates I have for this evening. Um I'll take any questions if you have them though.

Any questions for Rob? All right. Thank you so much. Next up we have Brian Lee with our finance monthly report. Good evening, mayor and council. I have your finance report as of the end of September. So tax collections reached 9% and the general fund's overall revenue is at 16%. Uh those are shown in red, but not a concern at this point in the year. The water and sewer fund and storm water fund are at 27 and 25% revenue collected. So they're both uh right on target as well. Departmental expenditures for operations are shown for the general government departments first on this screen and all departments ranging from 18 to right at 25%. So no concerns across any of those departments and the same for all remaining general fund departments with parks and recck shown in yellow as we smooth out those original uh events. And then the enterprise funds, water and sewer and storm water are both at 21% with both of their revenues at 27 and 25%. So, uh, really good results after the first quarter of the fiscal year this year. And salaries townwide are at 23% up 6% from last month. Moving on over to our projects, I have a couple to mention here tonight. Uh, the first is what Rob just mentioned with the gateway sign on Rocky River Road. So, uh, we have gotten that design completed and the construction contract is on the agenda tonight. So, with approval tonight, it will move into that next phase. Uh, this is a look at uh, the Berg Church. If you're flying over the middle school, uh, over the two fields there. So, we have a couple projects going on on this site. And what you can see here is the parking lot that the Berg Church um, installed here. They did all the grading and brought in the material and did did everything to produce this lot. and we shared in just the cost of the materials, but this one has kind of a

two- factor benefit for us. The two athletic fields that are there below the middle school, we're using those for our for our athletics this year. And so, we needed a place to park that didn't require the families to walk all the way from the school parking lots down to the back of the school. So, this really helps us in that situation. And I've already seen it really full on a on a weekday night. Um, also you can see the greenway running on the right side of the screen there that comes from Chameleia Gardens neighborhood and it will eventually connect with um with another project that we that I'll speak about in a minute will connect up to Hickory Ridge sidewalk project. Um, and so we'll have a parking lot uh in the green area on the top right of this screen that will feed into that greenway. But the two parking lots and the greenway and everything kind of uh all all correlate here and all work together to provide our residents with a lot of parking for both these fields and the greenway use. Uh moving on, we have two other uh projects that are taking a step forward tonight with your approval and those both have presentations so I won't describe them too much but the pavement resurfacing contract for our power bill program as well as the artificial turf at Harrisburg Park. So, we'll hear about both of those tonight. We had two projects that were completed. Rob just spoke about the wayfinding signs on the right side of the screen. So, we had nine replacements of those signs. And while replacing those with new poles and new signs and everything, we took the opportunity to make sure that uh the labels were all accurate and we were directing people to the right places. So, an example of that is making sure we send people to the new YMCA location in the park instead of here at the town hall. Uh so, you see an example of that sign there. And then on the left side of the screen, we've got the netting system at Stallings Park or Harrisburg Elementary baseball fields. And so this was a full replacement of all of those nets and an expansion into the area that you can see here, moving

closest to the school, which was the only area that was left out of the original project. So you are pretty well protected from the flying baseballs uh now at those those fields. This is a look at our multi-year projects in the design phase. So, the first is the main street park improvements. That one has um gotten off the ground and shows about 2% progress. The consultant held a conceptual meeting with the project team and has taken all those ideas and that feedback and created a couple concepts which we're now leaving comments on and then they will take all those put them together for one main concept to enter the design phase with. The next is Hickory Ridge Sidewalk Project. We had the public input meeting in late September. So, they've taken that and incorporated that into their design and they have 50% uh design and engineering completed on that project so far. And next is the restroom facility at Hulcom Woods. Um, a couple of us met out at Hulkcom Woods recently with a few uh contractors and described what we had in mind. Got some ideas from the contractors as well. And so we'll be collecting quotes from them this week and then should be able to turn that around and have a recommendation for you next month. Great.

And uh this is the project that is attached to the Bird Church that I was just talking about with the Back Creek Greenway and trail head. So the design and engineering has been completed which means it rolls over here to our construction tab for the rest of the year. And so that shows 5% as we've got that uh contract signed last month. And so now that construction will begin pretty soon. Uh we also touched on this tonight, but the um project at Harrisburg Park playground is going really well. We had the curb installed to prevent the water from running down into the playground area, the new stairs that you see here, the really nice turf area, and then like Rob said, we've got shade and playground structures on the way this month. Lastly, our sidewalk um project here on Stallings Road phase two. This had a couple punch list and repair items to make before it was finished out. So, that was taken care of this month. And so, it has been officially closed out and will be a part of our bond issuance that you'll also hear about a little later tonight. Here's a look at our equipment projects for the year with the deputies ordering their side by side this last month. that takes care of getting all equipment for the year at least ordered. Um, we have pretty good progress down down the page there at 50 to 95%. So, most everything is uh is it's definitely ordered, but it's most everything has been received and is um going to be placed in service pretty soon. The replacement special option SRT trailer is making its way through manufacturing. Um, the production is nearly complete on that and so we should receive it this month. And now looking at our vehicle projects for the year, we have every vehicle that we have control over. So the non- deputy vehicles have been ordered for the year. So we're pretty thrilled with that. The replacement uh brush unit is the truck build is complete on that and so it's currently being outfitted with some new

equipment and some transfer equipment from our old vehicle. The fire chief explorer has been received and is being upfit right now. So, it should be placed in service in about a month. And same story with the dump truck that is getting the dump bed put on, but that's the last kind of milestone for that build. And then we'll receive that and be able to upfit it as well. And then last month, we approved the purchase of four service vehicles for the water and sewer department. So, those were all ordered pretty quickly after the meeting, and those don't have any sort of build schedule or anything. Those are just kind of retail vehicles. So, we should receive those pretty quickly as well. And lastly, moving on to our professional services projects. The uh audit is about 75% complete. Field work was completed in September. No comments or concerns noted in that. We have drafted the financial statements and turned those into the auditors for review. Uh but one thing that we're doing this year is taking the financial statements and um enhancing those. There is a transmitt letter at the beginning that really goes into a lot of detail much like you see in the manager's recommended budget of the the projects that we have some of the economic impacts that led to the results that we're seeing in those financial statements. Uh but it's a lot of forwardlooking um reporting on on the projects that we're going to be doing. And then in the back of the financial statements, there's a lot of statistical tables and schedules that give you a lot more context into some real life uh things in the financial statements that that are a little easier to understand. So things like top employers in town, top taxpayers, um equivalent um full-time employees. So a lot of those stats that we look at during budget season now become an official part of the audit report. And by doing all this, we can submit our financial statements at the end of the year to the GFOA for the certificate of achievement and excellent for excellence in financial reporting. And so we hope

to do that this year and carry that on forward for many years to come. And with that, I will welcome any questions you may have. I don't know who is responsible, but thanks for the Oxford comma on the signage. Absolutely. Eat shoots and leaves. Any other comments for Brian? Questions? Thank you. Thank you. Um, Lieutenant Nash, we got one in front of you. Sorry I forgot to tell you that earlier. Next up, we've got our economic development report. Welcome, Ryan. We're happy to have you.

Thank you, Mayor, members of council. Glad to be here for my second update on our activities for economic development with the town. Um, little different format with the um project activity. um presentation this or excuse me tonight. But you'll notice um the key figure there, our project activity has doubled um from the first quarter of um my term here, but the fourth quarter of 2025. Now we've started the first quarter of 2026. So um I think that's a key indicator that I'm getting out more, I'm getting engaged more, more people reaching out, um getting good leads from our planning folks as well. So, um, we hope to to continue that growth. Um, and obviously the more projects the better. And you'll see the, um, sites versus building mix. Um, we continue to lean more on the sites, um, which you would you would expect. Um, our vacancy rate here in town's very low. Um, actually recalculated since our, um, our dry run last week. We're actually about 4%. So, um, we're very low. We don't have a lot of vacancy um, in town for folks to move into. Um our BR and ERS have been um aggressive um trying to reach out and meet with our um local companies both big and small. Um so we had six visits with what we consider larger companies um so 20 plus employees and then four uh meetings with the smaller folks and that um time frames from June to September. So it is harder as you can imagine to reach out and connect with folks in the summer. So, um I'm aggressively reaching out to our businesses the last couple of days trying to set up more um meetings before we hit the real heavy time of the holidays. It's just um it's the way the the calendar works for me as well. Um I have to um trying to get out um not just within Harrisburg but within the county and the region. So luckily the um town board or town council was able to attend

the um uh EDC, the Camaris Economic Development Corporation's annual summit at 1010 um beautiful facility. Um as we know there's a good portion of that track that's in Harrisburg. So we didn't go too far from home, but our keynote was John Loyak um with community college system and he really spoke to the importance of workforce development um in not just Cabaris County but in the entire state system. um also attended the NCDA event in Charlotte. Um we had 137 people in attendance. Um what I thought was interesting um the majority of the folks for AEC firms, so architecture, engineering and construction. Um also state and regional partners, but there are only 16 other peer agencies. So for myself, I consider a peer agency another town, another county. Um so you can see I'm glad we were there. Um actually rode to the event with a Harrisburg resident um who runs a local civil engineering firm. So I was able to um catch up with him for about an hour and a half in the car. So um really good opportunity there to network. Um also attended the IEDC annual conference in Detroit. Um that's part of my continuing education program, but it's also a great opportunity to connect with our regional and state partners. The larger picture on the right is me with the North Carolina delegation. Um and then on the lower left, um not the best picture, um but that's Governor Vitmer, um from the state of Michigan speak. she spoke to our group and the gentleman in the uh middle of the middle picture is my friend who used to work in Charlotte who's now in Queensland, Australia. So, he came up um to Detroit for the um for the show. It's great to reconnect with him. He does have an Australian accent. It's weird to listen to him speak now. It was very interesting. But he's a consultant and he works projects um globally. So, it was great opportunity to reconnect with him and other folks from around the globe. Um, a big effort that's been underway from the town's perspective has been focused on site readiness. We know, as I alluded to

