Board of Commissioners - Regular Meeting

At this time, I'd like to call forward Reverend David Fryer for an invocation. Reverend, thank you once again for being here.

Nice to be here. May we gather in prayer. O Lord, you have created us in all our diversity, and you have placed us in community. In particular, this beautiful oceanfront community called Deer County. Thank you. We have been blessed in many ways. We are gathered here today to do the work of governing the challenge of bringing together this wonderful diversity into a nurturing community, a place where we can all live and grow. May we first give thanks for all our public servants who work diligently and competently to manage the infrastructure and services that allow us all to live safely in this community. This morning, be with those who have been elected to serve our community as its governors. Keep them mindful of the continuing task of unifying, caring, and nurturing each one of our fellow citizens. Be with them in their deliberations, give them ears to hear clearly, minds to think clearly, and a spirit of service dedicated to the common good. At the same time, be with all our fellow citizens. May we be responsive to the leadership of these, our elected leaders. May we also share in our personal lives the same tasks and goals that we have entrusted to our leaders. Finally, as we are in the midst of the democratic process of electing our leaders, we pray that this election will maximize the participation of all our citizens and allow the democratic process that is so much a part of our country to express the will of the people. May we be blessed and may we all serve the common good. We ask this in your name. Amen.

Amen. May we stand for the pledge.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

I'd like to recognize our chair of our Dara County Board of Education, David Twitty. David, thank you for being here today. County manager.

Yes, sir, Mr. Chairman. Item one on the agenda is the chairman's opening remarks.

All right. Everybody knows I like to start out with a little humor. I heard about this pastor. He was finishing up a fiery sermon, uh, on self-control. He said with great passion in his sermon, he said, if I had all the beer in the world, I'd throw it in the river. And even with greater fervor, he said, if I had all the wine in the world, I'd throw it in the river. And almost at the top of his lungs, he said, if I had all the whiskey in the world, I'd throw it in the river. Well, he sat down, and the choir director stood up. He said, for our closing song, let's sing hymn number 365, Shall We Gather at the River. Laughter is the best medicine, folks. Always like to have a little bit of fun. I only have one item today, and that is I'm sad to talk about the fact that today at 1 o'clock in Duck, the town of Southern Shores, will honor Tom Bennett, who passed away this past March. I had the pleasure... Tom served in Southern Shores from 2013 to 2021, and I had the pleasure of serving with him seven of those years as he was mayor and I was chair of this board. We'd have monthly mayor meetings and got to be really, really good friends with Tom and I can't say enough about his steadfast leadership and his commitment to the town of Southern Shores. So if you will keep him and his family in your thoughts and prayers today at 1 o'clock, it would be greatly appreciated. With that being said, County Manager, that's all I have on the Chairman's comments.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That takes us to item two on the agenda today. This is our service pins. Today we have 60 years of service that we're going to recognize. First off, Angie Grant, if you'll come forward to receive your pin from Jody Wyatt.

Welcome, ladies.

Thank you. Good morning, commissioners. So Angie grant and I are here today in celebration of her 10 year anniversary with the county. Angie has a success story within our public health department. She began 10 years ago, splitting her time between a clerical position in the front office and a billing technician and her quality work and diligence earned her a promotion in 2023. When she became the billing supervisor for the clinic. In her new role, she has managed to successfully increase the number of private insurances with which we can file. She has navigated the NC Medicaid Managed Care Initiative, and she guides multiple new providers through coding changes and credentialing. I would say that Angie has forgotten more than I will ever know about billing codes and insurance claims, but that would suggest that Angie has forgotten something, and I assure you she has not. A little bit later in the meeting, Sheila Davies is going to talk to you about the wonderful things our school-based behavioral health team is doing for the students in Dare County. I've seen the numbers, I've worked with the providers, and I've heard the testimonials. It is an impressive program. And what has also been impressive is the way that Angie has credentialed these four new providers with multiple private and government insurances. She has remained flexible with continuing to learn and teach the behavioral health coding and billing. And she has worked in the background to help this program succeed and hopefully eventually expand. Angie is hardworking, dedicated, great for a laugh. and as irreplaceable as any employee can be. So I don't want to think about what we would do without her. And so I absolutely plan to see you in another five years to do this again. So Angie.

