Board of Commissioners - Regular Meeting

Good evening everybody and welcome to the August 17th, 2026 Town of Killdevil Hills Board of Commissioners meeting. I call this meeting to order and I invite everybody to please stand and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. Everybody would please join me in a moment of silence.

Thank you very much.

Good evening, everybody. Good evening. Nice to see everybody. We have an agenda before us, and I'll welcome a motion for approval. Motion to approve the agenda.

I'll second.

We have a motion and a second. Any more discussion? Hearing none, all in favor, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Our agenda is approved. all right now at the time we set aside for public comments this is an opportunity for anybody in the audience to address the board or any topic of their choosing that pertains to the town we do ask that when you're called upon approach the podium speak into the microphone and identify yourself by name and address There will be no debates. Please keep your comments to three minutes if you're speaking as an individual, and five minutes if you are speaking on behalf of a group. And if you do have any written remarks, please turn them in to the town clerks once you are finished delivering them. And a quick reminder as well, we have two opportunities for public comment, one at the beginning of the meeting and another at the end after we've wrapped up all our business. So if anybody... Wishes to speak again later on. That opportunity will present itself. The floor is now open if anybody would like to speak at this time.

Yes, ma'am.

Go right ahead.

Good evening, commissioners. My name is Andrea O'Donnell. I live at 512 West Kitty Hawk Road. Excuse me, in Kitty Hawk. I organized and submitted the Deflock Dare petition that was sent to you all via email. I am here to represent the concerns of 673 people who signed it with very little legwork on my part. This is a whole community issue. 459 signers live in Dare County, including 174 right here in Kill Devil Hills. Dozens more are Currituck and Camden residents who work here every day, drive these roads and are captured by these same cameras. More are second homeowners and visitors. This is not about defunding the police, and it is not a partisan issue. Nationally, at least 54 municipalities across 22 states from conservative Texas towns to liberal college towns have voted to cancel, decline, or deactivate license plate reader contracts. This isn't a left versus right. It's citizens versus unchecked mass warrantless surveillance. Our demand, our petitions demand is not reform. It's full removal of these cameras. Until that happens, we ask every local law enforcement agency to turn on the transparency portal disclose the number and location of its cameras, the specific equipment and features in use, every purpose for which the system has been accessed, which outside agencies have access, how long data is retained, what search audits exists, any known policy violations, and any security vulnerabilities. We are asking this board to state publicly whether it supports keeping these cameras and to enter our petition into the official record. These cameras do not just capture license plates, and you can't truly control how the private vendor handles the images. As it stands now, residents don't know how the local government is using it. Duck, Southern Shores, and Nags Head have partially activated their flock transparency portal. Kill Devil Hills and the Dare County Sheriff's Office have the transparency portal completely turned off. No expectation of privacy in public is not a license for government surveillance. That doctrine exists as a part of the First Amendment to protect people's ability to observe, record, and report. To use this to imply our Fourth Amendment rights cease to exist the moment we step outside of our house is a willful perversion of the First Amendment in the attempt to completely subvert the Fourth. Rights exist to protect us from government overreach. If a cop follows you every moment you are out of your house and creates a record of everything you do, that would be a Fourth Amendment violation. Using AI and a private vendor to do it at scale is worse. The legal ground under this technology is also shifting, and I hope you'll get ahead of it. In Carpenter versus the United States, the Supreme Court held that the government generally must obtain a warrant before accessing location data that creates a detailed chronicle of a person's movement over time. The ACLU has warned that searches across network plate reader systems can reveal trips to medical offices, places of worship, and political gatherings. Exactly the kind of record Carpenter v. U.S. said requires a warrant. Imagine how these might have been used to control people during the pandemic. These concerns aren't hypothetical. A Charlotte Mecklenburg office was arrested in July.

Ms. O'Donnell, your time is up.

As a group, as someone representing a group?

Deflock Dare.

Thank you. These concerns aren't hypothetical. A Charlotte Mecklenburg officer was arrested in July for illegally using flock data to tip off a drug suspect. A Fayetteville woman was wrongfully arrested in 2022 after a misidentified plate match and later settled for $60,000. I could go on and on. Communities are not waiting for more incidents. Over 50 cities and counties have cut ties with flock safety this year alone, with more than 20 in July, the highest monthly total since tracking began in 2021. 82 contracts have been terminated across 28 states since 2021. These cameras are highly concerning, as is how this decision was made. Funding for this system was folded into a budget line with no dedicated public hearing and no real chance for residents to weigh in before it was already operational. Did you do your own due diligence about these before approving it? When mass warrantless surveillance infrastructure is quietly slipped into a budget, as happened with the state of North Carolina, instead of debated openly, it doesn't just expand government overreach, it erodes the public's trust. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Who else would like to speak at our first public comment period? Yes, sir, gentlemen.

Hello everybody. My name is Melanie Bortz Brewer. I live here in Kill Devil Hills. Excuse me. What's that? Why do we have to disclose that? Like that feels uncomfortable too. Like I'm a resident here. I skateboarded here. So I live in Kill Devil Hills. My name's Melanie Bortz Brewer. I'm here on behalf of all the children in this town. I'm here on behalf of my daughters, my young teenage daughters, that I don't know who's watching them. I don't feel comfortable with them leaving their house, like our house. I don't know who's watching them on the other side of that screen. None of you can actually confirm or tell any of us that there's high level security because how many times has our government been hacked by outsiders? And now they're watching our children in every township across this country. We are now at like 128,000 flock cameras in this country. We are currently at war with another country and we let a whole bunch of those people in during the previous administration that are now here just settled, sitting and waiting, ready to hack in to what you all have installed and see exactly where everyone goes at any given day, time, moment, hour. We sat here and pledged allegiance to a flag and talked about freedom and liberty in that pledge. And what freedom or liberty do any of us have anymore? We're on complete lockdown. We're in a lockdown state. This is what America has become. And it takes us, the public, to come and talk to you all and take time out of our day to be like, yo, this is a bad idea. And let's talk about not wanting to defund the police. What do you think these cameras are going to do? They're going to take all y'all police jobs. One day, you won't be needed. Y'all are a paycheck that is not needed. Once they install all of these cameras, say goodbye to an actual police force. And you know what I want to have is a police force to actually protect me when I need that protection. But guess what? 99% of the time people are good people. And people are actually standing up and saying when people are doing bad things. And we're all starting to become a community again after everything was severed in 2020. And a lot of us have not forgotten what happened. And a lot of us are really angry. And a lot of us aren't willing to be put into a flock of sheep anymore and allow. I want someone like that's got time because like I homeschool my kids and help run a business and drive all over this beach doing stuff. I want somebody to subpoena your bank records. How much did you all get paid to just vote in flock and be like, yes, fine, let's do this. What are we doing? What are you all doing? And why did you sign up for this? So I'm kind of just blown away right now that our freedom and liberty as a whole, this just doesn't include us. This also includes you all. So y'all are being watched too. Y'all don't know who's watching you. You just signed right up for it. You're like, yeah, sounds like a great idea. Complete loss of privacy. constant stalking, monitoring, knowing where people are going, AI making mistakes, because that's what AI does. I don't know who invented AI, but it's been a bad idea ever since. Think of how many jobs have been lost just in AI. So what are we doing, friends? How much time do I got left, my friend over there in the corner? 19 seconds. I want to thank you all for keeping us veiled through your decision making to completely eliminate privacy for all residents on this beach. I want to remind you, we go to two places when we die. And this is not a threat. I was a hospice nurse. I want to be on the place that goes to the good side. And I didn't want to not speak up when I saw what was happening. So you guys have an opportunity right now to do the right thing. So please do it.

Who else would like to speak in our first public conference? Yes, sir.

