Town Council - Regular Meeting

September.

Y'all had an opportunity to look over the agenda, make any changes. We have a motion to adopt. Motion to Go ahead, J. Go ahead. Motion to adopt. And I second. All in favor?

All right. Public comment. We have one signed up, Mr. Denny Macintosh. Topic 407. Good evening, mayor, council, staff. August 1st this year was on Friday about 8:00 that morning in emergency pipe talk 0800 hours came over. They began with a long announcement. They were celebrating a long lengthy career county for I thought Randy is they talked about their appreciation for his service and wound up with wishing him happy retirement. I'm thinking how can that be? And then last Friday, the 29th of August, I got to attend a dinner in honor of 407 and a lengthy career. And I'm thinking, yeah, I know him. I was there when he came to the Bible fire department in June of 1977. What happened next? The flood of 1977. The sort of got broke in then. I think long came through the 80s and I I remember well all the uh 4 first aid and 4H fire safety classes that I happened to attend with him and we got a lot of stories we tell about that and then came the fight for a paramedic EMS service the fight for a fire tax for Burn Township a fight for the just the privilege to place the issue of enhanced 911 on the ballot for county citizens and just a lot of other stuff over the years and we could tell tales and then there some tales. So I get to looking around and I think

is that Randy Randy Alice certainly for retirement and I think no not a change the Randy I know will say what we're just getting started here thank you thank you Randy for all you've done and all [Applause]

you have excuse speech. Thank you, Andy, for for everything you've done. All right. Uh, everyone had an opportunity to look over the minutes from our August meeting. Have a motion to adopt those. I'll make that motion. Second. All in favor? No public hearings. No presentations and move on to Miss Hawk day for the manager's report.

Well, I'm going to steal a little bit here from Leslie. She's on the FEMA. She's got it y'all all grafted out on where all of our projects stand and that sort of thing. So, I'm not going to go through all that. Everybody here can read. The only thing I really have is we are uh you start out after a disaster and you're in 100% federal cost share 0% the state then you move to 9010 and then you move to 7525 doesn't mean that much to us because thankfully we live in the great state of North Carolina where they make up the cost share for all the local governments. However, you know, we have this temporary raw water system and it's going to be a good amount of time before we get back on the permanent for a number of reasons. They're working on the design for it right now, but there's also the line work that involves some coordination between us and DOT we've talked about, but uh we uh Harper Construction put together this system. It's custom built and they have done some service on it and we have a project within our FEMA our 18 FEMA projects. One of them is the continued maintenance and we just received another sixmonth extension. Every six months we'll have to apply for extension for maintenance for this emergency system. Um, and so I have with me a service agreement with Harper for them to continue servicing in the event we have we've had several and Shane can tell you more about them kind of big blowups or blowouts I guess would be and they need to come and fix those. We have a separate contract already in place with Charles Underwood pumps. Uh, and they come and just do routine quarterly maintenance on the pumps to themselves to keep them all the stuff they need to

have done to keep them running. But this is is for if we have an issue with the intake itself or any of the piping, stuff like that, they will come back and and fix it. So, I need a motion um to approve and authorize the mayor to sign this service agreement between us and and the first go around I think Leslie that we have asked FEMA to all lot I think $270,000 for the first year it's the and every six months as we do that there may be an amendment but it's basically a time and materials on call agreement um for whatever we need from them and they have been

hopefully it's nothing hopefully it's nothing you know but over a 2 year period. We've already had them back up here what, three, four times. Yeah, I'll make that motion. I'll second. All in favor?

All right. ARPA. Um, we are started, as people are beginning to notice, on the main borderline uh replacement. They're started, I guess, first part of August, second week of August, they started on some of the side streets down on the west end and then TP Howard is in here. They have the contract for the the main that which is going to get replaced with a shiny new piece of of line. I've already been down there and picked out the one I want and they've started, I guess, milling up the pavement and and setting where they're going to dig and trench and

and that sort of thing. So, um, that's just sort of my update there. East Maine, we're we're about to close out, I think, the water treatment plant phase one that's done.