earlier, we need to have opportunities for quality sites, quality buildings for businesses in town and outside of town to evaluate um for expansion. So early um early summer um we initiated with um the Duke Power, excuse me, Duke Energy site readiness program to identify the Morehead West property um in the north um west corner of the town and to um go through the process of evaluation um with um site selection consultants and civil engineers and other folks. Really, as you see on the bottom bullet, it's designed to be similar to a real corporate project. So they put us through the ringer. We had multiple town departments participate. Um we took them out on the site as you can see um in the parks and recck side by sides. Rob and I we point out we did not get stuck unlike some other folks on the on the journey and we did a great job navigating our town vehicles. Um but we really took it the extra level. Um you can see here on the next slide we had um tents out for the consultants. So the folks who didn't go out with us, um they were able to stand in the shade, not have to, you know, just stand out in the middle and have bugs on them in the sun. So we wanted to make sure they experienced the um difference of doing business here in Harrisburg, and I thought it was well appreciated. Coming up on the 23rd, we're going to have our um the final um presentation to the um key stakeholders that will include the majority of the folks in the room. Um so they'll actually go through a technical site analysis. I looked s through some of the previews of that last week. They're helping us with free civil engineering um consultation. They're also going to look at our um workforce and our cost as our as our site um within um reason for this area and look at some of the workforce opportunities we have as well. So, it's really a good trial run for us as a town and a staff to determine what happens when we have a live active project. Um some of, you know, we're all sort of new um in this role. A lot of us

have went through this process in other communities, but it's great to have a trial run, sort of like a preseason game for a football team. Um, and we were I I would say we won the game. Um, so we're doing quite well. So, we'll get our report um on the 23rd, but I feel very comfortable that we're going to have a positive result. Um, you'll notice my next report um the format will look a lot different. So, we have our new um EDO accelerator or the sandbox as they're calling it. So you'll see a lot of um graphs here which are um we can have the ability to customize for whatever the um management or the town council prefers. But this is a new it's a CRM system that'll allow us to track our activities more on a day-to-day basis. Um one thing that's um sort of innovative is the lead dashboard. So sometimes we have projects or excuse me or communication with a business. It's not really quite a project yet but it is a lead. So if you've been in business for some time you know leads versus um projects. So, this will allow us to show a different look on um how activities um working through our systems and I'll be able to tweak that and give you real-time information. So, we're really excited. I had a um uh team's call with the consultant helping with that um this afternoon. We're almost ready to initiate. She was very um she could sense my eagerness. She said, "You've got to wait. You got to make sure it's perfect um before you get it rocking and rolling." that I'm ready to um initiate and and be able to move forward with that. One um asset we've added and it is live on the town's website is our building and site database. Um so if you click on um um any of uh on the economic development tab um you can actually click through to this building and sites is active. It's populated by our local brokerage community. So this building in particular, you can click um view view details. You can compare it to other buildings in the town if you wanted to. You can compare it to other buildings in the state around the nation as well. Easily download the flyer. It has contact information for the broker or

the build building owner. You can see additional photos. You can also pull demographics from this system as well. It also uplinks to the um county system and the state system as well. So, it's a no touch on our side. So the nice thing is the brokers who have the most up-to-date information are maintaining that for us and can keep it up to date on an hourly basis if something changed substantially with their product. So really excited to have that up and running. Thanks to all the folks who on IT and communications who help get that um active on the town's website. So with that be glad to answer any questions but thanks for the opportunity to be here tonight. Ryan, good.

Ryan, you started with vacancy and and said it was relatively low. Do we have the capacity on that data to see it on a trend prior to you looking at it now? Do we have past trend or is it just from this point going forward? That's a great question. Um, let me look into that and see if I can because right now we have what's active currently, but I Yeah, let me look into that. That's a great question. I just curious to see, you know, kind of where we've been like last four years versus where we are now. Yeah, I'll have to play with the data. Maybe um it's out there. I've just got to figure out how to make No worries. Access. So, I'd be interested in that as well.

Thank you. That's a good question. um RFPs, RFIs, projects, uh when when we don't get those or channel goes dark or they don't respond, do we still check back with them because things fall through or it didn't happen? Are we the second place candidate? Right. Do we have a in our CRM a referral or a follow-up letter that we keep the channel open?

Yes. Um that's one of the biggest challenges in our industry. So, a lot of times you're eliminated and you never find out. Um so I have a internal clock where I go in and just say all right it's been a month followup and um I'll trigger if it's at the county level trigger them to reach out to the state. Sometimes they'll they have the same questions. So we do respond. Now with a new CRM you put a once you enter a project in you have a follow-up date that's set. I normally have a month. um if I know something's unique with the project, I may bump that out. But that'll trigger and it'll say, "Hey, Ryan, dummy, get to work. Reach out and find out what's happening." So, it is automatic in our system, but um that's the biggest challenge because companies will go, you know, we'll go silent and you don't hear from them. Um occasionally they do circle back um and you can reactivate the project. But,

well, as part of that process too, why we didn't get it? Hey, can I ask you three what you know didn't have enough land or you know bad atmosphere or access to transportation or something be helpful to know

and what I always tell folks is we're being evaluated right now. So someone could be looking for a 200,000t building with 36 ft clear space. We don't have that. So we're being eliminated at that research level at that high level exploratory level at someone's laptop maybe on a plane. So we're being analyzed 24/7. So once it now it's a little easier because once they drill down and say, "Okay, we have interest." We know we probably have a real estate play for them. But that is the hardest part determining what can we do um to check a lot of boxes. Um I when I presentations to the um to like civic groups always talk about the funnel. So when you talk about, you know, this traditional salesunnel, but a lot of the boxes that are checked, we have nothing to do with. Like access to an international airport, we can check that box. Um, if you're a if a decision maker with the company's an MLS fan, we can check that box. If they're an MLB fan, we don't have a a team. Um, so it's a little things like that where you know you're just checking boxes and um sometimes unfortunately we don't have all the opportunities but um that is the hardest thing is trying to determine why we were eliminated and sometimes you never know. Sometimes people are really upfront and they're like well your site's too expensive. Okay. Thank thank you for the feedback.

Any other questions for Ryan? Thank you so much. All right. Thank you, Captain Nash with our law enforcement update for the month. Welcome.

Good evening, Mayor Council. I will be short and sweet tonight. I just have our stats for us. For September 2025, law enforcement related activities, we had 4,776. Security checks 267. Traffic stops, 151. And yes, that number is correct. And our non-emergency response time was 6 minutes and 13 seconds. So again, for us, no news is good news. And that's all I have for you tonight. Any questions? Any questions for Captain Ash? I do. The Can you go back to your slide? Is that traffic? I don't remember from last month. Is that trending up or down or steady at 1500? The traffic stops. That's the highest I've ever seen. Okay.

By by far. And that's by design. Yes. Our so our traffic unit is fully staffed now and I have some great traffic officers on there. Um I think having our four sergeants helps. Our two new ones were traffic guys. I think they're good at motivating their team and then also our crime reduction unit are doing a lot of traffic stops. So just everything coming together and the numbers are going up. Perfect. Do you have any updates on the just before our last council meeting there was an a drug bust of some sort that there wasn't there were they weren't able to tell much information at that time kilos?

I don't have any further information on that. That's something that they're still working. It was like 10 kilos of methamphetamine. They when they get something like that, they continue to work leads and if you know this person talks and try to get to the bigger fish, but I don't have any updates since Thank you, Captain Nash. Thank you. Next up, we have Chief Dunn with our fire report for the month.

All right. Good evening, Mayor Council. Good evening.