Good evening. My name is David Collins. I live at 1703 Padgett Road in Kill Devil Hills. My wife and I moved here in December of last year. Prior to that, I lived in Currituck County for 35 years. I was a local government employee in Currituck for 30 years. My wife retired after 35 years of being a teacher. We traveled a little bit. I spent some time in South Florida. While down in South Florida, I was able to participate with some groups that were exercising their First Amendment rights to free speech. There were no... obvious restrictions on their exercising their First Amendment rights. So when we got here, I joined a couple of the larger national protests, made contact with some like-minded people in Nags Head who were exercising their First Amendment free speech rights. A colleague of mine had been successful in working with the Nags Head Town Commissioners to make their free speech ordinance a little more constitutional. So I was interested in doing some demonstrations here in Kill Devil Hills, and then I looked at Chapter 92 of the town ordinance. In my non-legal, unprofessional opinion, that ordinance has a lot of constitutional problems. I'm sure you will hear some of them before the night's done. A small committee of us met with Ms. Diaz, Mr. O'Dell, and the Assistant Chief of Police, Harris, and got some ideas of how to proceed with rectifying this situation. The assistant chief said he would work with me in getting a permit completed rather quickly because we're under a time crunch here. I will work with the assistant chief of police to get a permit for our group, but I am going to do that under protest and with a strong objection that I do not feel that a permit to protest or demonstrate is constitutional. It may be legal, but I do not believe it's constitutional. So I'm here to make a request tonight that the Board of Commissioners examine Chapter 92 in the town ordinance, maybe go over it with the town attorney, perhaps schedule a work session with a group of residents that are interested in this issue, and maybe put it on a future agenda for open discussion so that some changes to the ordinance can be made. um we want to be a part of that process so thank you very much for your time and to add some brevet some levity to this important subject and a quote from one of my favorite movie heroes it can't stand man it can't stand man thank you thank you thank you

The floor is open if anybody else would like to speak. Yes, sir.

Good evening, Mayor and Commissioners. My name is Randy Cartwright. I'm a 52-year resident of the Outer Banks and a former KDH resident.

I currently live at 243 West Lookout Road in Nags Head.

I have worked with Kill Devil Hill residents on demonstrations and on revisions to the Nags Head demonstration ordinance. Last week, I met with town manager Diaz and town staff, along with three KDH residents, and presented our proposed rewrite of chapter 92, which is parades, pickets, and group demonstrations. Ms. Diaz told us that the town needs to revisit and probably revise the ordinance, and we appreciate that recognition. I've studied chapter 92 and the constitutional principles governing expressive activity in public forums. I believe the current KDH ordinance is likely unconstitutional, particularly because it broadly requires all demonstrations to obtain a permit before they can take place. The First Amendment protects freedom of speech and peaceful assembly. These are rights the town does not create. I recognize that the town has legitimate interest in public safety and managing the use of public spaces, but those interests do not automatically justify requiring government permission before we can exercise a constitutional right. For a small group that simply wants to stand together peacefully on a public right of way, requiring a permit can itself become a substantial burden on that right. That brings me to what I heard from the town last week. One of the principal reasons given for requiring a permit was that the town needs to know when and where demonstrations will occur so it can be aware and be prepared. I understand that need. I'm not opposed to reasonable notification. But if the town's principal reason for requiring a permit is that it needs to know when and where demonstrations will occur so it can prepare, why is a permit necessary? Why isn't notification sufficient? I believe the commissioners need to understand that they have a constitutional problem on their book. Your staff and police are expected to enforce the ordinances. You should be concerned about whether it can withstand a constitutional challenge. So my request tonight is simple. Please make sure Chapter 92 is promptly and fully reviewed so that Kill Devil Hills and Outer Banks residents can exercise their constitutional rights without unnecessary governmental restrictions. We're not asking the town to give us the right to protest. We're asking the town to recognize a right that already exists.

Thank you.

Thank you, sir. Thank you. All right. Yes, sir.

Good evening. I'm Spotswood Graves. I live on First Street in Kill Devil Hills. I have served the people of Kill Devil Hills and Dare County since 1978 as a pastor, both active and retired. I HAVE BEEN A PROPERTY OWNER IN KILL LEVEL HILLS SINCE 1993. I COME ALONG WITH MY BROTHERS WHO SPOKE EARLIER. I COME THANKING YOU FOR THE ATTENTION IN THIS MATTER. THANKING MS. DIAZ. Assistant Sheriff Harris and Clerk O'Dell for speaking with us last Tuesday and for the response that we received from them, the welcome that we received from them. I grew up in Orange County, Virginia. You may not know much about Orange County except Montpelier, the home of James Madison, is in Orange County. And he is responsible for the First Amendment. Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion or of prohibiting the free exercise thereof or abridging the freedom of speech or the press or the right of the people peacefully to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. We are in a frightening time in our country right now. And one of the things that is needed in our country is respectful discussion. One of the things in the 1800s the US Congress decided that the issue of enslavement was too touchy to talk about it. So for 20 years, at least 20 years, they had a gag order on speaking about enslavement. We know where that got from, from 1861 to 1865. I asked the town council to address this issue of peaceful demonstrations in a timely manner now so that we can show ourselves and other people that we wish to discuss and that we wish to make our views known publicly and peacefully. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Thank you. Would anybody else like to speak at our first public comment period? Yes, ma'am.

Good evening. My name's Catherine Heath and I live on Kilt on Kitty Hawk road in Kitty Hawk. Um, I know you all took an oath when you were sworn in to protect and uphold the Constitution of the United States. And it's time to get very serious about that. With the Fourth Amendment and the First Amendment, it's easy to run roughshod over. And we've seen what government overreach can do. But this is, these cameras, this mass surveillance, we have no right to privacy. Our constitution guarantees us that. The innocent and the guilty are all being surveilled all the time, tracked, You can pull up a record of them. You think you can sit here and talk about putting more constraints on it or locking it down or making it safer. This is a Pandora's box that's opening, a genie that you're helping to let out of the bottle that you will be sorry when it gets there. It's time to stop it now.

Thank you. All right. Who else would like to speak in our first public comment period?

NOBODY?

ALL RIGHT. AGAIN, I'LL REMIND EVERYONE THAT WE'LL HAVE A SECOND OPPORTUNITY TO DISCUSS FOR PUBLIC COMMENT AT THE END OF OUR MEETING. ALL RIGHT. MOVING ON TO RESPONSE TO PUBLIC COMMENT, I'LL START BY THANKING EVERYBODY FOR BEING HERE TONIGHT AND THANK EVERYBODY FOR SPEAKING. IT'S NICE TO SEE HIGH LEVELS OF PASSION AND ENGAGEMENT and it's nice to know that we have a lot of folks that really are paying attention to this community, and when important things happen, they come out and they share their thoughts. That is an important part of this process. That said, if anybody else would like to chime in, I'll open it up for discussion.