Um, we're under contract for the Bowlan's Creek um replacement of line from the intersection of Bowling Creek and 197 up to the plant. It's about 2200 linear feet. Goes over over country. um based on discussions we're having with DOT about them rolling some of our damage line replacement on both Bolan's Creek and 197 into their overall rebuilding of both of those roads. Um we think we're going to upsize all of it to 12 in. That's our hope. Um, so I received um notification from the engineers that DWI has approved the up size from an 8 inch to a 12 inch going up to the plant through the fields there. So we're still waiting on the contractor. Contractors have are all backed up now, but um we hope within the next month they'll get started and that should be a relatively short short project for them to complete. East Main sewer interceptor. Um we had a bid and award Kinjun who did the West Main interceptor was was the uh the award to get on. We're waiting on DEQ to approve the bid tabulations so that we can get under contract with them and I'll be talking with the engineers which is Wither's Revnil on that project tomorrow about where that is. Um, so those are the three remaining ARPA projects that we have. Am I correct if I missed one?

I think so. No.

Yeah. So, they are moving along and we are hopeful. Um, we feel like all our projects are going to finish on time before the December 31st next year, 2026 deadline. Um, 118 North Main Street renovation of the old fire department. I've got a couple of change orders um that involve, you know, we've talked quite a bit about the wall over there and the issues that they found with the structural on that one corner, the southwest corner. And they had to do a little bit of redesign in the structural engineers and the architect to get that um where they could make sure it's solid. And that affected obviously the flooring system down there because the original plan was to just take out all of that concrete flooring and repour a new slab. But the structural engineer said you can't do that or this wall is going to fall in. So they've come up with a new plan the to sort of rehab the floor that's there. Um and they're going to do an epoxy cover on it just in the first two bays. This is only on the ground floor, not upstairs with the police department. uh for public works which will probably be a better product altogether anyway looking at it than a luxury vinyl or something like that. So those are the two change orders. We're still within our contingency and there's they look big but they're not that big. Going through all the ones I've got here nine and 11 I guess. So, the first one is for the basement epoxy flooring coating. That's a change order of $39,200. The second one is is the wall stabilization, which is going to cause

them to have to pour an interior concrete wall and also put some steel beams in the ceiling uh to make sure that that's okay. And that's that's the largest one. It's $60,000. 60,467. So, you know, the architects looked through this. Um, we had a meeting with them today and the contractor here about these and then on site. Um, but hey, there wasn't isn't there a difference in the savings between not taking the taking all the floor out? I mean, didn't they consider that into consideration?

Well, they did. They did. They did. And actually, I mean, basically what they did was not rip the floor out. So on that part, yeah, where they just trench for the plumbing and stuff, we got a savings. And then here, we're getting a savings off of the original. I guess we're saving $12,000 off the original contract for the type of flooring that was going down. But then they're going back and putting in this epoxy, which is a better It's a better product. And one of the problems with the floor was not only the wall, but there was a difference in elevation of about six inches from front to back. So, you know, the idea in the beginning was we dig the whole thing out and we reour everything. And then when they started trying to do that, that's when the crack in the wall appeared. And and then the structural engineers said that's not that's not a good idea. So, um, they went back and reworked it. So, that's what all this, but we did get a credit for taking the carpet and the LBT out that was was planned and a credit for removing the concrete floor ceiling in the basement rooms. Um, so what they're telling us now is through the demo process, what they've seen thus far, they think is pretty much everything they're going to see. Now they're putting back new construction and that should be much less on the change order stuff. And we actually Brian and Shane went out and they picked out all their colors and they're ready for their bouques and they did

they so they're they're all they're all happy now. Um but I will need a motion to approve to approve these two change order nine and change order 11. I'll make that motion. Second. All in favor? Okay. And if you would not mind, I guess in that, can you give me the authorization to go ahead and just sign these? Let Russell sign. We'll let Russell sign these. We have to make a motion on that. Yeah, probably be good to have it on the record if anybody ever asks. Change orders. I'll make the motion.