So, fire department report for the month of September. We start off with our fire marshal activities. Uh you can see some presetals, special event planning, things of that nature. It did assist a youth group and an elementary school age kids at the Harrisburg United Methodist Church with a program called Hug the Tree program. And then ladder 31C shift uh went to the Oakrove Baptist Church community day, which is always a large event. I don't know if any of y'all attended that or not. So we did get a lot of folks in the fire truck and do a lot of question and answer sessions. You can see their general activities. Again, most of what they do is our normal businesses and then we have some foster care co inspections, plan reviews of upfits and things of that nature. He did complete 35 inspections for the month. Only five of those were reinspections and our violation of the month. On the right, you can see a smoke detector that is not fastened to uh the ceiling of this particular business. Some of the violations, fire extinguishers, uh exit access, housekeeping in general, and inspections and testing and maintenance of uh suppression systems. As far as our operational statistics, we responded to 259 incidents in the month of September. Our response time was a little over four minutes, which is a reduction, as you can see from this chart uh from the prior month. As far as fires, we did have uh seven fires in the month of September. Uh five of those were vehicle fires. I don't really know why we had so many vehicle fires. It was just one of those months. Uh we did have one uh building fire

which was actually a commercial building at about 3:00 a.m. in the morning. Uh they did have a fire alarm system which notified the alarm company which then notified us. Uh so we were able to respond quickly and uh provide minimal damage to the building. uh they were under some renovations at the time. The other fire is a simple brush fire that we had in our fire district. You can see station one continues to lead the pack on Morehead Road. Uh and station two and station three on Rocky River were neck andneck in the month of September. uh EMS and fire or EMS uh vehicle accidents uh thing general nature continues to lead the pack with this and then you can see false alarms and other categories that we have in this pie chart our heat map that we show you every month and you can see our uh most of our incidents are in the station one area along the 49 corridor but They're generally located within residential neighborhoods. As far as some operational updates, we did complete our citizens academy on September 17th. Uh if you're not aware, our swiftwater rescue team was deployed uh to assist the North Carolina Western branch of emergency management for our tropical storm Alda. Uh we did we were assigned to stay in quarters so we did not leave the town of Harrisburg. Um but we did staff with a 12 person team uh for the state. And just like any uh deployable uh deployment that we go on when that'll be reimbursed uh through the state for our expenses for the people that were

staffed on the team and also that were covering uh fire trucks. We did have our uh one of our first true retirements in the month of October. Captain Chris Redmond retired on October 1st. Uh he spent 18 years with Harrisburg. The rest of his time he was with the city of Concord and he does respond or retire with 30 years of credible service. And we did also participate in the Cabaris County coffee with a cop and hosted a North Carolina fire instruction three class for North Carolina OSF. Busy month. Thank you.

Any questions for Chief Dunn? Thank you, sir. Thank you.

Just a few um mayor updates. I do want to thank the Hatch Committee in the parks and recck department for another wonderful multicultural festival held last month. That's always a great time to learn about the rich culture that we have here in Harrisburg as well as those around the world. Um, Chief Dun mentioned about the Oakrove Baptist Church Community Day. I attended that as well. I learned that I am not quick enough for bingo with the professionals that were in that room playing. And I also learned that no matter what is happening, there is always a football game playing for everyone to kind of keep tabs on that. But I was really impressed with the level of on-site education they had. I missed last year, but the previous year, um, what I noticed a big difference is they had an actual mobile health unit on site, um, as well as our sheriff's department providing community policing information. So, there was really something for everyone. So, it was nice to see that education component that was added. Of course, we had our YMCA grand opening and ribbon cutting.

It's very quiet in here today. Um it was really something special after we have had that in the process for I think about two decades. Um definitely one of the top memorable experiences I've had to be a part of that and to see so many of our community come out. Really want to thank Brett and his entire staff as well as all of our town staff and our um state legislation who helped us get that project across the finish line. I did have the opportunity to attend a cooperative Christian ministry event and we were able to hear about their amazing rebuilders campus at Browns Mill Commons. That's where they provide safe and supportive housing for families and seniors. Um it's also a collaborative space for nonprofits and will serve as a wellness hub. It's actually a really cool um design. I would love to see more of those pop up. As you can imagine, there is some fundraising efforts to get that completed. um the ask from Cooperative Christian Ministries, they've kind of broken it down and said that if the community, Cabaris County as a whole, if they could get 10% of the population in Cabaris County could gift somewhere around that $1,200 mark, that would help them raise the $9.6 million to complete that project and that campus. And you can get more details of that project on Cooper Cooperative Christian Ministries website. Um, I along with Councilwoman Cotel and Glover took part in the Batukama celebration that was held at Harrisburg Park. Um, that was a wrap-up of their 9-day celebration and prayer uh for life, love, and togetherness. It was a very beautiful um ceremony. I did attempt the traditional dances and hopefully those videos stay hidden and never resurface. But I did try um bags in the Berg. It was a perfect day. It was a warm day. There was record attendance and um record vendors and participants in that. and I think they ended up with 92 cornhole teams. That's a record for them. It was a lot of fun. So, a big thanks to our Harrisburg business

network and our parks and recck department that helped put that all together. Um, last week I attended the Central Annual Celebration along with Chief Dunn where the Swiftwater Rescue Team was awarded the local government innovation award. That's a very prestigious award and such a well-deserved recognition for our swiftwater rescue team who continues to um help not only locally but statewide. We had a ribbon cutting um at the dermatology group of the Carolinas that is located here in town center. Now their um original office is in Concord, but they are in the atrium building on the second floor. So we are very happy to have them in the community. that kind of fills a little bit of a void. Instead of having to travel outside of Harrisburg for those dermatology services, they have that there. Um, I want to congratulate Venture Church who celebrated their 25th anniversary in Harrisburg this past weekend. Um, they have been a welcomed addition to Town Center. Um, we do have our Cabaris Summit coming up this Wednesday with leaders across the county. We had our final Rock in the Berg this past Saturday. What a great wrap to a fantastic year of musical talent and community gatherings. And thanks to our town staff once again who make those events so memorable for our community. Upcoming we have trick-or- treat in the park. That is on Friday, October 24th from 4:30 to 9:00. If you have never been to that before, I highly encourage you. You will smile at all the cute kids dressed up and the sea of candy that you will see across those fields. Um, we have early voting starting this Thursday, the 16th, at Cabaris County Board of Elections in Concord. Um, there is one Saturday for early voting. I believe that's November 1st and then election day, of course, is on November 4th. If you have any questions about polling places, please reach out to Cabaris County Board of Elections. Her staff's amazing and kind of pointing everybody in the right direction. Um and certainly wishing our two incumbent council um men and Mike and Aline the

best in the election and hope we get to work work again for the next four years. And lastly, comp plan. Hopefully you have all seen um our social media blast about that, but the comp plan is underway. The survey is live and can be found with all of the information at 1h harrisburgncpl.org. that is also linked on our regular website um to make it easier. But I am super excited about this project. I think as a council we have repeatedly talked about trying to meet our community where they are at um it's not enough to expect people to come to this monthly meeting every Monday night. But when we have important things going on and we really want to engage the the community, we go to them. So we have Harrisburg is it I think we were divied up in five zones.

Six. Six zones. And there are several meetings for each zone. Um, so we'll have kind of a kickoff on the 28th at the YMCA. Um, and then I think there's one on the 30th for one of the zones at Stallings Road Park. So we're really trying to get out into the community and we're looking forward to really engaging those folks. Did I miss anything on comp plan? Survey is live. Survey is live. And how long is the survey open for? uh till November 21st. Okay. And we'll keep we'll have a massive media blast on that in a con continual loop just to make sure everybody's informed on that with a chance to win $500 if you take the survey. $500

20th and 23rd. 20th and the 20. Yeah, there's a long list of dates for this. Um I think the big kickoff though is

the the YMCA would be the first openhouse. that's a a communitywide openhouse. Um, but I would just push everybody to that website. There is so much information on the site about the plan, what is a plan, how to get involved. Um, most importantly, you know, take that survey that's online. Everybody can do that from your phone. Um, the more respondents we have, the better the data we have on that. But certainly there will be no shortage of opportunities to to engage on this and you know push everybody to that website, share it on your social medias. Anybody that uh um has anything to say about anything with the town can say it as part of this plan. It's comprehensive and it is long-term.

Wonderful. That is all for mayor comments. Now we'll move into council comments. So, as the mayor said, we had our first hatch um our multicultural event in September, but I think it was significant because it was the first year without having Jeep as the event. It was

um and I think we were all a little bit nervous um about how that was going to go. But I'm really excited about the Hatch committee members, the new ones who've established their own means of figuring out like what went well, what didn't, and pivoting, you know, for next year. So, that's going to be pretty awesome. Um, and so as you're aware, I hold a seat on the board of trustees for uh risk management services and we had a retreat last week. We spent quite a bit of time presentations around FEMA and high flood um hazard areas and understanding that the scope of FEMA now is it's no longer, you know, any opportunity we get to say yes, it's been the most restrictive way. We want to make sure that what we're doing, how we're practicing is absolutely from that angle of okay, what would make them say no? Um so that we are prepared and we can get that support when disaster strikes. And then also just the risk review of law enforcement, understanding and um that our policies need to be updated and that's within 3 to 5 years of an update, training on the policies, but then actually acting on those and that reduces your risk of liability. And I think the other part to that is the biggest piece is understanding when we have storms that are coming, knowing where our vehicles are. I sent Rob an immediate text because there were a couple municipalities that had thought they were making the right decision and putting their town's vehicles in a particular location and it was a $3.2 million loss. So, we just need to be aware like, you know, trying to be proactive but effectively being proactive. And lastly, um I've been getting a couple of emails, a couple more like 10 around ebikes all over Harrisburg, the safety concern related to them and what we as a council can do. And my response has been I'll get back to you. Um because I don't know that we can you want to speak to that, Rob? I'll speak I'll speak with limited knowledge and I'll I'll I'll warn that

it's limited knowledge because this is just kind of a I look I don't know if the price just got really cheap on ebikes but every neighborhood in every city in every every state it just has this this uh plethora of of ebikes running around the neighborhood. Um the long and the short is if you're going to operate a motor vehicle, which an ebike is in the roadway, you're supposed to be licensed and you're supposed to follow the um the rules of the road. So, you know, watch out for other vehicles, stop at stop signs, all obviously that's not happening. Um they would follow, you know, they could follow or fall under the same consequences as any other unlicensed driver. Not trying to rain on any uh young kids parade. Certainly uh my kids rode dirt bikes around subdivisions. As kids, we try to, you know, raise them to understand the dangers of like don't go in the road, stay on, you know, open spaces. If you got to cross a road, you know, stop before you do it. Look, um so I, you know, I would caution people to talk to the kids, parents, if if there are issues first. That's what we should do with children is is help raise them as a village. Um, short of that, you know, we do have deputies out there and and they could address it under all the same rules and regulations that exist currently.