Yeah, I'll just speak to the constitutionality of these two things. Two separate issues. I'm an attorney, and I You know, study the Constitution as well, and and took an oath as an attorney, but also as a commissioner to, you know, to uphold those. Amendments to the Constitution and the Constitution and whole and I, I'm not afraid to comment on either 1 of them. I would say, personally, I agree with as far as the First Amendment and the ability to assemble and speak, that any restriction on that would have a dampening effect on that right that we have under the First Amendment. And notification should be simply enough. And even if it wasn't given, It wouldn't be required, but it would be asked to be given. So to have a permit, I agree with you. I agree. I'm not afraid to say that. I'm also not afraid to say with the flock cameras that they're ripe for abuse. It's very... It needs to be completely transparent. She left, but I definitely did not have any role in getting these cameras put in and didn't have a say or vote. If I did, I... I don't believe I did. Let's just say I had any say in putting these cameras in. I'm not saying that they're all bad and I'm not saying that, you know, I don't know my position fully, but I would say, you know, from reading and from hearing and hearing from people studying the issue and, you know, I mean, obviously we have people on both ends, extreme ends, but ultimately, you know, it is right for abuse. It does need to be transparent. It is kind of a, you know, an overreach in my mind of government. And, um, you know, I'm definitely not afraid to say that, uh, my opinion is just one person, but, um, I think you're correct in a lot of ways. I wouldn't want to accuse everybody of using it improperly or anything like that. That's for sure. I know for a fact it has helped a number of people in a number of situations. But that being said, at what cost, right? At what cost? And as a defense attorney for my career, I didn't expect to do that out of law school, but I learned that The role of the defense attorney was maybe one of the most important roles in this country. We have judges. We have other prosecutors. We have our representatives really chipping away at our Bill of Rights on a daily basis. And believe it or not, defense attorneys are the ones that are in there on the daily side. just making sure everybody does it the right way. So never thought that was the noble path that I would go at a law school, but I learned to appreciate what defense attorneys do on the daily. And no politician is doing it, and many judges and DAs aren't certainly doing it. So you're seeing this group of people in the court on the daily fighting that battle. And that's basically it. a loud minority that will speak up and wants to protect the constant. Well, it's trying to speak up and wants the constitution to be, you know, upheld. So, so thank you for doing that. It's hard to do, right. It's hard to do. It's, I shouldn't say minority, but it's, it's hard to do. I mean, you're, you're coming forward and you're, you're putting out our rights and somebody needs to do it, right. Somebody needs to do it. Otherwise they will be gone. And there can be, you know, the, the, slippery slope is an absolutely true thing. Absolutely true. So, so we've seen that. So, so good, good work. I think, you know, respectfully, the way to handle things on both sides is respectfully, both issues, try to understand that, you know, everybody's not, you know, Not on the same page. Nobody's really, well, I'm not saying nobody, but a lot of people are not against the citizens for sure. Just because I'm in government, so to speak, doesn't mean I don't agree with you. Certainly there are protections that need to be had. Transparency. If the very first thing we could do that I would propose is to turn on that transparency switch, yeah, I mean, we should be at least as transparent as the other towns here. and the future of flat cameras will be up to the people you hope. I don't know. I hope it will be up to the people.

That's all. Thank you, Commissioner McAvoy. Anybody else?

I'd like to make a recommendation that we look at ordinance 92 and have staff take a look at that. Yes, ma'am. Mr. Cartwright has some good revisions that we can, so I'd like to put that on our,

I think would it be adequate enough time to work it into our September meeting or is more time needed to be prepared for that?

We can certainly bring it back and get some direction from the board at the september meeting very good i think we could yeah give feedback from a legal slash constitutional standpoint okay i didn't know so staff input i won't speak to them but i know i could provide my input by then okay that'd be great as long as we have consensus i think it's more than a meeting yes oh yeah oh for sure i definitely agree let's start you want to get it right definitely get started but it hasn't been done yeah that needs to be all done 40 years so yeah time to

And then I wish Ms. Brugger would have stayed actually, because one thing that she mentioned is that she shouldn't have to take time out of her day to come here and let us know. And that is actually the complete opposite of what a citizen should be doing. So I wanted to tell you all that I appreciate you taking time. I know time is valuable. I would love to tell her that I work 50 hours a week. I, I've not, I have never even taken any kind of money from any business in my campaign, let alone it, you know, so, um, there's some misconceptions there. I won't speak for all of us, but I will all say, I will say we are all up here for the right reasons. So, um, I just wanted to say that publicly because I think it's really important for people to know that not everyone that chooses to be an elected official is in it for the wrong reason. There are a lot of us who are in it for the right reason. And so I am looking forward to hearing our law enforcement presentation on it and learning more about it. I've been doing a lot of research lately on cameras and not just in the United States, but actually some of the more interesting research and information is actually globally what other countries are doing. And I'll save anything for that, but that's looking forward to hearing more. Thank you all for coming.

I also want to thank you all for coming out. It's one of my biggest things is so many times we get up here and we do this and this whole room is empty. We just have staff, maybe which we love and other staff, but it doesn't really give us any feedback left, right, up or down or otherwise. I have this whole page I wrote of my thoughts on particularly the flock cameras. Um, don't think I'm really going to read those. Um, hop right into it I am interested to see the presentation for sure I've done a lot of research I've kind of seen this coming I thought I don't like them it's a long and short at all to appear to the gate of my neighborhood didn't like that either so I am the long and short of it to skip all these paragraphs I'm with you. I still want to listen, still want to learn. It's just too many opportunities for bad, and we are up here as your representatives to check certain things that need to be checked that could be problematic, that will be. I mean, we could be one patch update away from something worse. So I defer to the rest of my fellow board members, of course, but that's how I feel about it. As far as we've addressed chapter 92, I think, yes, that definitely needs to be hauled in. It needs to be reassessed. I saw your emails the other day. I have not personally read the direct wording of the chapter. How long has it been on the books?

86.

Before me, literally. I want to take a look at it with you. Thank you all for coming out. Thank you.

All right, if everybody's comfortable, we will close our response to public comment and move forward with our agenda. Before we jump into introductions and presentations, I'd like to call on Charlene Allen to introduce our summer intern.

Yeah. Speaking of that microphone, everybody's learned those rules tonight. She is a graduate of UNC Greensboro, and she has a major in political science and anthropology. She is with us through the AmeriCorps Fellows Program. which is managed through the School of Government, University of North Carolina School of Government as a fellow. She will be here with us through the end of June, and we're very excited to have her on board. Thank you. Welcome.

Welcome, Shane. We're happy to have you in our towns. Thank you very much. All right, moving on, our next item of business under introductions and presentations could be at a better time. Police department update. Chief, the floor is yours.

Good evening, Mayor and members of the board. First of all, I want to respect, let people know that came to talk in opposition about flock. Thank you and respect your opinions. As far as the law enforcement representative goes, when I think of FLOCC and I see the investigative support that it leads us, I can't not support FLOCC. Automated license plate readers have been around for more than 20 years. at least 10 years in Dare County. Just there are different vendors out there for those automated license plate readers. But from what I know and from what it's been beneficial to us over the past two years, I support it and I know the sheriff and all the municipalities in Dare County support it. So with that being said, I've asked our Detective Luke Peden, who pretty much works with it every day, to do the presentation. And I would ask the audience to not ask questions because it's not the venue for it. If you guys have questions for Detective Peden, please ask. But he'll do a great job.

Do we have the, yeah. Let's see.

Let me see if I can control it with this.

Can you hear okay?