Okay. All in favor?

Okay. You should have in front of you somewhere in this pile a letter of recommendation from Miguel Associates engineers. So, this is going like way back to our lead service line inventory project where we're trying to figure out what everybody's got on their side of the meter. As part of our main street renovation project, we're going to find out a whole lot about what's on our side and what's on their side and everything on our side get replaced anyway. Um but there are about a thousand other properties um within our service system that have to be evaluated. Um we put out an RFP for a service. It's called a soft dig service. Basically a company that will come in and they do these it's called potholeing or soft digs. Small digs on either side of the meter to see what the material is made out of the pipe that's going from the meter into the home. um and to go on our inventory. We do not have enough grant loan money to complete all of those, but we have there's there's several different methods that EPA is going to allow us, you know, and and all this saying town of Burnsville's not ever had. I mean, we test our lead all, you know, periodically. I don't know what the schedule is currently

every three years. every three years, test, do random tests throughout the system. We've not had one come back bad. Um, and we do feed, you know, in our treatment process, a chemical that coats the lines and keeps lead from leeching if there's a lead connection. Most of what you'll see will be not actually a lead pipe, but a connection with that's been soldered with lead. Sometimes copper piping has that. Um, so anyway, we put out this RFP. We got nine total responses. This is a very technical project. So, we had McGill uh engineers do the um do the scoring and they are recommending that we um work with Taylor, Wiseman, Taylor, WTW. Uh as far as the proposal went, they were scored highest. um on the scoring matrix that we start working with them on negotiating a a contract for service. Um like I said, it's probably going to be not all. I think there was a,4 they're going to use some other modeling that they can do based on the numbers. We're going to pick some specific places where there might be some issues and look check those out first. Um, so the EPA has given us kind of given everybody. I mean, this is nationwide. This isn't just North Carolina or the town of Earnsville. Nationwide, all public water systems have to go through this process. Um, so I guess I need a motion and a vote um to accept the recommendation from McGill and allow us to start negotiations with this group. And if those for some reason fall

through, we'll go to number two on the list, which I think was Duke. Have a motion to approve. What was the name of the company? TWWT. TWWT. second. All in favor? I

All right. And then we have a resolution. The state treasur department of treasury has put out a third round of cash flow uh loans. Um and we've done this before with one and two. To date, we've not had to use any of these funds, but they are available to us at no interest. It's a short term, but we're hoping that as the FE it's it's tied you over while you're having to wait for FEMA reimbursement. And we feel like Leslie and I have talked about it. We feel like it's probably smart to take advantage of having this. I mean, right now, we just have it in the bank. It's earning interest. Um because when we get into these larger projects, a smaller project, you're going to give them your estimate and they're going to send you the money. A larger project, you give them your estimate and they hold the money and then the state holds their 25% until close out, complete closeout. So, we will have to float some money um to get some of these larger things going along. We ask for reimbursement and they to us, but it goes from the feds to the state to us. They can take a couple months has been our experience in the past.

Yeah. And where we've had so many going at one time, it's we got all our projects. They're all reimbursement. You know, we've got other stuff going on. And the amount on this one is 1 million 19759972. They they go into FEMA grants portal and look at what we've got outstanding and give us a percentage of that on each round they have. We we've discussed this the last couple of meetings. I don't think we'd ever turn it away. Hopefully, we don't need any of it, but it don't cost us anything to to get it. It's there if we need it.