Any other council comments?

Um, just a couple of comments. Uh, congratulations, Zach, on your retirement. Congratulations, uh, Chris Redmond on 18 years of wonderful service. So, we appreciate that. Uh I will miss all the hill time slamming from the YMS again with that. Um I did take the uh the survey and I I think it's meaningful. But Ron, I think you had some comments. If we only get 12 responses back, it's not accurate. So we need as much participation on that survey as possible. Anything we could do, signs, bribery, all that works to get high level of engagement. Uh and the last thing is uh congratulations to you and your staff. You got the innovation award which didn't go unnoticed and I think that actually leads to better place to work. Good feeling and the same people who write those innovation awards write the grant awards I would think. So maybe even some more money in our town. So congrats on that.

Any other question or comments?

Uh just real quick, mayor. Um, I was able to attend the citizens academy uh last week. Uh, it was a great opportunity to share with some of the citizens. I'm encouraged by the level of civic engagement that we had with that. We had probably 14 15 people that were here. Casey did a bangup job. I think they were all excited about dinner. I had to reach out to a couple that um that were asking, "Are we having dinner? Are we having dinner?" Yes, we're having dinner. Um but uh Council Member Catel and I were here with Rob and I got to sit in the hot seat up front and uh asked several they were asking us several questions. Um but that's a great opportunity for anybody watching online. Um it's a great opportunity and I want to encourage you that's a great chance to learn about all the departments in the town. Uh Chief D was talking about they had a group at the fire department. I think next next time they're doing the sheriff's department. Uh I know there's a couple that I might have you leave there might be a good idea. Um but um it's a great opportunity for the town for the citizens to understand what goes on in the government. So highly recommend that. It's a great opportunity to to get to meet them. So it's all thank you.

Very good. All right. Thank you. Next we will move into our public hearings. We do have two this evening and Zach is going to start with the first presentation on I believe it's the annexation.

Good evening everyone. Um the new arrangement of uh I keep want to look up there so I have to remember there's something in front of me but uh so there there are two related um public hearing items before you tonight. Um first a request for annexation and uh if the annexation is approved then there would be an assignment of zoning. Uh both items will be addressed individually but then we will um look to have a decision u that will we'll address both of those after both public hearings. Um obviously if you approve the annexation then we will assign zoning. If you don't approve the annexation then we don't need to assign uh zoning. Um staff recommendation is that both items be decided on tonight uh rather than needing a second meeting. And u again we'll we'll get into the um annexation first and then we'll deal with the uh reasonzoning. So this property um is located on Pit Road and I'll show you where that is in just a second. Um the uh request is purpose of request is to receive town utility services and the action uh requested of town council is to conduct a public hearing and approve the request to annex following public hearing for the reasonzoning of the property to be annexed. Um staff recommendation is to conduct a public hearing, approve the annexation by adopting the annexation ordinance and again the action is recommended uh for this evening. So here's a uh a location. Um here's Morehead Road and you can see this little pizza shaped parcel right here at the end of Pit Road which is just off of Victory Lane. Um the uh you can see all of the sort of light purple around the

parcel is town of Harrisburg and zoned uh town of Harrisburg. Here's a little bit better uh visual. You can see how close it is to the track. Um and I will point out um that this is a relocation uh of the Ford uh performance racing school which you can see right there. um to right here. And so that will uh that will occur um and um in conjunction with that this parcel is proposed to be annexed to enhance the operation of the um uh performance uh school. Here's just a image showing the uh tax parcels and you can see that vacant parcel which will be joined uh together with the the existing u building right there. We do have an annexation agreement with Concord which um was um uh approved back in May and um under that annexation agreement there are areas we can annex and there are areas that Concord can annex. uh this parcel is within our annexation zone and so it is uh appropriate under the annexation agreement to uh consider that. So now to the fun part. Um the annexed uh 1.9 acre parcel uh will be merged or is to be merged with the adjacent uh new location of the Ford Performance Racing School uh which is relocating from Concord. Uh very exciting. Um, this will offer both on-track and classroom instruction for all skill levels uh by trained professional instructors. And I'm thinking, Chris, I might need to get in my retirement afford something.

You're not a Chevy game.

Well, you know, I just I might just have to, you know, do this. Um and so uh our recommendation uh staff finds all the standards have been met to support this non-ontiguous annexation petition pursuant to the general statutes North Carolina 16A581B and also uh our recommendation is count town council approve the requested annexation petition for the subject parcel. Um action again requested to conduct a public hearing uh for annexation and consider a motion to approve the annexation following the public hearing for the reasonzoning of the property to be annexed. And so with that I will answer any questions and then we can move forward into the public hearing portion.

So just so y'all know what's happening. We will have a public hearing for this portion, then close public hearing, and then Zach is going to present the reszoning. We will open that up for public hearing, close it, and then we will take a vote on both. Are there questions before we open up for public hearing? Uh just the usual, this doesn't require a lot of services from the city or any uh preferential treatment or anything. This this is more about just redrawing a small sliver of land and making it make sense. Is that right?

Th this is u one of Ryan's gets I think. Um so uh the the bar chart just went up. Um this is uh Yeah. So that's No, exactly. The the roads there, utilities are there and and this is a uh a great opportunity there. Who do we who do we tease in Concord that we're stealing the Ford performance? Leave that up to Rob Racing School. They they don't they don't pay attention to the teasing, but uh um lawyers who I tease, but okay.

Okay. Well, with that, we will open it up for public hearing. Um we did have a signup sheet out front. There was no one to sign up for public hearing. So, with that, we will close public hearing. Are there any other comments before we move into the request resoning with this? Okay, thanks.

Um so second uh item is um the would be the assignment of zoning um for the property uh to be annexed. Uh when you do annex a property, you have to assign zoning and the um proposal would be to assign it an EC employment center zoning uh on the property. Um action again is requested for the council to hold a public hearing. Approve the reszoning request following the ani action to annex. So we annex and then we reszone. Action on the resoning is also recommended for this meeting. uh recommendations to conduct that public hearing and approve the resoning uh for H202503r following the vote to annex and again location of the property. The property is just under two acres located on Pit Road. And um as you just heard, this is a request to annex and the goal is to join this with the property that will house the Ford Performance Racing School. Um again, we are required uh under the state statutes to assign a zoning uh once that property comes into the town. And also point out this is a conventional uh not a conditional resoning. And I'll just explain real quickly why that is. Um, typically in a conditional resoning, uh, it is for a larger scale, whether it's residential or mixed use or commercial. Um, in this case, we have one parcel that is surrounded by EC zoning. Um, it is going to be joined to a parcel which will, uh, be providing a service. And um as a result, this is one of those cases and we don't have them very often where

conventional or straight resoning is appropriate and um and so u we're we're comfortable with that. Uh we've looked at this and we didn't feel the need to uh make this a conditional resoning. You can see that the uh zoning in the pink there is general industry uh Cabaris County. uh it would be reszoned to EC employment center which is really pretty close uh to the uh to the GI uh designation. Um EC zoning would allow for uses such as multi-tenant flex light indust industrial office um all those uses that would be consistent with um existing uses surrounding this property uh in the existing zoning on neighboring properties. uh dimensional standard standards would be consistent again with the buildings found on neighboring properties and so it would fit in uh very nicely in terms of the land use plan on any reasonzoning. Um the council always has to uh make a determination of consistency and um the uh the land use plan does designate this property you can see in the green um as private recreation um which uh which really u is a is a use uh which was assigned about eight years ago. uh times have changed and uh with with Ryan and uh all the efforts going on for uh economic development adoption of the economic development plan last year um it really uh is a a prime uh location for economic development. So it is inconsistent with the future land use map as shown. However, we support it uh because we think it's appropriate for that location to reszone it to EC. We think it's consistent with the overall goals of the hall to foster economic

land use uh and encourage a mixture of uses on the site. The planning and zoning board heard uh this request at their September 16 public meeting and they approved a motion uh to recommend approval uh of petition 202503R finding it consistent with the UDO. uh they found it to be reasonable requests and in the best interest of the uh best interest of the public because of its location in that industrial park surrounding land uses consistency with the economic development goals of the hall. It promotes um uh promoting industrial development uh within a targeted area um in both uh NC49 identified in the economic development plan and closer to Charlotte Motor Speedway. And though it is inconsistent with the future land use designation of the current land use plan, um it is compliant with the overall goal of the uh Harrisburg area land use plan to foster economic development and encouraging a mixture of land uses. And so this is a great example of what the comp plan will address. Um land uses change, land use plans need to change with the um with the change. Um request for town council is to conduct a public hearing and to consider a motion to reszone following a vote to annex. Any questions? Glad to answer

unless I missed it. Zach, what is the current county designation? I'm sorry. The current county zoning designation GI which is general industry. Okay. Yeah. So, it's approximate approximating an EC um zoning. And I was just trying to look it up, but maybe you know um what's the definition of private recreation? I don't I don't see why it doesn't fit. Yeah. Driving cars is recreation.