Next, if Troy Coltrane would come forward to receive his 20-year pin from Jeff Derringer.

Welcome, gentlemen.

Good morning, sir. Good morning, commissioners, Mr. Chairman. It's always an honor to be up here with a friend. Troy and I have been friends a long time. He started his career in Terrell County in 2003, and we were lucky enough for him to come over in 2006 to the Derrick County Sheriff's Office. Like Angie, Troy is irreplaceable. He was in patrol. He got promoted to investigator. And he wears many hats. One of the most important hats he wears is processing our fingerprints for crimes and handling our evidence room and all the property, which is a monumental task that he handles perfectly every day that he comes. Troy's one of these employees to where you can ask them to do something, you know it's done, you don't have to check behind them, and it's done correctly. And he comes to me, never complains, never has a harsh word to say about anybody, shows up to work before he's supposed to be here every day, and stays late every day to make sure the job's done before he goes home. I can't tell you how much I appreciate Troy, and I love him.

Next, if Sean Hughes would come forward to receive his 30 year pin from Shana Fulmer.

Welcome this morning.

Good morning. It is my pleasure to introduce fleet maintenance superintendent Sean Hughes and to present a pen to him today. Sean was born and raised in Dare County and spent a majority of his years, early years in Stumpy Point. He demonstrated a love for fixing things, Anything with a motor, Sean wanted to tinker with it. His grandfather owned a shop, and this is where Sean spent his days learning all he could about auto mechanics. Dare County was fortunate to hire him in 1996, and he has proved invaluable to public works and to the county. I like to call Sean the triple threat. He can diagnose problems, fix the problems, and is also an excellent computer technician. We continuously rely on him to resolve complex issues that inevitably arise due to the broad nature of the work we do. The county maintains over 700 fleet vehicles, including but not limited to huge diesel trucks, passenger vehicles, as well as ambulances and sheriff's vehicles. It is in the area of emergency vehicles that Sean excels and provides excellent customer service. Chief Collins states he fully understands the unique demand of a 24-7 emergency services fleet, and he has built a strong working relationship with our department that reflects his dedication not only to fleet operations, but also to the personnel who rely on those emergency vehicles every day. Chief Deputy Derringer states, I have called on Sean several times over the years when he's off work to help the sheriff's office with a broken down vehicle, and he was always willing to do whatever was needed to accomplish the task. I think that although Sean is extremely talented and hardworking, His greatest strength is his easygoing personality and willingness to help anyone. I am very fortunate and blessed to call him friend. So on behalf of Dare County Public Works and all your guys, congratulations on 30 years of service.

Hey, Sean, 30 years is a big deal. We might have to go cook us another hog. Yeah, yeah.

That brings us to our employees of the month. We have two this time. We have for our month of May, and we also have our June employee of the month. For the month of May, if Jeff Derringer would come forward to make that presentation.

Good morning again.

Yes, sir. Welcome back, sir. Thank you, gentlemen and gentlemen.

Got him.

Good morning.

Good morning. Mr. Chairman and Mr. Commissioners, this is Deputy John Gow. We were fortunate, John started at the detention center in 2020. He showed an interest in being a deputy four years later in 2024. Sheriff Doug sent him to BLET, Basic Law Enforcement Training, graduated with honors, and John is on par with civil process. With all you know, civil process is an extremely important part of the sheriff's office and constitutional law. John knows, even though he's only been since 2024 in his position, he checks them every morning. He serves them precisely without errors. That doesn't sound like a big deal. It's a big deal to the sheriffs and the sheriff's office because an error can affect the public greatly. I'll read you a little bit here from the submission. Deputy Gump is the most independent deputy on shift. Deputy Gump is given a task and completes it without hesitation. One of the responsibilities Deputy Gump has been given is to maintain the civil process for the Collington District. Deputy Gump, during every shift, attempts to complete and completes and returns on time and accurate. but his best attribute is him being an older deputy that has the experience. He acts like a father. He acts like the friend to the younger deputies. He always assists when needed. When, when John switched over and we're sitting in my office and he's like, man, I'm excited. I always wanted to be a deputy. I always wanted to do this. And I said, Having the enthusiasm is rare when it comes to going into a new job, even though it's still within the sheriff's office. But his drive is extremely high. Every single morning, John's early. And I don't mean just like a few minutes. I mean like an hour. It is my honor to present him from his peers and the county with the Employee of the Month.