Yeah. Yes. All right. Good evening. My name is Luke. I'm a detective here with Kill Devil Hills. And I'll just I'm just going to provide you with a very brief overview of our agency's automated license plate reader investigative tool that we utilize. I'm going to try and quickly cover what it is. how we use it, and probably the most important thing, what it does not do. There are some misconceptions out there. One thing also is I'm not going to talk specifically about Flock. That's a vendor. That's a brand. That's not the investigative tool. Flock sells a variety of products, ALPR being one of those things. Um, so that's what we're going to focus on with this. The town of Kill Devil Hills since July of 2024 has had six ALPR cameras throughout the town. That's in three locations because traffic travels in two ways. So it's covering traffic going in both directions, whether that's north or south or west or east. Um, in those locations, these aren't traditional continuously recording surveillance cameras. These are essentially a camera that takes a date and timestamp photograph of a vehicle, the back of a vehicle passing one given location. That's it. It's essentially a camera on a pole that takes a date and timestamp photograph of the back of a car passing that. And what it's taking a photograph of is the license plate on that, which is where you get the name automated license plate reader. It doesn't then run that tag. It doesn't then determine if that vehicle has insurance or anything. It simply takes a picture of it and then it stores it in the database and we'll cover the storage of that as well. But because this is a law enforcement and an investigative tool, it is important to know what the information is and who has access to this information. We'll cover that next. Before any officer could utilize this system, they first have to be able and have reviewed the policy of the agency, which is publicly available on the police department's website for anybody to view in PDF format, and also have completed training on the vendor-specific use of that software as well. being that you complete the training and the policy, then you also understand that these searches within this database, one are tracked and audited, but two are only for criminal investigative purposes only. And so that is stuff that's governed not only by the state law, but the agency policy as well. An officer cannot appropriately use this for personal reasons, whether that's to track someone they know, to look at someone's location that is where you're seeing some of the recent headlines because the auditing is taking place and those bad apples are being weeded out okay so that auditing is there the state law is defining that agency policy defines our use of it as well and so with the auditing it's required annually however our agency is auditing monthly. We're not just trusting this, but we're also verifying that we are using this for legitimate purposes with that. And so probably the easiest way to demonstrate or explain how or what an officer sees is to show you what our search screen looks like. If you can or can't see, the top three boxes have red asterisks with them. Those are required for every single search. Those are not optional. So offense type is required. Case number, report number is required. And the reason for the search is required. Those are all things that have to be tied to a criminal investigation. A case number is generated through the CAD system, through our report system. That is required for a search. You have to do that before you can search anything else. Now, what can you search for? You can search for a known license plate. If you know the license plate for the vehicle, if a witness gave you the license plate, this is the tag number of the car involved in said crime that you're investigating. You can search specifically for that tag. if the witness said hey it's a black pickup truck that left this beach access going southbound on 12 at this time you can search by time and location so we're not having to pile through you know irrelevant cameras if the witness is saying the car drove this direction at this time narrow down to that searching for a black pickup truck there's no option to search for a person a name, an individual. It's solely based on license plate, or if you don't know the license plate, vehicle demographic, basically what a witness can give you on the scene of a crime. Partial tag, complete tag, description of the car, what it looks like, and that does not capture, and we'll see Going into this, not only this, but all of these searches and what you're keying in here is reviewable and auditable as well. So what information is actually collected? And just to preface this, this picture on the right is from a public source. That's not a KDH search. That is located on the internet from a news article. But that's what your return looks like. Back of a vehicle, because what it's focusing on is the license plate of the vehicle. With that, the publicly displayed license plate that's required to be displayed on the back of the vehicle, unobstructed, you can see that it's a white car, it's a white SUV, and that is where the computer is saying, okay, this is a white car. Does it get colors wrong sometimes? Yes, but that is a characteristic of the car that anybody can see. Anybody can see that that's a Ford. Um, with that, so all of these, it gives us the license plate, the date, the time, the location, that's it of a single fixed point. Um, it does not have any facial recognition, biometric information, uh, and it doesn't even identify the occupants or the driver. So back picture of a vehicle, um, what it can, uh, So for us, what it can't do for me is it can't tell me who was driving that vehicle. It can just tell me that this car was at this specific point at this date and this time. That's it. It's for us to then further investigate and determine any other actionable information from that. So if we identify something, there are other safeguards. before any enforcement action can be taken. And again, some of this is dictated by policy, some of this is dictated by state law, it overlaps as well, but it's an investigative tool for us and it's not in and of itself a reason for enforcement action. So before we can do any enforcement action, we either have to verify What that is, whether that's related to Ebola or be on the lookout from an area law enforcement agency or whether that's related to a national hit on the vehicle for it being stolen, you know, armed and dangerous felon, missing person. And those we have to independently verify that information before we take any enforcement action. It's the same as if I run a license plate while I'm in my car of the vehicle in front of me and I get a alert on it. Well, I have to make sure that I ran that license plate correctly, that I didn't accidentally flip flop a number or a letter and get it wrong to get an incorrect alert. It's the same safeguards are in place for this. We have to treat it that way. And that's where you see some of the misconceptions and discrepancies happening where people are not taking those additional safeguard steps, slowing down and verifying the information that it's correct before taking action. I can tell you personally here since I've personally dealt with AOPR systems since 2012, not necessarily here. But since I've been here, I can tell you that ALPR systems have led to a rapid arrest of a murder suspect before additional violence could be carried out. It's also led to the identification and charging of an individual exposing his genitals to children at public beach accesses in town. But aside from that, we're not always looking to arrest people as a relation to this. We've recovered two children who have run away from the beach, one recovered outside of Atlanta, one recovered in Missouri going into Oklahoma because of ALPRs. Those children could be brought home because we were able to use this technology to see, okay, this vehicle that we're looking for is here. We have to get resources in that area. Sure, you can track other ways, This is a quick investigative tool that we can rely on to get officers into those areas to locate, in that case, to locate two children from our community. So it doesn't change the way what we're investigating. What it provides for us is quick information. So whether we have to rely on surveillance footage to get a location, a direction that a vehicle went, a vehicle description, we can get that information in some cases within minutes versus either relying on outside area surveillance cameras or independent companies to provide that. talking about the retention of the data. So state law is 90 days. That's what the state law, the way it's currently written. The system that we utilize, it's 30 days. So it's 60 days less than what the state law actually allows and requires. And what that means is that after 30 days, That data is being rewritten. It doesn't show up anymore. I can't then search for a tag 31 days ago. That stuff's gone from the system. So it's simply just rewriting itself every 30 days, and that stuff's just dropping off. So just to cover, to end and cover with some misconceptions, it is not facial recognition. Again, these cameras are taking pictures. They're triggered by the license plate on the back of the vehicle. They're focusing on the license plate on the back of the vehicle. There's nothing that it's pulling of any people inside of it. It's a Fixed location, it's not continuously recording. It's not continuously tracking. These cameras are mounted on a pole in one spot. They don't follow then the vehicle after it passes that one spot. Once that vehicle's out of that field of view, it's no longer viewable in that camera. That camera's not gonna take a picture of it. We're not sitting, officers are not sitting and piling through this stuff. Again, this is stuff that can only be searched for legitimate investigative reasons. not issuing citations off of these. They're not red light cameras. They're not speed cameras. They're not, you haven't paid your insurance cameras. They're again for investigative vehicle lead generation and confirmation. A lot of times it's confirmation on what witnesses provide us for, for vehicles is what it is. But I certainly understand with law enforcement technology that everybody has the right to question it, to know, and to be concerned about it, which is why I think some of the important questions are what does it collect, how long is that kept, who can access it, and then why can they access it? So hopefully I've provided a brief overview that covers those questions for you tonight on the ALPR system here.

Thank you, Detective. How about a question? You're good to take questions before I jump into it. I heard a mention of a public transparency portal, and other towns have done a partial turn on. Can you explain what those portals are and how initiating that would affect their use by law enforcement?

Let me preface this by saying I'm not the administrator of this system, so... That, I can answer questions about the usage of it and that type of thing, but I will have to deflect that question to somebody else in my agency, but I'm happy to answer any questions on the use of it.

Thank you.

I'm Lieutenant Hayter with the Kittleville Hills Police Department, and I'm one of the administrators for our block program. As far as the transparency portal, from what I understand, it's will show about a number of searches, login searches that occur during the month. It does not show any specific vehicle information. And I believe types of hits or types of cases that are being searched for, some of the main stuff on there. not, uh, I'm not a hundred percent clear on everything with the transparent support. Yeah.

It wouldn't seem to her to at least put out there how many, how many times, how much we use it, you know? I mean, especially if the other towns are doing that. I don't know what information is given out. Obviously, we don't want to give out sensitive information either. That would be even worse. But, yeah, how many times we use it or how often it's being used, you know, if that's something that's available, I think, you know, that's fair. But, yeah, no, it seems a great presentation. I think I'm not going to. It's a question, but a comment was, I think everybody would largely agree, as currently operated, it sounds very good. It's just the idea that it could be operated. I think what concerns most people, citizens of the United States of America, is how it could potentially one day be operated in many different ways. Like I said, currently, that's great. It does look pretty minimal, right? So, you know, I'm definitely not a person who's a conspiracy-laden person, but over time, you know, things change. And, you know, all of a sudden the right traffic tickets off this and, you know, it's timing and everything, you know, everything changes. Hey, we got the camera. It's already set up. So, you know, that's, I think that's the fear. And because, you know, I'm sure you understand that because, because, you know, good, when good outweighs the bad, I think everybody's always all about that. Right. I hope everybody's about that, which should be, but, you know, and then there's, you know, if there's constitutional concerns over time, you know, then bad can outweigh the good and, You know, that's what you're running into. But, yeah, I trust that you guys are doing it the right way. I just want to ask you one other – I do have one question. This whole operation is governed by statute? Yeah.