Yeah. Maybe maybe somebody has some some better history on that than I do, but uh I think it was somewhat of a placeholder. Rob, uh, I'm not sure that there's a driving cars for free is recreation. Charging for it is a business. That's I see. Cuz in the hall, the it shows like a um like a BMX dirt track. Yeah. Dirt track.

Yeah. I think when they when they did the the hallop originally, you know, landfills don't have much use once they're they're capped out. So the idea was planning that halop out for when the landfill um was no longer being used and so golf courses, parks, things like that become landfills. Problem is the whole frontage of that is actually not a landfill. That's just a burrow area. Um and I think when they did that plan originally, they're like, "Oh, well this will all be part of future wreck." And they've just kind of they probably did like I don't want I don't want to speculate but it floods out to other kind of parcels like this which would have never been recreation. This is already in a subdivided

industrial area. I could see maybe up to the property line but this would have never been um recreation. But I would anticipate our land use under the comp plan that we're completing now to reclassify all of that frontage as industrial. As you see what's going on with the 10 tents, um what Ryan brought up this evening with the um with the stuff in Morehead West, this is all kind of combined into that area of future industrial and and commercial development. I think the the landfill when it closes, if they ever close it, they seem to just always tack on a new height permit to it.

Um, but when it ever closes, that would be a recreation area golf course or something like that. Yep. All right. I it it doesn't make any difference to me, but just based on the definition I see, I I kind of take a little issue with it saying it doesn't Yeah. align with the because it it does in in my opinion based on this definition. It's neither here. I think it was I think it was a better safe than sorry. As long as you say it's inconsistent but meets the town's goals. Yeah. Um it's it's a permissible uh decision to make. Yeah, I guess that's in the long consistency statement I will read shortly.

Yeah. Okay. I I'll I'll read it for you. That that take care of that.

Um Okay. So, with that, we will open the public hearing for the Pit Road property map amendment requesting to reszone the 1.98 acres. We did have a signup sheet out in the hallway prior to the meeting. We did not have anyone sign up to speak during com public comment. So, with that, we will close public comment. And are there any additional um questions or comments from council before we move into a motion to approve? So again, town council action requested is to reszone uh to a Harrisburg zoning designation the property uh following the vote to annex the parcel. And so now we have arrived at the motions to annex and reszone. Um and uh so the first uh motion uh would be to approve the annexation of a 1.9 acre property as you can see with the pin number located on Pit Road South as described within the draft annexation ordinance.

So moved. Is there a second? Second. All in favor? Motion is carried. And the second motion uh would be to approve H202503R uh Pit Road South map amendment uh request to reszone the property to employment center and make the required findings as presented. So moved. Second. Second. All in favor? Motion is carried. Thank you. So I will gladly read this as

that would be fantastic. Is that the parting? Is that the parting gift? Yeah, that's it. Um, so the, um, every resoning has got to be accompanied, as I said, by a statement of consistency and, um, so the motion to approve the following consistency statement. Uh where town council would find that this map amendment is consistent with the applicable common decision criteria found in section 1450107 and specific review criteria within section 145303 of the UDO and the following findings. The proposed project is a reasonable request and is in the best interest of the public because of its location within an existing industrial park surrounding land uses and is consistent with the HAL goal uh economic development one that promotes maximizing potential industrial development opportunities within targeted areas along NC49 and closer to the Charlotte Motor Speedway. And although inconsistent with the future land use designation of the hall as private recreation, it is in compliant uh with other goal of the hall in the areas of fostering economic development and encouraging a mixture of land uses.

Fantastic. Is there a motion on the floor to approve the consistency statement as read? Motion. Is there a second? Second. All in favor? Motion is carried. Thank you, Zach. Um, just quickly, um, Councilman Fall had to step out for the rest of the evening, so he will not be back, um, in here. So, we will continue to move on through our old business. We do have one item, one item of old business, and we have Brian back with us.

Thank you, Mayor and Council. So tonight, uh, your only item of old business is to consider general obligation bonds for our transportation projects. Uh, so a little history on the bonds. In 2017, the voters approved up to $4 million in bonds with a voter referendum. And at that time, that uh provides local governments with seven years to issue those bonds. So in 2021, we issued 1.65 65 million which consisted of about a million in street resurfacing and about 550,000 in various sidewalk projects along Caldwell Road, Harris Depot, uh Hickory Ridge Stallings and a couple other spots throughout town and then about 100,000 of uh issuance cost in that debt. So that got us to the 1.65 65 and left us with 2.35 million to issue uh in the next couple years. As we were coming up on the deadline in 2024, in November 24, we did approve the uh authorization to extend that bond authorization for an additional 3 years. And at the time we did that, we said we certainly didn't need all three years of that time period. we just needed um probably less than a year to get those uh projects underway and or under contract and then we could issue these bonds. And so that's where we are now about a year later and ready to issue the second round of bonds. So, the current projects that are included in this 2.35 million are Stallings Road sidewalks, a little bit of the end of phase one and all of phase 2, Highway 49 improvements in front of Town Center, which includes the financial way extension, and two traffic mitigation projects along Roberto Road that you see pictured here, as well as Cambridge Drive extension and Greenway, which is currently under construction that will allow people to connect into Town Center from another direction. So, in order to issue debt, we have to go through an RFP process and solicit uh

bids from financial institutions. And in order to do that, we have a couple partners involved. Davenport Public Finance uh I know you all have seen a couple times. They are financial and debt advisors that have been working with the town since 2016. Helped get the first bonds underway and have helped us with several debt issuances along the way. Um they also help with long-term planning. They look at the the CIP with me every year and plan out our debt strategy over the next uh 10 to 20 years. So, so they're really valuable partner that we've got. Parker Poe is our debt council. We've used them for the first issuance and they're just experts in in this field and keep us protected pretty well. Uh Rich is involved in all the town's important transactions and is always a help as he was today. uh the LGC will accept our application and approve our issuance of this debt and then we will select a financial institution as well to issue this debt with. We and Davenport distributed the RFP on September 22nd to over 60 financial institutions asking for a 15-year term and we received responses on Friday at lunchtime. And we actually went over those today with uh with the debt team, but uh we're not quite ready to make a recommendation yet, so we'll have to stay tuned for that next month. But what happens tonight is with your approval um we would approve a resolution requesting the private sale of 2.35 million in general obligation transportation bonds that would allow us to send that application to the LGC. Um, also I'm asking tonight to approve a professional services contract with Davenport Public Finance for an amount not to exceed 70,000 and that covers all those services I just went over. Um, covers about the last two years of of services that we've gotten with Davenport as well as the heavy lifting on this debt issuance and carrying them forward into

our next one as well. So, with your approval tonight on those two items, this is what our timeline looks like to finish out these bonds. Uh tonight we would approve the preliminary resolution for the direct loan issuance. On November 10th we would approve the winning lender, the term, the interest rate and any other provisions that may be on that loan such as early payoff penalties or things of that nature. And we would adopt a final issuance resolution. Uh that would be sent to the LGC and on December 2nd the LGC would consider approval of our 2025 direct bank loan and we would be able to close on December 11th is what we've identified now. And so with that, I welcome any questions. And if we have none, here is our recommended motion.

There any questions for Brian? I guess I have a general question. So you I'm always weary about taking on personal debt. I understand why government does it, but this was a referendum, right? So the voters said do it, so we must do it. We don't have to do it. we don't have to do it. But most people do feel that way. If the voters say if the voters say to go do something, we should I've evaluated this over the last uh 10 years now of whether it is worth it to incur that interest charge on on something that we maybe could cash flow. Uh but if you have that permission from the voters to do it, it's probably wise and then you could use that cash on other other priorities.

Okay. And that's been that's been a conversation Brian and I've had and I've had with with some of you which is you know ultimately if you put something on the ballot you better and and this you better listen. Yeah. And this was you know back again said 10 2017 um it was the same time the uh parks bond was put on. They were put on as a joint bond referendum. Parks bond failed. Transportation bond passed. Well, except they went borrowed the money for the park anyway, so they didn't listen to the voters.

But, um, when I got here in 2022, um, I I did have, uh, you know, this on on our agenda, do we issue the remaining debt or you not? And, um, just as a a rule of principle, uh, if the voters say do something, um, as you know, we should do it. Um, not doing that. supplants, you know, our wisdom for the wisdom of the voters, whether that wisdom is old or not. It's just uh um something that I think we should move forward with. And that's why they'd probably like you to do it within that time frame because things change so much. We're in such a stronger financial position now than we were at the time.