We'd like to say something to the commissioner.

This was a secret to me, so I just want to say thank you all for the opportunity and thank you for having me.

And our Employee of the Month for June will be presented by David Safel.

Welcome this morning, Chair. CHAIRMAN BRYANT LEWIS. Morning, Commissioners.

Liz. Surprise.

You guys.

Today we're proud to recognize Liz Farmer as Employee of the Month. She began her career in communications on September 14, 2016. Liz's exemplified dedication, professionalism, and commitment to serving others. Her positive attitude, strong work ethic, and unwavering support of her coworkers make her an invaluable member of our team. She brings a smile, encouragement, and professionalism to the center every day, helping to maintain morale even during the most challenging moments, which there are a lot. Her contributions have a lasting impact on both her coworkers and organization as a whole. Congratulations, Liz, and thank you for your many years of service and all that you do. She does bring, you walk in the center every day, and she's smiling, happy, which really lightens up my day and everybody else's in the center when she's in there. So congratulations, Employee of the Month. Thank you.

This was a big surprise, so thank you. I thought I was here for one of my best friends to get it, and that's how they got me here. So, I don't know. Thank you.

All right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Before we go to public comment, would those of you that received an award this morning, please go out through this door with Caitlin to have a picture made.

Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, now's the time that's been set aside for public comment. If you have public comment this morning, raise your hand. I'll recognize you. When I do, please come to the podium. State your name and where you're from. Please limit your comments to five minutes. There's a green light on the podium that will come on when your time begins. There's a yellow light that will come on when you have about a minute left. And when the red light comes on, you need to conclude your remarks. If you're here to speak to the budget, please wait until the public hearing on the budget that comes later in the agenda. I don't have anyone signed up. Is there anyone here that would like to speak at public comment? Seeing no hands here, is there anyone that would like to speak in Buxton on public comment? Matt, we don't have any sound.

There we go.

Hello. My name is Wes Lassinger. I'm a longtime resident of Hatteras Island and the Outer Banks. We have a campground that's been brought to us where the old golf course was. And it's hurt a lot of people already as far as the people on Robin Lane. been robbed of any view or anything that was left of property values. But there's one ordinance in here that I feel that should be looked at. I don't want to take long with this. The ordinance is 160.27 A regarding the preservation of natural terrain drainage topsoil, trees, and the natural vegetation to the maximum extent possible. I respectfully ask that to have this explained when this clearing occurred, what approvals authorized it, and how compliance with the ordinance has been evaluated. The complete property There are no trees. The whole place was completely wiped out. Part of the dunes even pulled us down. I mean, there's no reflection of any preservation of natural terrain, drainage of topsoil. We're worried about the flooding that's going to occur from this. We're worried about the traffic that's going to occur from this. There's no DOT addressing any type of turning lanes or anything that will be there provided for this. We already have ramp 49. We already have federal campgrounds. We have Frisco, Rod and Gunna. Everybody needs to go to help with this thing for 180 extra campgrounds, some of them being permanent residents. This 160.27a, the design and development of the park shall preserve the natural terrain, natural drainage, existing topsoil trees and natural vegetation to the maximum extent. We feel the maximum extent has been to completely destruct that whole area. It's completely wiped out. I invite you if you're there waiting to go maybe drive up the hill and look over or look at some of the topographical pictures, drone pictures, things like that. They've ruined that land. And now we have all large tracts of property, 78 acres that's going to be sold here pretty quick. We don't know what that will be, but we hope that there will be better oversight and a little bit more care, a lot more care as to how we take care of our natural resources here on Patterson Island. Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Victoria Phelps.

Hello, my name is Victoria Phelps. I live on Robin Lane. My husband is a longtime resident. His family was here a long, long time ago, so we've been here off and on, but we are now residents. on Robin Lane. We have watched this devastation that they have ripped everything down. And I'm just in support with the gentleman that just spoke. I don't know that the wildlife was given any consideration or the sea turtle nestings and what the impact will be with these, all these extra people. infrastructure but right now my understanding is what was proposed and what has been actually occurring is incorrect and they have built up the campground so if there is a hurricane or if there is rain that already our road floods and now it will be more devastating we would like you to look at was that proposed Is that what they were supposed to do was to grade that so high that all the drainage is now Robin Lane? Thank you.