Yeah. And we opened that trust, you know, that account at the trust, so it's making good money. Yeah. So, we need a motion to There's a resolution that the governing board has to pass. So, I just need a motion to to approve the resolution for the cash round three of the cash flow loan. Motion. Second. All in favor? I

Okay. And just I'm going to give y'all kind of a heads up. We have been looking and going to a lot of different trainings on several different funding opportunities that have come along since uh Hela. One is the SRF program Helen money that's 100% principal forgiveness on the water and sewer side up to $5 million on each side. So we have with our engineers taking our capital improvement plan. I've been working with them and some folks from DEQ and from the COG on putting together applications for that funding. Um and then also EDA has a large amount of funding that's the US economic development association. um they approached us, had talked with some of the industrial businesses here um about the possibility of putting in an application for a project that would expand East Jansy sewer plant. Um that plant was built, it was downsized when it was built, but there's a mirror sister plant and room to put one down there. Um obviously, you know, they would be a co-licant. The East Jansy Water and Sewer District would be a co- applicant with us, but we would be the lead applicant um on this. And where this is right now is there has to be a preliminary engineering report. The southwestern cog out of Hickory got some funding and they are going to they have put out an RFQ selected four or five engineering firms. They're going to assign them throughout the region and pay for the preliminary engineering report and then our COG will help put the application together and then we'll submit. There is a

there is a match, but because we were in the Dogwood Health Trust footprint, Dogwood has committed to making our match

on the grant. So, it would be an opportunity to expand that plant to double the size of it at no cost to anybody in Y County. And I feel like that's worth pursuing. It is a competitive grant. you know, they are nationwide, but they do have a surplus of funding because of Hela. So, it's more funding than they've ever had before. Usually, they're in the one to $5 million range. These you can go up to 20 million. So, there will be have to be a resolution by the governing board to pursue the funding at some point. Um, they haven't put those out yet. So, I'm hoping either at the October meeting we can do it. I won't have to call one ahead of time just to get the resolution passed. And last thing I have is the tax reports. You guys have those. We're getting ready. Bills will go out very soon.

Thank you, Miss Heather. That percentage still overnight enough. For for last year's Yes. We're still I mean almost 99.5 or 99.7 very close to 100% collection and we have started on a couple of the there's just very few that are over, you know, $1,000. We have started collection proceedings on those. So hopefully we'll get payment plans or something going.

When are we thinking that those tax bills going to go out. I know I know you called yesterday but was thinking like two weeks possible. Well, I'm trying to think. I don't think the software will have it back around till like around the week of the 15th to the 19th. I think I can't remember exactly a little later. I can't wait.

Anybody have any questions for Heather? All right, we'll move on to Mr. Shane Dale, public works. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. There's a lot of stuff happening in the big city of B. I think most of the line, well, all the line pretty much on Cherry Lane and Hickory Lane has been laid now, other than the very beginning portion there next to Old Fox Brothers. And as you've seen, TP Howard's in town now and turned up Main Street. So, there's a lot of stuff happening.

You can bear with us for a little while. We're still, you know, These contractors are trying to tie in some of these lines and different things. So, we've had a water outage today, shut down for just a little while, trying to get some things situated and tied in different places. And as bad as I hate to say it, there will be more of that to come. But it's just a pain that we're going to have to go through for a little while. But everything's going good. I think they're getting ready to move in down at the sewer plant and start down there. So, Not a whole lot to report on right now that you can't really see out there that's taking place right now. Things are moving forward pretty much.

What's the status on the pothole thing? We're going to get into cold weather here right now. That's what the contractor was back in here Tuesday. Done some more on west over. So they're already They are. They are doing. Yeah. Now he's Yeah. He's hitting some spots here and there. Got a lot of DOT work going on right now. I reckon that's taking right now. So, but they're hitting it as they can. He's assured me that he will take care of it. Cold weather's coming. Yeah.

He's assured me that he'll take care of it before before he can't get any asphalt anymore. That's about where we're at right now. Thank you, Shane. Miss Leslie, with the finance report,

um well, I sent out the budget versus actual and the overtime report. Um cleaned up a couple lines between the 530 and the 531. So, that looks a little better. Um and trying to think anybody have any questions about I've got this FEMA spreadsheet and the only thing I think that's new is this line here, this 270 on the very bottom on the first page and that's that maintenance on the on the intake. Um, but we've we've looked at this several different times. It's like a a running piece of machinery. It's up and down, but usually not down. Just mostly up. Um, but we'll just keep updating it as we go on the months and try to keep you guys informed. But we hadn't received any additional money back from them, but we don't really have anything except we just paid the rest of Harper and the Cane River line last month.