Yeah. And and with that additional bit of time, we were able to plan internally on like how how to best leverage Yeah.

that money. So although the time frames don't work out to where we could use it as like local match, um we did it on projects like um 49 phase 1. And phase one allowed us to gather enough information and show progress towards applying for phase 349, which ultimately became a $9 million grant award with with federal money. Um, same thing with Stallings's um, sidewalks is that by doing those other two phases, it showed our commitment to that area and we were able to then take all of that um, information and and commitment we've done on sidewalks there and turn that into the $2.3 million grant for the Hickory Ridge Road pedestrian project. So I am happy that we've taken the additional 2.3 and at least leveraged that and do an additional 11 million kind of getting a 4x return

on that by by taking that additional year and trying to pick strategic projects transportation wise that um that we could leverage for greater dollars. Sounds good. All right. With that, is there a motion to approve the resolution requesting the private sale of a 2.3 and a half million general obligation transportation bond series 2025 and approve the financial services contract with Davenport Public Finance for 70,000? So moved. Is there a second? Second. All in favor?

Motion is carried. Thank you. That concludes our old business. We do have a few items up for new business. And first up, we'll have Devon joining us for consideration of the contract for the installation of the Harrisburg Gateway sign on Rocky River Road. Welcome, Devin.

Good evening, mayor, members of council. So I have the pleasure of presenting you the contract for construction or fabrication and construction of the Harrisburg Gateway sign on Rocky River Road at this is continuation of the town's priority on branding and Rocky River at I45 was identified as one of the best locations to put to locate this uh what will be one of the last large gateway monuments into this town. Um, the current ones that exist are along Highway 49 near Farm Mill and Galvin Way. And this has been a capital part of the capital improvement plan for several years, but became an active capital improvement project in the FY25 budget. And we were able to secure an encroachment permit from DOT for this proposed location, which is shown here on this next slide. And as you can tell, this is actually outside of the town limits. This is in Charlotte, Meckllinburgg County side of the line, but it is at the interchange of I45 and River Road. Very close to the actual line, but as you're coming in, it presents a great perspective. It let you know that you're coming into Harrisburg. Um, and then the sign location or the sign size of the sign up there is given. Those are rough dimensions. This is going to be very similar to the size of the one in farm mill, not farm mill, excuse me, the Galvin way one, which is the smaller of the two signs. Um, those dimensions may change by a few inches here or there. So, so don't take those as gospel, but that is very close to what it will be dimension-wise. The fiscal impact of this contract is $91,217.72. And this was originally budgeted at a

total of 150,000 for the whole project. We have encumbered 13,500 of that for the design with Bizzle design which is complete and we have the approved well the approved plans. The fabricator will make structural plans but the design is complete. Uh and if this is approved we'll have roughly 45,000 for to complete the landscaping around the signs. I did get the first quote for the landscaping to emulate what is close to the farm mill and the other signs and we are about onetenth of that. So we are sitting pretty as far as what's remaining for landscaping. We should be good to go there. And then this was informally bid since we're within that range where we can informally bid this when Casco Signs was the low responsive bidder. And with that, I will take any questions you may have.

How that compare? How did that compare to cost of previous sums or was I still in that? The last one was in 2016 and I believe it was roughly 67 total all in. So that's a pretty good line there. Yeah. Thank you. Any other questions for Devon? Okay, with that, is there a motion to approve the contract with Costco signs for fabrication and installation of the Harrisburg Gateway sign in the amount not to exceed $91,217.72?

So moved. Second. All in favor? I motion is carried. Thank you. Finally, Jim after we've called him out before in the back. I don't even know why I need to be here. Excited to hear about the contract for the filter.

Well, good evening, mayor and council, and I'm excited to present it to you guys uh you folks because um you know, it's a my job is to provide the best opportunity for kids and families in this town. And I really truly believe this is the the direction we need to go to make sure that we can assure that those uh great experiences and uh where those memories are made continue to happen. So uh let's talk a little bit about this turf and the project and uh give you a little more information and take it from there. So, the project initiation in January of of this year, the staff uh asked council to consider uh a proposal to include the conversion of two fields at Harrisburg Park, fields one and two from natural Bermuda grass to synthetic turf. And the the request was made to help mitigate the poor field conditions uh at the park caused by heavy use of the fields during spring and fall sports. Uh you know, we have very large uh 1,400 each season playing soccer alone. uh as well as additional community use. Uh on Sundays and off times we get an awful lot of outside use and the lack of rest necessary in the fields to properly recover. Uh remember we've given you some information regarding uh proper rest. You know the fields call for no more than 20 hours a week on a field and at least two days of conse consecutive rest for it to continue to to be a uh a strong surface for our uh our young athletes. The other problem we have is that because of the size of our program and the length of the season, we have to provide for that and build that into the school calendar that changes every year. Well, changed a couple years ago into this uh early release.

Start of the start of our start of our spring athletic season starts in early March and the end of the fall season ends at the end of uh October, early November. What's the problem with that? Well, the grass in March has not come out of dormcancy. or B bermuda grass and has gone into b dormcancy in the end of October early November creating what a lot of wear and tear on those grass fields with with really no chance to recover. Uh you need that warm warm air you need that soil temperature to to go ahead and recover and so we are just beating up and giving not giving it a chance to really uh green back up and get where it needs to be. So the idea idea of converting to synthetic turf was over two years that we mentioned three over two years in the making with much research, much thought and a lot of development of how the addition of turf would really help us better help us provide a better experience uh for the kids and their families but also improving efficiency for our programming and maintenance staff. You know, one of the things that we've been uh challenged with from uh Rob and uh Lee is efficient, be more efficient. how can we be better at what we do and offer better programs within that process. So during our FY26 budget workshop, I sat with all you folks here and uh presented information regarding the many aspects of synthetic turf that would benefit the town's residents and their programs. And in May of this year, uh council uh approved you folks approved this budget for FY26 which included funding for the installation of synthetic turf on fields one and two at the park. So what that did that triggered in in uh August an opportunity for us to develop a request for qualifications and then help us with a decision process. So in August we uh a request for qualifications for a design build project was developed and released and a staff review committee formed that included myself, deputy town manager Lee Connor, finance director Brian Lee, uh town engineer Devin Houston, and public

works director Jonathan Young. And I want to take this time to make sure I thank each and every one of them. They give up quite a bit of time to come help us with this process. Their expertise in their different fields was really vital to how we came to a really good decision. Um so then in September we received 10 inquiries from those in from interested firms. Very happy when we saw that we had those 10 inquiries. We knew then we'd get a lot of good opportunity to really see different uh different uh types of turf and from different uh firms. Of those 10, we actually had six uh submittals of RFQS. And then we uh went and narrowed it down to get three presentations of which uh that committee that I spoke about earlier uh sat and uh interviewed and listened to those presentations. And from there we had two finalists and at that point we got Rob involved so we could go out and visit uh the three different facilities installed by those two finalists. We spent a couple of morning and a couple of afternoons doing that. And so then it was helped us come to a position where we could pick a a firm that we thought would be best uh for our project. And we settled on Field Turf USA. And then we ultimately uh I I began negotiations with them to try to see if we can get the best price we could get uh for uh the town. And what made us choose Field Turf? Reputation and experience and their strong sense of partnership we felt with them. Also brand recognition. Rob mentioned earlier the professional major college installations throughout the US that use field turf. Bank of America stadium uh is a field turf uh facility. They have an in-house design team. Many of the the firms that came had to go out subcontract for that. Theirs is in-house which cuts down on the time we need to get from point A to point B to obviously to the end of the of the uh installation. Great playability. Great playability with a no crown field. It's a flat field. It's the best thing you can ask for, right? You don't have to worry

about any kind of uh crowning. Um they have impressive player safety data. Um they provided that at every junction whenever asked. Um they have an availability as we spoke of earlier to put in a heat reducing infill. It's called pool play. That's part of the opportunity we have to uh make this an even better facility. And of course, it's easy to maintain. Uh we need to clean it or clean it. We need to uh pull up the infill and get the grass about every 400 hours of use. We figure that's about every 10 days. We'll have the equipment go through and uh kind of pick that up and reset it down and make it uh kind of a almost a new field every time we do that. So, what's included in this project? A complete design build project with an installation of over 133,000 square feet of synthetic turf on fields one and two of Harrisburg Park. other things involved that that is included uh with with our opportunities. As Rob spoke, we have some ads uh that we will consider. U we can get up to two permanently marked soccer fields as well as up to eight sets of field tick marks. That's our future athletic programs. They come in, they mark the corners, different spots. We go ahead and mark it. We can use paints that last a whole season so our guys don't have to go out and do that every week and that gives us a quite a bit of flexibility going on as we develop programs. um two interior light poles relocated to the outside perimeter of the fields as Rob spoke of earlier which gives us again great flexibility in adding programs as we go down the line and learn how to best use this uh new facility. Uh this cool play infill it reduces heat of the playing surface up to 40° uh is an increase uh or a decrease in temperatures on those playing surfaces. A midfield logo where we can get our town logo out there in the middle. We also could probably we can change that out for a couple of smaller logos elsewhere depending on how we want to go about it through this design process. And they will come out and train our maintenance staff and also the necessary equipment is included in that for us to do a good job of keeping