Our next speaker is Joni Jackson.

Good morning. Everything they just said was what I was going to say. So I'm not going to hold everybody up except to say I've really enjoyed 50 years looking out my back door at this gorgeous nature preserve almost that was the golf course. And we have all these animals walking around and just living their life. But when they, the two ponds that were there, they just closed them down. push dirt down. I don't know where the turtles went. I don't know where the fish went. I don't know. So it's very devastating to see every tree was pulled up, all the grass, all the sea oats, just to watch it. And one of the guys said, we're just going to level it like the Sahara did. And that's what they did. So they were true to form. But I'm so worried about flooding. because now they're up there and then I live on Robin Lane and my backyard is this big now, which is my backyard. I'm not asking for a bigger backyard. I didn't mean that, but I'm just worried about the flooding because my neighbors beside me for a while, every time it rained a whole lot, they really had a flooding issue. But now I don't know what's going to become of us because it's very scary. So, Thank you for what they said before me because I agree with them. I am so glad to be a part of you two and your speaking and thank you very much.

Our next speaker is Susan Myers.

Good morning. My name is Susan Myers. I live in Frisco. I've only been here 11 and a half years, but sometimes it feels like forever. My background is in environmental engineering with my first degree in geology. And my second area of expertise is medical care with my degree in nursing. I have been sick to my stomach daily. What are we going to do about this problem that has been permitted but not regulated? What are we going to do about the water impacts, the electric impacts? The sand is literally blowing away and sliding into private property. I'm devastated. I have not seen this kind of impact. irresponsible planning since I lived in the desert Southwest where the, when they built up on the dunes in the desert Southwest and didn't moderate it and did not control it, all they have now there, if you can imagine in a place to get eight inches of rain a year, not 200, they have flooding every single time it rains. This is impacting our citizens on this island that are private property owners. They keep getting shut down, I hear, but I don't see any difference in the way that they're performing stuff. How about we just revoke their permit until they are compliant? That would be helpful, don't you think? The size and the impact is not representative of the area. And numerous people are reporting on Facebook, so who knows if it's actually real, about almost getting hit by construction crews coming flying out of that driveway on that blind curve. Just wait until the visitors in huge RVs try to negotiate that intersection. There will be a lot of death and dying there. And can we talk about taking down the secondary dunes? That's been mentioned by a couple of people. COs, you can't remove COs. That's a federal law. They're not just breaking county and state laws. They're breaking federal laws over there. And we, as the county, are apparently allowing that. We are away from disaster. What's going to be the mitigation for that? And there is no barrier, zero barrier. I don't count the three-foot piece of plastic, black plastic between commercial property and the private property as required by county statutes. So that's what I've got to say about that. I'm going to go on real quick like and talk about electric bikes. Electric bikes are motorized vehicles. Please enact some legislation here to treat them as such requiring license and age restrictions. Young people that are permanently influenced by speed and adrenaline are causing problems. And they're already here on the islands. We're watching them go down Highway 12, popping wheelies with no help. These are kids. Where are their parents? I have no idea. They're not my kids. But I would talk to them, if I could catch them, to talk about living permanently as a disabled person. Anyway, you guys usually do a great job. I appreciate you listening to all of us today. And I hope to hear that something about not only the electric bikes, but especially in appropriately managed campground development. Thank you.

No further comment from Boston.

With that, Mr. Chairman, we would close the public comment and move to item five on the agenda. And Dave Peterson's here to give us a report from Trillium Resources.