They did obligate the Cane River line since since our last meeting. Yeah. So, we should be getting that within 30 to 45 days from the state. So with the governor and the president sparring, is that going to affect any of our projects?

Your guess is as good as mine. What is holding the money up right now is the fact that in sometime in June, the Secretary of Department of um Homeland Security decided to issue an edict that all projects from all disasters across the country would over $100,000, which is a drop in the bucket on anything, would have to come to her desk for her review and her signature. And I've had conversations with um Senator Ted Bud's office. They have a female liaison, Bronin Lance, that works with them. And she said we're trying to get meetings with them, but it's like all the money ground, you know, to a halt. All the process did. They've already approved it in re FEMA has approved it in region four and then it goes to her. And I said, surely she's not personally signing on this. And they said, "Well, that's what they're telling us." And I don't know who reviews or advises or whatever. And they said, "We can't find a rhy rhyme or reason. Is it oldest projects go first? Is it small project? Is it large project?" There are apparently tanches of projects that go in and she says, "Yay or nay?" And then they the funding goes out. But once it leaves FEMA, then it goes into the North Carolina Emergency Management Process. And that's usually a 30 to 40 day process of actually getting the funding. So I think I don't know if you've got a date on there of when our like the Cane River water line which was one of the first projects we had completed. I mean it was completed the first week of November last year

and it was just obligated I think maybe two weeks ago. So once it obligated, we felt safe to pay it because we knew the money would be coming back to us. Um, but I don't know. There's no that's a pile of paper. Well, I can't even imagine.

I mean, because it goes through seven or eight cues at the FEMA CRC, which is located in Atlanta, and it's like You know, you've got project development and then costing and then then EHP, which takes a long time. That's environmental historic preservation. That's one of the longest cues. And then it goes to insurance review and peer review and it jumps through all these hoops and all along the way people sign off, sign off, sign off. And usually then they say, "Okay, you got thumbs up for everything. Hit the pay button." And the money comes to the state. But now they've added disaster staff that it has to go to her office or to her is what they're saying

up there. But needs about two or three more zeros behind it. Well, yeah. My understanding is the state of North Carolina at this stage has has received 8% of the funding needed and typically in other disasters it's been more in the 40 to 70% range at this stage post disaster. Yeah, that was part of that sparring that was yesterday. Yeah. So I don't know.

Okay. Next I have to close the CDBGI account. So thankfully we're done with that project and Lord knows I need them as quick as I can get get done with them. But I do need a motion to do that. Motion second. All in favor. Thank you Miss Leslie. You're very welcome. Chief H.

Thank you Mr. Mayor. You've got our run report for the month of August. We ended up with 33 runs for the month and giving us a yearly total at the end of August. 342 calls that we responded to. Most of them for the month of August were fire alarms and again some uh automobile accidents. So that's basically what we're doing a lot of lately. And what? Mulch fire. And multire actually happened in September. We'll get to hear about that next month. And and the burnout. Don't forget the burnout. Yeah, don't forget the burnout.

And the fully involved vehicle fire burnout heard about yesterday afternoon. That was funny. Somebody tell it fully.

As far as updates on the truck, the truck is being equipped with Shelvin and some brackets to mount equipment. We also asked them to add another tank fill on the back of it. It right now it's in Rocky Mount having all that done. At that point in time, when they finish it, it'll come back to Statesville where they'll do the lettering. I don't know. Hopefully by maybe end of October they might done with it. We'll see. They've actually got until sometime November I think to get it under according to their contract to get it back to us. So hopefully they'll get it back soon. We did get the two checks from the grant application for the disaster assistance. One for $18,000, one for $50,000 to pay for our side by side that we have on order. So that's that money is in the bank. So and we're just waiting on it. Hopefully it will be they had 180 days on it. So it probably will not be in in our hands until somewhere around after Christmas. So we're waiting on it. That's about where we are with those items. We're big ticket items we're working on.