The state statute, I want to say it's like 2183.3.

It is operation by statute.

Yep. So there's North Carolina general statute that is outlining the use of this investigative law enforcement technology, essentially. But then obviously agencies can implement their own policies that are in line or stricter than. They can be more strict, but not less. Okay. Gotcha. All right. I understand.

And North Carolina actually has a slightly more strict policy. than other states.

Yes, define what you like. There has to be law enforcement, not... The law would have to change for the traffic ticket generated.

But you could change your internal policy. It wouldn't come from the commissioners per se. If you were to change your internal policy, like let's say you want to reduce it to your 30, 60, you want to reduce it to 10 days. Would that be something you would do internally or you have to ask our permission to do that? Is that an ordinance? I'm just curious.

I think that's a vendor-based. Yeah, I believe that would be it. for the vendor itself.

Oh, okay. But if you wanted to reduce it to 10 days, you could talk to them about it?

That would be something I would have to speak to them about. As of right now, theirs is the 30 days.

But it wouldn't be something, a decision of ours. the commissioners, it would be something that would be made by, I mean, there are some, what I'm trying to say is there are some policy decisions made internally as long as they're not more restrictive that you're allowed to make without coming to government, local government, town government.

Or department policy.

Yeah. Sure. That is made all the time, right? I'm trying to understand that. Okay. All right. Thank you.

But as far as, again, with the traffic tickets, stuff to that effect, that is actually in the, uh, general statute stating that specifically.

For now. Yes, for now. I have just a couple of quick questions. How many officers in our department, the search that you showed us, is that just something that you have access to or is that?

That is the search screen. Okay.

So every one of our officers has access to that.

Yeah, everybody that searches it has to enter. Okay. Correct.

Has completed the training. Okay. Okay. And my other question is how quickly, well, I have, I mean, lots of questions, but how quickly, so say, say my child went missing and I, the two children that you said were found elsewhere, how quickly does the system take, like you enter it, it's almost immediate is it in terms of the search like return results yeah yeah um like in talking with the others you know other systems well so yeah um and some of that has changed yeah i'm sure i'm sure it changes daily actually probably yeah so every update it probably gets faster right

But instant, when you put a search in, when you search for that tag, you then are given the list of results with the pictures, the date, the location, and that. It's quickly. Now, that's dependent on what agencies... what agencies you share with you and what agencies you share with. So, you know, that could just be your police department. That could be just your state. Um, or you could share that, that outside. We, we are just the state.

Yeah. Right. Right. Okay.

We have restrictions on how far. Okay.

Okay. So in other words, I call and like my child's missing left in this car. You call the sheriff's, you know, obviously the sheriff's department is alerted, potentially picked up on the bridge, whatever.

Yeah. Do the search. Okay. So this vehicle is showing in this jurisdiction.

Okay.

My next question. play was to call dispatch for that jurisdiction it just happened to be highway patrol's area covering that they had a trooper that happened to be in the area that knew okay if a vehicle's going through this camera they're traveling in this direction i'm ahead of them they're coming towards me and they're able to locate the child that way it's right quickly versus contacting right but it also does not give any

exact location on where that person would be. Yeah. Right. Right. Right. Right.

Just the life. Yeah. Based on license plate only.

The vehicle. Yeah. The vehicle. Right. Right. Right. Right. Got it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, that's the vehicle. Okay.

Okay. I think it's important, you know, it's important for us to ask these questions. It's, I think for me, the concern is more that it's a, you know, it's a third party. It's a private company. I have, you know, just, In general, we're turning a lot of our government things over to private companies, which is very concerning. And so that's a concern for me. And I think to speak to and maybe I should have said this in public comment, but I will say to speak to maybe why some of us obviously voted to fund this because it was in a budget. but you know, it's a tool, it's a tool as much as it's a tool to, to maybe misuse, you know, our officers carry firearms, they could misuse those firearms, you know? So, so I see, it's just, it's a, it's difficult because there's two sides and I'm completely split and I see both sides. But for me, the reason that I chose, you know, to fund and vote for something like this. Although I think in our defense in 2024, you say it's only two years ago. That was a long time, you know, in terms of technology, that was a long time ago. And so for me to keep, I don't know if you've ever had a missing person in your family. I have not a child, but they were found deceased. And so if you've ever had a missing person in your family, if you've ever had a situation where something like this could have helped, then a toolbox is what you, anything in our toolbox can be helpful. I also see where it's grossly misused in some places, so I will say that.

A question I have, going back to the transparency portal, would it be an encumbrance on our police department if we were to turn that on?

To be perfectly honest, I don't know all the steps that is taken into that. I don't know if that is just a automatically data entered over to it or if that has to be a hand on. So I do not know the exact answer for that. I could be able to look into that.

Yeah, if you could email us back to let us know. That seems like a first step in addressing this, and it's complex, that's for sure. And Chief, go ahead.

Yeah, so I've heard about the transparency portal. I'm not up to speed on it, but I can tell you if it's – if it's nothing more. So sometimes when we're dealing with something that's open to the public, we're a little tightly up because we have too much information out there. But if it's something that just reports, you know, when we use it or whatever, I'm okay with it. We'll turn it on and we'll do the research and we'll get that turned on. You know, because... we need the tool i think you know to um it's still like uh detective petey said it still takes good old police work um to to um when we get a hit on these uh license plates to bring it to a conclusion or on the other side you know if there's nothing to it um but it uh Like I said, I support it, and I know my colleagues around Deer County support it. So thank you all so much for your attendance and attention.

Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Any more comments or concerns or questions before we move forward in the budget, the agenda? No? All right. Hearing none, any ongoing business this evening?

No, sir.

All right. Let's move forward. New business item number one, street improvement recommendation 2027 slash 2028 fiscal year and 2028 slash 29 plan year. Item number one.

Emily's here this evening.

Hi, good evening, everybody. Hi, Mr. Mayor, Mrs. Mayor Pro Temp, board members, and town staff. My name is Emily Seltman, and I'm with American Engineering and also with Pete Berheimer today. We're here to speak or answer any questions you may have about the West Fifth Street Improvement Project. This project proposes new sidewalk on the south side of West 5th from US 158 to Bay Street, Bay Drive. Sorry about that. Water main improvements and a mill and fill job. So if you have any questions, we're here to answer them for you.

I got a question about, you know, I have done a lot of Friday night field research on West 5th Street, and I've noticed it looks like on the south side, it was like pre-planned for a sidewalk one day because there's no sidewalk cuts on that side of the road. It's like, boy, that sure is convenient and less intrusive for people.

The driveways, the driveways are typically on the...

They're in the cul-de-sac, so it's like a clean slate. It's really not going to interrupt too many people's yards to put that in.

The topography also is more favorable in where the street lies up. We also spent a tremendous amount of money on the 1st, portion of the sidewalk that went through past to us bank when we did the big drainage project on us 158 2 years ago. And that's on the South side too. So it's a continuation of that. And the sidewalk that is on. East 5th street is also on the South side and that is where the pedestrian signal is. for the pedestrian crossing on U.S. 158.

We're just going to have some mailbox issues.

All the mailboxes are on the south side. We're going to have to butt out the mail lady and get a move to the north side. But all the people's mailboxes, they're on the north side, are having to cross the street to get their mail. So they're not going to mind the mailboxes moving. But we'll see.

That's good.

All right. And in your memorandum, we're also asking for you to approve American Engineering's contract for design and authorize staff to apply for a Dare County Tourism Board impact grant for the sidewalk portion. The money has been laid out in my memorandum and Debbie's memorandum. And we're also asking for... tentative approval for our 2028-29 plan that includes Ocean Acres and mostly it's an overlay project on several of the areas within the Ocean Acres subdivision to fix some problem problem streets in there that I'm sure that the engineers will be happy to talk to you about what the problems are. That's just for budgeting purposes that we're looking at our two year budget coming up that we wanted to put that out there for you also.

Any more questions about these projects?