that thing uh keeping that facility looking the way we like it and playing the way we want it to play. And here's a project rendering. Um and so you can see that fields one and two at the far end down by the shelter one our our parking lot to back. Um you can see what that will look like there. This is just a rendering. This could end up what we end up doing. We could turn this eventually. We can do a couple different things. We'll get through the design process over the next uh month to six weeks uh to kind of actually come up with a final design. But it's, you know, what's going to be great is that's obviously a winter picture and boy will we have a nice setup where we at least have some green going on uh in our in our facility. Conversion benefits. What are those benefits? Well, reduced maintenance of the fields, which we've talked about, right? We've come to you a couple times for more sad and different things to we we've done everything we think we can do to make those fields uh really uh perform to up our standard but there's no mowing there's reduced striping there's no chemical applications you know there's no fertilizer no prem uh uh applications no irrigation and no annual residing it's a weatherproof service and red and reduces stress on natural reduce stress on natural grass allows for increased use uh year- round availability allows for winter programming One of the things I'm most excited about is the opportunity to use it in the winter. The Carolinas are great for that, right? You could have a 45 degree day, but the sun's out. And because that with the the turf will have that warmth, it'll be a perfect surface for, you know, we have a an adult flag football program that plays at Hulkcom that we lose almost every Saturday whenever it rains because it's Bermuda and we don't want to tear it up. This allows us to move it there. We won't lose any of those games. And like I wrote wrote in here, adult programs, some new youth programs. Rob mentioned lacrosse. That's a goal of ours to try to get that introduced here sooner than later. And community open youth. We get an awful lot of adult groups come in on Sundays. Tear up the fields uh during the winter, but they're just trying to play and this

they'll be able to move on to that. Shouldn't have much trouble. And the final uh benefit, rental opportunities. That equals potential for increased revenue. we should be able to uh get this fields rented out to some of our soccer clubs that would be willing to use it in the summer, in the winter, and also on off days, some Sundays, that kind of thing. And we are really proud to note that it's the first installation of its kind by a municipality other than the schools here in Cabaris County. the project cost came in under budget and if and the project is on time and if uh if you guys so approve this evening we'll open this facility in early March in time for our spring programming and we're really excited about that opportunity and so with that I'll honor any questions you may have and I also have it's a little heavy but it's start with Rob you a look at what we're talking about. Get your fingers on it. Pass it down.

Wow. I just passed that down. But I'll be glad to answer any questions while you're So, Jim, yes. Well, in there you say the equipment to maintain is included. Correct. Throw it off. Yes, it is. So, I got you. We've heard this before. It's heavy. A year from now, are you going to come to the budget meeting and say, "But we need a bigger machine." No. No.

No. Right. It is a standard machine, Ron, that uh comes um it hooks to the back of a side by side or a golf cart. It's powered if you need it powered or it could just be a cleaning surface where it just takes uh leaves, whatever off the a field. So, you can use it either way. And uh it they're guessing based on once they get used to the style and which way you want to go, it's more than not more than an hour or so of the guy's time to get it cleaned up and picked up. So no, there will be no additional

where I where I'm going with that is that's just one facet, right? All the other facets are the product of government. We under bid or we underpay, I guess you would say. Absolutely. Wait around all this time to see the mark.

We find ourselves in these projects where we have to take the lowest bidder and we have to go with all these regulations of how we bid out these processes. What are we not getting that we're going to need in a year and two years? Because I don't I I don't want to see us come back and go, "Hey, you approve this and then by the way, we need this, we need this, we need this." Because it, you know, from our perspective, you think you're doing the right thing and then you're like, "Oh, but it cost not only this, it costs this and this and this." So, yeah,

I I honestly uh I think we've thought of everything we need. Uh the maintenance is simple. um we will um most likely uh enter into negot negotiations with them to come in and do a thorough cleaning with that company once a year like after July 4th or something like that. But outside of that, we've thought of everything. The only thing I could think of coming back for is maybe more fields later, you know. So, you know, depending on how it works, right, and what we do with future parks if we build parks, those kind of things. But as far as this uh this facility alone, I think we've got everything we need. I I really can't think of a thing that we would need to come back to you for. So when we think of Fourth of July, no equipment on that on that field at that point on that area.

We will be able to use it. We we won't be able to put the heavier equipment on it, but we will be able to um use our food trucks around the outside of the the plan is right now outside of the track where people walk on. We can put tents on it as long as we don't put stakes in the ground, which tents have the water uh buckets that will hold the tent down. So yeah, we we're expecting that to be a really good opportunity for us to uh expand a little bit on the July 4th, gets more people. Is there any concern around fire hazard? You know, I don't know. An ember from the 4th of July falls. Does it permeate it? Does it damage it? I mean,

yes, it it could if we let it go. We're we're we're one of the things we're talking about doing is moving our fireworks this year to get them away from there. So, um, we don't expect that to be a long-term problem. Uh, so I think we're trying to think of everything to make sure we don't put that at risk. And Ron, I appreciate your questions because I think I asked quite a few questions about this earlier to Rob because it is such a significant investment that I do think our community will see the benefits of very quickly. The only thing I can think of is that they'll come back and ask for bleachers because if you're going to use the fields and potentially create what was that four different maybe eight,

it depends on the however you the age groups, right? It'll be I think that was the only thing that looked like it might come back. Well, the but I mean that's municipal.

I still go back to the other side of what I brought up in this initial discussion is there's municipalities that are moving away from this. There's municipalities up north that have removed it. So I I I push back to you to say with this company, what longevity have they seen? And you know, I know you said on a positive note, we're the first municipality. That scares the you know what's out of me at that point. When you say, "Oh, we're the first." I hate being the first because when you're the first, you find out all the issues and all the challenges.

Yeah. The good part is, you know, we've we spoke, we we went up and saw Hickory Ridg's uh high school field and they all they're happy with theirs and you know, Mint Hill just put in some more. It's there's more going in every day now, especially with given some of the weather changes the northeast, they did get out of a while. They're all building back again there. It's, you know, especially given the the cost of taking care of natural turf fields and the replacement, especially down here in in the south with a program that's as large as ours is, it's really the best opportunity for us going forward. Um, I know M Hill just put in Matthew Sports Flex just redid a bunch of theirs, brand new. Um, we visited a school uh in Charlotte uh that just put in one about the same size as ours. They're excited. They're This is their second one. Uh Charlotte Latin. Charlotte Latin.

Um they had one, now they've putting another one in. So, you know, we're you're seeing more and more go in. And I don't I don't I don't see uh I I don't see a change in that given some of the parameters that we're looking at. I don't see the the the bleachers as much as I see Harrisburg Cowboys saying, "When you taking care of us?" Yeah. Randy doesn't want turf, so we're okay for a little bit. Yeah, I think it's going to be wildly popular. Um, to clarify a couple of the points though, like this this is just the first time field turf is building one in Cabaris County. Correct. Field turf

is not I mean this is they are the market leaders. So, um I think it's just the first time they've been willing to get their price down below some of the regional competitors in order to get a market share here. And we just happen to benefit from that. Um, I think some of that, um, the cynic in me is the the Cowboys are going to want some access to a field or our community is going to really embrace this. When you go out and you see 4 acres of completely flat artificial turf field that's high quality, right? These aren't like the carpeted um, soccer fields that you kind of see in these regional complexes. This is professional turf with very high safety ratings on it that you are starting to see folks go back to. Um there are more turf fields in existence now than there were 10 years ago when folks started going back to um natural fields. And if you got to see Pittsburgh play uh the other night, you you could see what the turf fields their their kicker about blew his knee out trying to kick a field goal because their natural field was just a mess and they've got to redo it. So I think there's safety issues each way. I I do think we have enough contingency to work on some of these unknowns by the time we get to the end of it.

So where you started in that conversation was that supplier was coming down on their price because they wanted to get in this market. We've seen it before. Will we be used as an advertisement for some for their business to say, "Hey, Harrisburg did it." Because we don't want our brand jeopardized in any way, shape, or form. And I don't want to see us being on the backs of someone out there going, "Hey, look at me. You know, we built this and Harrisburg's got it." Well, I I I've jokingly offered them to put it in for free if they wanted to use us um as their as their brand sponsor, but otherwise they would need to pay us. We we haven't um given away any advanced

branding. Now, will they will they want to bring people out here? Absolutely. Will they want to? But they would need to ask for that. Given what we went through previously, can we have that hardcoded in there that there is no advertising based on come see Harrisburg? I mean, if they want to block them out, that's fine. But I don't want to see commercials, reels, whatever you call it out there publicizing, hey, come to Harrisburg. They'll give you a tour. They'll show you. Yeah, we require all that in advance, but we'll make sure that they we remind them. Why are you worried about that? because this happened

for really don't want to get into all I know is so if you look at that box it says a target company target is a multi-billion dollar multinational firm that makes building products on a huge range um I don't think that they're worried about

picking on one municipality in order to get business they they've they've cornered the market on 10 different products. So, if that's what you're worried about, I wouldn't worry about that. Tarquat's a huge corporation that basically makes all the rubber base in the in the world. There's there's none in this room, but um if you've seen rubber base, like that's that's them

almost. I have a separate question understanding that we have a very active community. So, what does that look like for our walking um the track? During the during the construction phase, half of the track will be closed around the construction area. We will put it back. We will do our due diligence to get it so people know to walk the halftrack and turn around and come around. We're also talking about doing something across the field based on the problem with that is when it's muddy and crappy, people won't want to do that. So, so we're going to really work on and we also talked about developing a path up through the park using the sidewalk. So there's actually we're we're working on it as we speak. Yeah. Yep.