Thank you, Chief H. Chief McCann.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. U we have our activity logs for the month. Uh we've got a pretty normal month. Uh we uh want to remind everyone we have old Tommy day. There'll be a road closure on the 27th be the one year anniversary of as well. So just to make you aware we will have that coming up on police side. That's that's really the update I have under normal operations. Uh zoning code enforcement. We haven't really had that much. which I did attend zone certification training and maintain that the beginning of August. I guess the one thing to if anyone ask this question they did uh extend due to the area by lean they paused any timers for any permits that may expire. So we have normally if you have a somebody who's pull a permit and they haven't done work for a period of time that per expire they delay that for till December of 2027. So these permits maybe we have to keep records and we'll make sure we're maintaining these things for a little longer than we normally would norally close those out of these permits to finish them out.

Thank you Corbin. I didn't create. Thank you. Um, August was a little slow for us, but September on through the rest of the year is booked up quite nicely. We have 28 events this month. October, we have 36 events booked. I should say days rented anyways. Um, so we're trying to stay as busy as we can as it starts getting colder and colder. That's really all I have unless you have any questions for me. Thank you, Coron. Council member reports [Music] have anything they want to report on? Come on, J.

I would uh like to kind of inform the board um just a little bit on some things that are taking place on Bowling Creek. Um, we're Bowloling Creek is a is a priority for me and I know it is for for the town. Um, just because we're permitted on Bowling Creek. I I feel like that's something that

we need to we need to see through and uh and and I believe we will, but there's going to be some alternative things probably happen up there. I just I don't feel like that we're going to be able to put it back where it currently is in Bowling Creek. um from a from a monetary standpoint and from a a land use standpoint, I don't think it's going to make sense to go back to the current intakes. Um, and of course we Shane and I have been with with Tracy with HCA and uh discussing that we we may have to move it downstream which is uh you know obvious obviously that's going to make us not be able to gravity it to the to the plant but we we are looking at uh some different options on Bowl Creek right now. When when Heather do we feel like we will have some numbers back on from

have a meeting next week with uh the engineer with GMC. They have been working with the HGA estimators on putting together the numbers that FEMA will need um for a complete replacement of what was there. Um, and once we get that number, then we have lots of different options through the FEMA programs that will open up. Um, and so I'm thinking two weeks, maybe maybe shorter, maybe shorter.

Have that number. have that number and then we will be able to look at all the options that FEMA provides, you know, an alternate or an improved project or something that still will allow us to utilize the source but uh hopefully in a much more, you know, accessible and efficient way. Um and there will be obviously some permitting changes just moving it anywhere. Um, but for those of y'all that have not been up there, it's pretty it was hit really hard. There's just a lot of slides and um

Shane Shane and I took three personnel from the Forest Service this week to to the intake on the on the Forest Service side and they just they didn't understand how it was ever put in there to begin with. For those that have been up there, you would question it yourself, but u I just I feel like that we will still be able to utilize Bowen's Creek. It may just not be at the at the current intake location.

Anyone else have anything from board standpoint? Move on to Miss Cat. Welcome. Congratulations.

Oh, um, good evening, mayor and council members and staff. I appreciate the opportunity to provide a brief update, and it will be brief about what's happening at the Yansy Chamber of Commerce. Many of you have probably heard that Elaine Man is no longer at the chamber and I am interim executive director at this time and they're going to be posting that position on Indeed and I think they're going to run it for two weeks. Um and um Jim Polier, the board chair said that he wants this to get wrapped up quickly. So it won't be a it'll be a short transition to whoever gets the um executive director position. Um some good things that are happening is we have partnered with Mountain Heritage High School entrepreneur program and started an internship at the chamber. So hopefully we get some interns um to learn what it is all about to be a chamber of commerce and working in our town and how wonderful it is. And um another program that we started this year was empower her connect and that's a women women in business group and we meet quarterly and we talk about um all different kinds of topics and we have a keynote speaker and um on the fourth quarter we are doing a women's leadership summit which we have um a keynote speaker who's local county, but our panel is five um women in leadership positions from our surrounding counties. So, it's going to be a very um we're trying to reach out beyond just Nancy County to help women in business um in all in our western North Carolina region. Um with the event, Trick-or- Treat on Main Street is going to go on