It's exciting.

I chair that committee and they did a great job putting it together, of course, with the recommendations of engineering expertise we have come up with a good plan and keep looking forward to additional plans and we have as we say on deck plans and plans that are behind that so every every every year we we do this SEEM TO GET GREAT RESPONSE FROM THE COMMUNITY IN IMPROVING OUR STREETS HERE IN KILDOVA HILLS. YOU GUYS DO A GREAT JOB.

IT'S NICE TO SEE. IT SEEMS SIMILAR TO WHAT WE DID ON THIRD STREET. AND WHAT WE'RE DOING ON FIRST. IT'S REALLY NICE TO SEE THESE IMPROVEMENTS COME IN. FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE AUDIENCE, DO WE HAVE AN ESTIMATE FOR FIFTH STREET? I KNOW THIS IS DOWN THE ROAD PART OF IT AND WHEN THAT PROJECT MAY BEGIN.

next if everything goes as planned this fall we'll start first street i talked to steve and derek's here from public services that can give you details i think they had a pre-bid meeting last week for first yeah um yes barnhill construction is going to start um moving in uh second week of

AND THAT WILL BE COMPLETED IN THE SPRING OF 2027. FIFTH STREET WOULD BEGIN JUST LIKE FIRST STREET IN THE FALL OF 2027 TO BE COMPLETED IN SPRING OF 2028. VERY NICE. SO SUMMERTIME IS

MINIMAL DISRUPTIONS THERE, IF NOT AT ALL. NEW SPEAKER.

PUBLIC SERVICES DOES NOT DO STREET PROJECTS IN THE SUMMER. THAT WOULD BE TERRIBLE.

Just out of my own curiosity, how long has the town been doing street evaluations and grading and using that as a tool to decide who's next for big projects?

I was welcoming this opportunity to say a word or two about that. Believe it or not, this is our 22nd year of service to the town of Kill Devil Hills. And those street condition ratings were going on at the very beginning of that time. They generally have been every five years. 22 was the last one. And so 17, 12, 07 was the first one that I was involved with. But I also would just like to encourage you as a board to stop and celebrate a little hidden message in the fact that the 28-29 project will be an inexpensive mill and fill overlay. That's the first time that we've really, I mean, everything that we've done so far, almost everything we've done so far has been taking a street that had a bad pavement design. Pavement was too weak. It had no drainage. but has an old outdated water system in it. There was something defective structurally about that street. We're not going to be totally out of that business after 28, 29. We'll be going back and there's still a few streets that have wrong kind of water main and don't need some drainage improvements but you have funded us to hit such a strong lick on those deficient streets that now we can start doing the routine maintenance if you don't maintain a street with a fresh layer of surface asphalt about every 25 years it'll oxidize away and the asphalt will essentially turn to gravel so you're gonna you do that forever uh But you can only begin doing that every year or every other year whenever you've done these heavy lifts that this board has so diligently done for the last two plus decades. I commend you for it. You don't have to look far to see jurisdictions that just haven't mustered the financial wherewithal to do that. And there will be a bill to pay down the road. And you folks have been good stewards, better stewards than that.

And I commend you for it. Thank you. I can also tell you that street surveys were done before Pete got here. We had two street improvement master plans in the early and late 90s. The implementation of the survey that American Engineering started 22 years ago is a more thorough survey than was done before, but there was a rating system that kept the poor fair one, fair two, fair three since the early 90s. Debbie might know. I know to the early 90s. I have to get with Debbie about before that. But we did have a street improvement master plan prior to that under a different town engineer. And there was a rating system that was used and evaluated. So it's been at least 30 plus years.

Thank you. I'm glad I asked that question.

I'll make a motion to authorize the town manager to execute the contract with American Engineering along with any necessary budget amendments.

I will second.

We have a motion and a second. Do we have any further discussion? Hearing none, all in favor please indicate by saying aye. Aye.

All right. Thank you.

Very good moving on new business item number 2 street improvement and special project committee street recommendations. Item a West 4th street, a new parking consideration item B. West 1st street traffic control devices, engineers review and recommendation.

Yes, sir. The West First Street, we've had a number of complaints concerning parking on the street. And just the entire area there has gotten so busy and so concentrated that this was taken to the Street Improvement Special Project Committee for their review. And based on that review, we're requesting the traffic map reflect that this is a no parking street.

All right. I know they've had, 4th Street's had an awful lot of commercial. It's changed. Yes, it has. Growth, and this seems very logical to me. Any questions or discussion from the board? If not, I'll entertain a motion.

I'll move that West 4th Street, no parking. consideration be made in amending the official traffic maps of the town to reflect that change?

All right. We have a motion. Do we have a second? Second. Any more discussion? Hearing none, all in favor, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. Very good.

The second one, the committee also received a request from a citizen back in January of 2026 for a four-way stop at Canal West 1st intersection. Planning Department memo highlights this request for an engineer study, not only for this request, but also a review of the traffic control devices on West 1st Street and how they comply with our manual of uniform traffic control devices, which the town follows. Following is the recommendation from the engineer's recommendation and the Street Improvements Committee. install and always stop control at west intersection of canal and west first removal of the stop signs at west first catch removal of stop signs at west first and cedar. Um, if I understand correctly, Meredith, that will actually take place when that work or that project is completed.

The recommendation from the street subcommittee was to make these changes in conjunction with the improvements to west first street to it would be a more highlighted time for changes in traffic patterns to be recognized. And so they recommend it. So that would be spring of 2027. So you won't see it immediately.

It would flow better once the project with streets completed.

Yeah, I just would say our committee met on this and it was a lot of discussion, but if you've been on that street, the flow of that street, you know, it's well, the idea that a four-way stop be at Canal and West First, that seems like it's it's reached that point where that's that's a very busy intersection for a side side street i would say and that makes sense and then you know these other stop signs kind of never really made sense and for the flow of traffic and obviously there's more homes back there now so so anyway that was there was a lot of discussion but they really you know everybody you know reached a consensus on that the

The recommendations for the removal of the signs at Catch Lane and Cedar Drive are contingent on the four-way intersection being installed, I would assume, because that would do all. If one of these stops, we're going to take the two all the way down.

Yeah, in his report, the Street Subcommittee asked Pete to look at the entire... all the traffic control devices located on West 1st Street since we were doing work in that area, if anything else needed to be looked at to make sure everything complied with the MUTCD because there were some stop signs that seemed a little, how did they get there? Probably a long time ago. So Pete looked at the entire area and by reviewing the MUTCD, he came up with the recommendation that it's not because we're putting one at Canal and 1st, but the other two didn't comply with the, they didn't meet the demands that MUTCD sets for a four-way stop intersection.

So would the plan be to do it all the same day, like more or less, like kind of like the same time?

When we got the request, the street subcommittee recommended that we look at the entire area so that it all can be done at the same time, so that it's a uniform change to our official traffic map and to the traffic pattern at once.

Not in pieces, yeah.

Again, this made sense. My thoughts were before Wade comes in on Canal and West First, that stop makes a lot more sense to me. Eliminate some of the other ones after the fact.

It wasn't like a contingency thing. It was just more like, yeah, let's do it at the same time if that would make sense.

My parting thought for you on that, I love you folks, but let's acknowledge that all-way stops, four-way or three-way stops at a three-way intersection, if we're going to be uniform, that's the U in MUTCD, so that drivers from all over have uniform expectations about how things work. Let's buy into the provision that stop signs are not a way, not a traffic calming device, not a speed control device. They're used in limited circumstances. This one meets the test. We had to look at it very carefully. We checked five possible warrants at one of them. The others, quite frankly, never did.

Yeah.

And so it'll all flow a whole lot better when we have the main four-way intersection properly controlled and then the rest of it beyond there towards the cul-de-sac will figure itself out.

Yeah.

Thank you. Do we have any more discussion or questions in regard to new business item 2B? Hearing none, I welcome a motion if someone would like to make it.

Motion to approve West First Street traffic control devices per the engineer's review and recommendation.