Jim, just one quick question. Um the pellets that are in there in the infield,

is that a replacement issue like future? I know Ron was talking about what what does that look like future? Are we are we going to have to come back in and repelize? you know, there um they they will supply us with X amount for like goal miles where the goalie stands and those certain spots that might need a little bit, but that's not even guaranteed. Some years you do, some years you don't. And so we'll have a little bit of that to to replace it. And if for some reason we go through it more than normal and that kind of stuff, they still will bring it to us. It's part of the part of the maintenance. The warranty uh the warranty is full full warranty. They cover rips, tears, whatever happens. Crazy question. If if this were to get approved and it went awesomely well and you said, you know what, we want to do another field. Would we have to rebid a whole another field or could we tap into an existing relationship? And then the second question or the part B of that question is is if you could tap into it, would they look at it as some type of discount?

Yeah. It's a great great question and at the beginning of the presentation um Jim went over the process that that we use for this. So we so this is not a bid process. This was a qualificationbased process because we didn't just want to take whoever could build the cheapest field

in Harrisburg when we wanted to see who could provide the best value and understanding our quality standard. Um I really like that process. I think it really worked out well for our staff. we have a lot of competent professionals in there that were able to ask the right questions, leverage things back and forth. So, by the time we got done with this and we kind of had the final two um who knew each other who who knew who who each other were and we're going out and doing site visits um it it allowed us to really understand the product. not plus we'll the next one if there is a next one um we'll understand even more nuance after having owned a field maintaining a field um so I think we'd do even better so we would we'd probably go through the same process most likely landing on the top two or three that we had in this process unless there's somebody new on the market that maybe spun off of one of these other companies and and could provide something else equivalent but uh the these are on state purchasing contracts so you can kind of compare what the what the state bid is and we're well well under the state bid by following this process.

Yeah. Any other questions for Jim? Okay. With that, there's a motion to authorize town manager to finalize negotiations and execution of the attached contract with Field Turf USA for the construction of two synthetic turf athletic fields at Harrisburg Park with a project cost not to exceed 2.5 million and a total contract value of 2.675 million. Is there a motion to approve? So move. Is there a second? Second. All in favor? I. Any opposed? Motion is carried. Thanks so much. Thank you all very much. We're really excited about this. We'll uh we'll make sure we keep you posted.

Appreciate your time. Last in our new business, we have um Jonathan Young is with us tonight and it's consideration of the fiscal year 2026 Powell Bill Street Resurfacing contract with Ram Pavement Services. Welcome, Jonathan.

Thank you, Mayor uh council. Um, as you read tonight, our new business, this is our street resurfacing program for this year, FY26. Um, as you know, each year we conduct street resurfacing, maintaining life and quality, our street, our town's transportation network. Uh, that's the comprehensive list of our streets there that we will be recommending for paving. This year, we'll go over those on each one of the locations when we get there. Uh, five bids were received on 919 with RAM payment services being the lowest responsive bidder. And then as a reminder, this is the first year of our three-year payment pay uh management plan that I presented to council back in the September meeting. Um, first location is Bentley Hill subdivision. Um, and there in Bentley Hills, we actually have um Founders Way, just a portion of Founders Way. Uh it actually has been there's a a new phase there and then there was a piece that was left off between those two. So that's the portion you see there highlighted in yellow. Uh Coral View Drive and Silverwood Drive is recommendation. Fentale. Uh we have Dale Drive and Torqu Drive. I think I said that right. I believe it is Torqu. Um if we go to the next one, we've got Galvin Way, which is all of Galvin Way. You'll notice it actually ends a little bit before uh the road ends, but that is the uh town's maintenance boundaries there where it ends. It's about a 400 to 450 ft on Galvin Way. Um Flowers Farm subdivision. We actually have all the Flowers Farm recommended. Cabana Way, Jen Court, Cotton Street, and Sea Island Lane. Harrisburg Park subdivision. We're looking at Spring Court Lane, Orchard Park subdivision. There's portions of Apple Glenn Drive, all of Peach Grove Court, Fruitwood Court, and a portion of Berry Ridge Drive. A lot of this subdivision has already been completed in past uh resurfacing projects.

Um last few here, Wheels Run subdivision, which is actually one culde-sac, Wills Run Place, Valhalla subdivision, portion most of Ford Street actually, uh and Ballen Becker Drive. And then the final one, uh, Harrisburg Industrial Park, uh, which is the Harrisburg Industrial Park Drive. It'll be that complete project except for the few little bit at the very end. You can see the yellow ends there just before the end. There was a portion that was paid with the, um, widening on that several years ago. Um with that uh FY26 resurface contract be fully funded by the PAL bill allocations for in per NC general statute 136-41.1 through 136-41.4 FY 26 the town is expected to receive around 73,000 uh based on our receipts from our PAL bill. We've gotten one of those already. Uh and then the fiscal impact of this project is $622,63845. project meets town's goal is providing safe well-maintained dependable public healthy systems and services that I will take questions.

Is is there milling in this or no? There is milling. Mhm. Yep. Uh we will we've got enough milling to actually cover all this project. We turn we determined that some in the field. Um there's a couple of those streets that may not necessarily need full milling. Some of those over in the older sections of town, they don't have curb and gutter on side. So we kind of determine that as we go through the field, but we do have a full milling. So I'm trying to understand you the neighborhood I live in, Flowers Farm, was is on there.

I guess it was probably three years ago you guys came through and crack sealed and then I don't know what that liquid was. Liquid road. Yeah, it's liquid road. So, is that considered resurfacing or is are you going to take that up? And it's a great question. So, actually, uh, you you hit right on the head of what is a perfect example of what we talked about in our last liquid road would be one of my examples of that pavement management. So, that was to extend the life of your of those roads in that subdivision. Um, based on my notes from Cory, he felt like that was about five years ago. So yeah,

um so he did put some notes together for me on some of these, but he felt like it was roughly 5 years. So this is a perfect time actually to come in on your subdivision and some of the others that we'll be um recommending probably next year that had some of those liquid road treatments. Um but that's exactly what that was for. It was to go on there, really try to extend that life crack seal, give you that little bit of surface. It's a minute surface. We're talking millimeters. And then now you would come in and actually mill that, resurface it for a full uh resurfacing and hopefully again maybe in a couple of years you might have to do something else to that. There's some other little treatments on there to keep it for 20 plus. So the crack seal at that point goes away. Yep.

And you're back to a smooth I mean and that's what I would reason I point that out is I knew it was on like you said maybe 5 years ago and it looks kind of rough already and you're like okay what are we getting out of it? But yeah, makes sense. Thank you. And and the dollars, the dollar amounts on those are just, you know, if you remember my chart I went over last time and I I don't know if you were here, Councilman Smith, last time and I can you see it, we can get it to you, but the dollars are really cheap on that side to put those things in like liquid road compared to what you're doing on a milling and a resurfacing. Thank you. Yeah, I I apologize. I was out last one and totally missed it.

Is the galvan are you doing anything different there? um like heavy duty asphalt or anything because that they run a lot of heavy trucks out of there. Yeah, it's a great question. Uh that's one of the things we actually talked about in the beginning of this project is what we'll try to do is we'll go in there and evaluate that street and again it's a short section. Uh we do have some contingency funds built into this project. We also have some full depth uh recovery so we've got a little bit of mount in there if we need to go in and actually take out more than we need to. Uh that's a perfect example where we'll be doing some of that stuff.

Yeah. Make sure they do some really good work on that one. Especially because if you go to the car wash there, you have to leave through that road and when it's all beat up and dusty because all the things crumbled up. I'm sure Autobell would appreciate it if we did a good job. You just go out the wrong way like I do. Is that what you do? I can turn back around. They may like all the people coming out because it's dusty and being able to use their Maybe they do like All right. Thanks. Yes, sir.

All right. If there's no other questions, is there a motion to approve the contract with Ram Pavement Services Incorporated totaling $622,63845 for the fiscal year 26 Powell Bill Street Resurfacing Project? Is there a motion to approve? So move. Is there a second? All in favor? Motion is carried. Thank you so much, Jonathan. Thank you. We need to make a call out to Jeff Phillips so he knows that we're maintaining the roads. We are maintaining roads. Jeff always said we got to maintain the roads. Absolutely. So, um action items. Rob, I only had one written down and it was um for Ryan about the vacancy from past to now. That's all I have.

That's all you had as well. Okay, great. Um, we do have a quick need for close session tonight to discuss land acquisition and we could potentially have one contract item to approve um when we come back. So, normally I say we go into close session and we're done, but we there there is the potential to have to vote on a contract when we come back. Um, so is there a motion to move into close session? Motion. Second. Second. All in favor? I. Motion's carried. Take a quick little break.

Um oh the other I know from you have to go back to your presentation go through the motions and Maybe maybe settled all the way upstairs. All right. Are we good? Okay. We are back into open session and we have one final item of business. Mayor, you have the um Brian's motion stuff. Do you want him to to read it out or are you good?

I can I can read it out. Um, there is a motion to approve the purchase contracts for 4301 Stallings Road for $650,000 and 4245 Stallings Road for $550,000 and the related fiscal year 2026 budget ordinance amendments. Is there a motion to approve? Is there a second? All in favor? Any opposed? Thank you. The motion is carried. Thank you. With that, is there a motion to adjourn tonight's meeting? Second. Second. All in favor? Motion is carried. Thank you. Perfect