as planned. It probably won't be as bedazzling as last year because we had a lot of donations last year and I I don't think we're going to get the same amount this year. So, but we still have it back to normal. So, be a fun time. And let's see, the Christmas parade application uh ready to go. Sam Saernet, she's our member services and marketing and must have in any any time. She's my savior. And let's see. Um we are working with um visit NC um they are bringing in three to four national journalists on September 17th. So if you see me walking around being tour guide Barbie I'm walking around with some uh national people. Um I know one is the men's journal and one is parade. And on Monday I'll find out who the other two national journalists are. And we're going to be doing doing a um little uh walking tour and um stopping in at stores and I'm going to try to make sure the owners are in there. So we stop they can all you know hopefully and um the West North Carolina chamber executive retreat is happening also in October. So that's coming up and um we're trying to get small conferences to come. So companies smaller companies corporations that have 30 or less people start promoting that out to we are ready here not only just for tourists but also for businesses to come and um with the new way open and the town center it's like a perfect marriage there so that's pretty much it any questions

I would say one thing Rick and I got off the plane in Asheville August 14th and there's that monster picture that Sam Robertson did Yeah, that's And the first thing you saw when you come into the new airport design is burn. So, I mean, that's it's got a QR code down there. Yeah, Brianna did that um with TVA. I was too sleepy to do. I like the D. I haven't flown yet through there since that's happened, but I heard it was really nice. It is beautiful. I've seen pictures. Yeah. If you hadn't saw it, it's on Facebook. Thank you very much. Thank you.

All right. Bill, do you have anything from High Country?

Not much other than some of the grants and money that Heather was talking about, but Zack Green, he is the uh director of the Council on Aging, and he was there to tell about money they had for people that have falling hazards in their house. And he said they would pay like they would you put in for this if you know anybody that's there Jake have to be 60 or older. They don't have to be owners of the house that they're in but they will pay one to $5,000 to build ramps maybe put the st riding thing up the stairs or push even put shelves down where people can reach them. Anything that would be a hazard a falling hazard for elderly people. So I guess you would just get in touch with maybe uh Victoria or somebody at high country and they could set you up with that. But anyway, the I guess it comes out of App State, but uh they have somebody to come to the house. If you put an application, they'll come and evaluate it and and uh see what you can get with it.

That would be good for Christy to get with community paramedics. Let me I I'll do that. And there was another one there. I think he was on the the screen though and they were talking about uh monies for to repair septic tanks that have been damaged by Helen. And they said they would take they would pay for 999 that was damaged and then if you needed maintenance or or some of was not damaged by that but you needed it 999 they will

I know they're in they've been in contact with the Yans County Health Department got that part funded. Yeah, that's a great program because there's no income eligibility for that and and it's a 100% grant and I think they have 22 million to repair replace. Yeah, that would be great for people. I mean, you know, to get the word out to people that that need that. Yeah, for sure. But if you don't own the home, you have to have the owner's permission to

to do anything, of course. All right. Thank you, Bill. Our next regular meeting is October the second highly irregular.

Absolutely. If you ever want to comment on Randy, you need to have it written down or some kind of history, but I neglected to talk about his rescue squad experience. Under Ry's leadership over some 30 something years, County Rescue Squad acquired some $2 million in equipment in a million dollar building and North Carolina Department of Insurance Fire and Rescue Commission has a grant program every year. And I dare say Randy Alvis qualified county for the maximum amount more number of consecutive years than anybody. That's quite an accomplish

and I thank you for that. Thank you. All right. I have a motion to adjurnn. I'll make that motion. I'll second. Thank you all for being here. I think everybody, don't you?