Second.

We have a motion and a second. Do we have any more discussion? Hearing none, all in favor, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. All right, very good. Lots of businesses this evening. Moving on, new business item number three, Atlantic Street and First Street Accesses Rebuild slash Dare County Tourism Impact Grants.

Yes, sir, Mr. Mayor. The Atlantic Street Beach Access and the First street beach access are in need of replacement. Both accesses were included in the 2026-27 budget for repair and replacement. I'll start with Atlantic Street. The Drune has grown eastward, which is a great, great problem to have. leaving the eastern access stairs approximately 100 feet from the eastern toe of the dune. Currently, the access leaves users in the middle of our emergency vehicle access. And Cameron's got some pictures to try to help show you that. American Engineering developed a concept plan and a cost estimate to redo the parking area, which would gain at least three parking space for that heavily used southern access, as well as a new 236-foot walkway that extends approximately 110 feet longer than the current walkway to the eastern toe of the dune. The cost estimate is 297,122. We would like to get authorization to apply for a Dara County Tourism Board grant, which would be a 50-50 grant if received, with the town's cost being approximately 148,561. First Street Beach Access is a stair and observation tower, has fallen into disrepair. The town building and ground staff made some repairs this summer to get us through the summer, but the access, the tower needs to be, must be removed in the fall. The tower does not actually provide access to the beach. It is a remnant portion of a previous access that was partially washed away by a storm. Town engineers provided a concept plan and cost estimates to replace the access. proposed replacement will not be the same design because camera regulations do not let us rebuild that tower to nowhere. The design will be a 56-foot dune crossover that terminates the eastern toe of the dune. The concept plan and estimate, the estimate is $56,420. We'd also like to get authorization to apply for a Deer County Tourism Board impact grant And with a 50%, if granted, town costs would be $28,210. We would like to try to get both accesses done this winter before the next season. First Street has to come down regardless. But we would like to have it rebuilt before the next beach season.

The first street doesn't have a swing hanging from the tower, too.

That was put there by a private citizen.

I see them swinging out there. That's my access.

They do. That was not installed by the town of Kettle Pools. It will all be coming down.

Well, I missed my First Street tower to nowhere. That's going to be a bummer. Any questions or comments in regard to this project? Hearing none, I will be happy to make a motion that we instruct staff for approval for the Atlantic Street and First Street Accesses Rebuild slash Deer County Tourism Board Impact Grants. Second. Any questions? All right. All in favor, please indicate by saying aye. Aye.

Thank you very much. Thank you, Meredith.

All right. New business item number four, site plan review, 1734 North Croatan Highway drive-through restaurant coffee shop.

I'll take this one this evening. Good evening, all. Tonight, you do have a site plan review. This is the first one we have had in quite some time. This is at 1734 North Croatan Highway, which you would know better as the Dare Center. This is a drive-thru restaurant. It is a coffee shop. This was submitted by Delight 7BNC LLC for the construction of this, and it is a site addition at the Dare Center Shopping Center. It is a 510 square foot drive-thru restaurant, seven brew coffee shop, no indoor seating, two drive aisles, four parking spaces, and revisions to the existing parking lot at the DARE Center. The drive-thru restaurant is a permitted use, and attached you will find a commercial site plan application, proposed site plan, proposed architectural plans, stormwater narrative, applicant's response to staff's initial technical review comments, and willingness to serve from KDH WWTP. The planning board did review this proposal on July 21st, 2026, and forwarded to the board recommending approval with several conditions that have been addressed by the applicant the plans presented the board of commissioners staff recommends approval of the site plan as presented the applicant is not here tonight but i think i can answer any questions you may have so that's what you got in front of you tonight for a site plan review anyone have any questions in regards to this plan pretty interesting yeah yeah first change to that place in a while yeah

My first thought was less spots for the car show in the spring, but they're a coffee crowd, so they'll keep that drive-through busy. Thank you to staff and the planning board for all their work on this. Thank you for I guess the applicants are getting all those questions back and answers as quickly as possible. Are there a lot of over-parked places that could do something like that?

This is an interesting one. Because the building is so small, it really was the only way to have any ability. And it is over-parked. It was parked to original parking standard. There's not a lot. But most... you couldn't build a restaurant that's much larger than this because the parking ratio is nearly double so by the time you have to remove more parking um and it's a non-conforming site so there's a percentage for how much you can do without other things having to be corrected as well so really the small footprint Right. I mean, in this space, we were informed that it was out for lease for an out parcel in the DARE Center. We were kind of like, that's going to be tough. But they did a good job. It's a high volume, small footprint. And so I think they are eager to get started. So there's a couple of them in North Carolina. I've never been to one myself.

There's one in Boone.

There's one in Boone. Maybe one in Greenville might be the closest or Norfolk.

And Wilmington.

They're building quite a few, so they're busy.

I was just glad to see it was going on concrete and not something that was in addition to caffeine.

More concrete.

All right. Anybody have any questions or comments in respect to this site plan? Hearing none, welcome to motions.

I'll make a motion to approve the site plan review at 1734 North Croton Highway.

Second. We have a motion and we have a second. Any more discussion? Hearing none, all in favor, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Cameron. We have completed our new bill this evening. All right. Moving on to committee reports.

No committee report here.

committee presented most of that work today, and everybody did a great job on that committee.

They really did. Anybody else?

The Dare County Tourism Board will have a very interesting meeting this Thursday with the effects of Senate Bill 484, rewrite of Section 2, General Statute 153A, 155, and House Bill 240, which affects the use of tourism related dollars. Um, so I will report back with what happens there, but we'll see.

Okay. I, um,

As far as committee reports go, I attended the July 16th DARE Housing Foundation board meeting. We had a very healthy discussion about land trusts and moving that organization forward. I apologize. I had very detailed notes to share and they got away from me. But that said, I'm very happy with all the good work that DARE Housing Foundation has done.

Ah, bingo. I stole it. Sorry.

You did. Sit next to me. So I will read my notes. DARE Housing Foundation discussed community land trust and how a land trust represents one option that DHF can use moving forward. The board voted to authorize the president and vice president to work with the DHF attorney. On the bylaws and other supporting documents of a land trust, draft documents will be submitted to the DHS for further review and discussion. The board reviewed two proposals from grant research consultants. The board voted to approve the proposal from Clinton and Associates for a three-month contract to identify potential grant funding opportunities, and develop a grant writing strategy. And we also discussed how to market to secondary homeowners and other target audiences, all in all, productive and fruitful meeting. All right. Anything else for committee reports? None. Commissioner's agenda. No agenda.

Nothing for me.

I just want to take a minute to thank the lifeguards. I was on the beach. I saw one of our lifeguards, actually Dewey Webber, made a pretty, he had to go really far. I mean, he was gone for like 40 minutes. And so I just want to take a minute. Our lifeguards do a really fantastic job. And I just want to say how much I appreciate them and how i've noticed coming on the beach i actually meant to ask dave about this but not only are they paying attention but they greet they're greeting people when they come off when they come down the access which i think is really cool um so yeah it would be nice to hear like more of their like stories from the year like you know i mean i know they come in which is great but i mean they don't come in anymore well that's right they don't come in but they we get a we get a video but um

I think we'd all be surprised to hear what they do, what they go through.

Maybe we could work on a post-season video. Yeah. That'd be fun. Or even have Dave come in. They leave at different times.

I think we don't know.

That could be interesting. We may have to edit some.

They deserve to make the paper for a lot of these things that they do, for sure.

Or maybe Dave and Ben could come in. Yeah.

you know tales from the lifeguard stand okay yeah there you go new video we love videos all right uh any more items under commissioner's agenda All right, I'm hearing none. Moving on to Mayor's agenda, I have a few things. It is back-to-school season. Just a reminder that school is back in session in Derrick County, so please slow down. Take your time during the morning and afternoon drives. We want to keep everybody safe. The Ice Cream Social, the town's Ice Cream Social, will be held on Tuesday, September 22nd from 4.30 to 6.30 p.m. right across the road here at Aviation Park. The First Flight High School Jazz Band and Orchestra will be performing, and the police and fire departments will be grilling hot dogs and hamburgers. The Pie Baking Contest is making its return, so we're calling on all bakers. If you want bragging rights, see the town's website for more details. Bulk item collection. In case you're planning on cleaning out your garage or cleaning a part of the yard, the town's bulk item collection will begin on Monday, October 19th. People can begin setting out items online. we're after october 4th i know it's early but uh it will be here before you know it this is in the departmentalized stacking on roads in certain areas our website is very good at sharing all the details on when to put things out how to categorize it and keep it organized last thing i have is uh nc lee appointment our very own assistant town manager charlene allen has been appointed to the Risk Management Services Board of Trustees for the North Carolina League of Municipalities. Congratulations, Charlene, and thank you for representing Colorado Hills. Very nice.

Thank you. Well done.

All right. Town Manager's Agenda.

No, sir. Thank you.

Town attorney. Consent.

Very brief. July 13th, 2026 meeting minutes. The June 2026 monthly report and a very generous contribution for the purpose of building a new beach box toy box was made in the budget. Amendment number three will appropriate this fund so we can do that. Staff recommends approval with consent agenda as presented.

That's a good budget amendment. Isn't that good? So moved.

Second.

We have a motion and a second. Any discussion?

Hearing none, all in favor please indicate by saying aye. Aye.

Very good. All right. Now is the time we set aside for our second public comment. If anybody else would like to speak at this time, we will reopen the podium for comments or questions. Yes, sir.

Well, I'm very encouraged by the comments I've heard from the board tonight, and I appreciate your willingness to look at Chapter 92. But I do want to raise one concern. We have an ordinance that we believe places very serious and probably unconstitutional restrictions on our First Amendment right. And while the town considers how to change it, that ordinance is still sitting there on the books. I feel like we're in kind of a purgatory. We're waiting for the town to decide what to do, but in the meantime, we're left wondering, what are we supposed to do? We're law-abiding citizens. We want to obey the law, but we also have constitutional rights that don't disappear simply because the town's ordinance hasn't caught up with them. I'm hoping the board will take that into consideration while this process is underway. We've tried to approach this constructively. We're not here asking for permission for our rights, but we just don't want to be placed in a position of having to choose between being law-abiding and exercising our constitutional rights while this is being resolved.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I very much appreciate all of your consideration today. I appreciate Chief and his staff for coming out and answering questions. I will say that I have spent a massive number of hours researching these things and making sure anything that I say is something that I have researched well. Unfortunately, I am stepping away from this feeling like perhaps there are some things that the chief's administrator and he himself may not fully understand about these cameras capabilities. While it is only six to 12 images per second, just shy of 29 from being video, it is creating a map. If we were talking about a closed network of cameras that only belonged to chief and the town and could only be... seen by them, I would not be standing here right now. Would I love it? No, I probably still wouldn't love it, but I would not be standing here right now. And I would not be making claims about constitutional violations. We talked about the state of North Carolina having regulations. They are not stringent. They are absolutely not stringent, not in comparison to some other states. The violation, the, the, If an officer violates this, it is a class one misdemeanor, a slap on the wrist for potentially stalking a citizen. It creates a map of your travel. I encourage you to do some research on your own, even directly on the Flock website. They'll tell you exactly what these cameras can do. There are different types of cameras. There are different plugins. There are different applications you can add to it. But I definitely am not leaving here feeling like the presentation gave you guys a full understanding of the capabilities of the cameras, despite how we might or might not be using them. And I would encourage you to find out the full contract details. In the research that I've done, there are many different contracts out there. Some of these contracts flock as slipping in rights to the footage themselves. So their recommendation is now seven because of all the heat that they've been getting in the news and in the country as a whole. And we are definitely not a minority, those of us who oppose them. I say that very, very confidently. I respect chief. I respect our police officers. I appreciate them. I do not want to take tools from them, but I am not willing to give up privacy and my rights for perceived safety. Thank you.

Thank you. Would anybody else like to speak at this public comment period?

I would just like to say that when you go to research more into these cameras, you might want to look at the company, the flock company, the CEO, and what they say about where this data goes. And from what I've seen and heard, it goes to Amazon cloud and to, and just one thing that I heard in the presentation that it's like, Hmm, was that it's only 90 days. Then it disappears. It's gone. It's overwritten. I don't think anyone could say that if they understood the fact that the internet is forever, nothing is ever. deleted it's out there once it's out there it's out there and i don't think the amazon cloud is a real secure place to put all this data but i would look into those things thank you would anybody else like to speak at their comment period

Seeing no takers, we will close our second public comment period and open response to public comment.

Could I make a recommendation that we put... I don't want to say flat cameras. ALPRs. ALPRs. Can we put that on our retreat agenda? That's good. We add that to our retreat. Okay. It just sounds like we have some concerns. I think it would be a great space to explore that more. And in response... Casey, I know at one point we had talked about a couple of months ago, the constitutional and requiring a permit and all that. Do we have any, so right now in this interim period until we're figuring things out.

That's actually what I was talking briefly.

Yeah, remember we, go ahead.

Well, I was talking briefly with the town manager. The 1 thing I need to check on is obviously we're not talking about development here. So. The idea of imposing a moratorium for the specific purposes of changing the text of a particular ordinance doesn't necessarily apply, but I'm not sure if we can do a. pseudo or semi-moratorium that only touches on part of an ordinance as opposed to the entirety. The only issue, let's say that we're not allowed to adopt a moratorium concerning the entirety of the ordinance, we've got no ordinance, in other words. The moratorium would stop any and all regulation. Small groups is something that was touched on. That's something I certainly want to do some research on. What I can find that has become a potential issue just within circuit court decisions and other federal court decisions. I will look into what in the interim we can possibly do without jeopardizing the you know the entirety of the ordinance if that's possible and um manager what know how best to get direction on that, though, outside of just bringing it back to next meeting. I mean, I guess a special meeting could be held, but other than that.

I think bringing it back to the next meeting is the best place to start. Well, I don't want to rush either.

I don't want to rush the research.

No, but I think Mr. Collins' point was he is going to work with the chief, the assistant chief. He does take exception to being required to get the permit. I think the only thing thing that the Board was interested in doing in the short term would be to change the permit requirement to the notification requirement as we did more research for the total ordinance, total Chapter 92. And that's something you can think about between now and the meeting in September. which is going to be sooner than typically because we're a week behind her.

I mean, do we all have a basic, I mean, we're missing Commissioner, but do we all have a basic consensus on that? Like, do we agree that notification requirement is what we want?

I think you should think about it. I'm just saying that if you're looking at doing something sooner rather than later, I don't think you were looking at just throwing your whole Chapter 92 out.

Right.

But I know one of their major concerns was the idea of needing to come in and doing an application permit. And what was determined was they know that there's going to be the need for a permit for several events. They already had the dates and the time. So the they're going to be working with the police department and doing one permit to save from having to do all of that, which I think is very reasonable. But, you know, the point that he was making was that he still takes exception with needing that permit and feels that the notification would be sufficient. And that's something that if you want to have that discussion at the September meeting, you could, while getting into more of the rest of the meat of the ordinance might take more time, which would address some of the cartwrights.

I was just asking, respectively, like we do sometimes, I mean, do we all, I mean, just straw... You're saying by consensus, could we say right now, no.

Okay. Because we haven't notified the public.

Okay.

I wouldn't recommend it.

Okay. But I think we're all on the same page, it sounds like.

We'll certainly be ready at next meeting to answer any and all questions concerning constitutionality, but also pros and cons.

And if we could do it, I think if we could do it all right now, we could, but in order to do it correctly and follow, you know.

We ended up breaking more rules than we were trying to fix, so we did that. But we will move forward. Any more responses to public comments? All right. Hearing none, we'll close that out, and I entertain a motion to adjourn. Move to adjourn. Second. All in favor, please indicate by saying aye. Aye.

We are adjourned.