Good morning, everybody. Good morning, Chairman. Thank you for having me. Before I get started, I just want to first thank Commissioner Ross and Wally Overman who serve on our Regional Advisory Board and Governing Board for Wally. So I'm going to go through this presentation. So Trillium Health Resources, one of our missions is transforming lives and building community well-being through partnerships and proven solutions. Keep in mind, Trillium does not provide the mental health, developmental disabilities, and substance use services themselves, but we contract out with thousands of agencies that do do that. So we want to make sure, our biggest attempt is to making sure that there's access to those services. I've been in front of you for many, many years, and one of the biggest shifts that has happened is the state legislators has said that they want to get us down to four managed care organizations. I started when there was 41 of us, and now there's four officially today. But as you see on this map, Just last week, two of the agencies, Via and Partners, they are going to merge October 1. So we're going down to three. Right now, today, we're 46 counties. We're the largest managed care organization. It was interesting when the state said they wanted us down to four and there were six of us left. The state said, here's how we're going to divide you up. They gave the other managed care organizations one county each and they gave Trillium 18 counties. So obviously we're doing something right with people.

Yes, Commissioner. Real quick, Dave, I should have asked this on the Trillium meeting. On the map, if we go back to the map, Mecklenburg County is kind of an outlier detached from the other. And again, I should have seen it and asked, do you know the reason that it is a separate? Yep. Okay.

Yeah, so before the secretary decided we're going down to four, Mecklenburg County had a choice, and this was years back, they had a choice to choose which managed care organization they wanted to go to. Alliance manages Wake County, and if you think about that comparison, Wake and Mecklenburg, the two largest counties in the state, they said, okay, if Alliance can manage Wake, then Alliance can manage Mecklenburg. That's the reason. Thanks, Dave. Yep. So you'll see our map right now from Greensboro all the way out to you all. We cover those 46 counties. What I also want to make sure... is that we see and we're implementing for many, many years the local regional connection. I oversee the north central region, the group in the purple, going from Nash County all the way out to Hyde and Dare. And so we have regional advisory boards We have five consumer and family advisory committees. We have a governing board that Wally sits on, regional vice presidents, and we'd have active stakeholder engagement, just like I was out here two weeks ago in a meeting. Those are the types of meetings addressing the mental health and substance use issues for Dare County. So we want to stay engaged in all aspects of the behavioral health system. So for Dare County, we have Commissioner Ross and Wally Overman, myself as the regional vice president, and Tracy Webster, who attends meetings in Dare County on a regular basis here. Here are some of the numbers now for fiscal year 24-25. A total of 103,556 individuals were served. And then it breaks it down in the different disability groups. You'll see the 76,000 with a diagnosis of mental health, 19,000 with intellectual and developmental disabilities, and then almost 26,000 for substance use. That is over our 46 counties. You'll also see the dollars spent on that, and that's a lot of money because several years ago in 2021, the state said, Trillium, you're only going to be managing the very high-risk individuals. with these disabilities, not the low to moderate risk individuals with maybe just needing outpatient services once a month or maybe doing some med management once a month. These are individuals that are in psychiatric hospitals. These are individuals, some of them unfortunately may live under bridges. Some of them are homeless, the very high need individuals that we are serving, okay? So with that, we wanted to make sure that that number, if you're mathematicians, never adds up to the total number because several of these individuals are duly diagnosed. Some of them have both mental health and substance use issues, okay? So for Dare County, We have served 676 total members, and then there's the breakdown again between the mental health, developmental disabilities, and substance use. And then I have that statement in there about the dually diagnosed individuals. I'll get to another slide because there's a lot more people in Dare County being served than this, okay? But that's the Dare County numbers for last fiscal year. I wanted to make sure that I put in here because in December of 2025, the state decided to have one statewide plan to manage all of the foster kids in the state that DSS manages, okay? This was implemented in December of 2025, so now it's under the Healthy Blue Blue Cross managing that across the state. So we hear a lot of stories about the foster kids. We no longer oversee that population, which we have been for decades and decades, okay?

I just want to point out we oppose this idea of sweeping it all into one central oversight, believing that local oversight and control or observation management was better. It did not prevail. Thank you, Commissioner.

So now let me break down the difference in the individual health plans. So in 2021, so we, Trillium, are the tailored plan. So the 92,368 individuals served and the Medicaid direct population, we serve a portion of those individuals. But the reason why I put this slide in front of you is to see how many individuals the other insurance companies now manage. Because in 2021, the state moved all the low to moderate risk individuals over to these five other agencies. Healthy Blue, United, WellCare, AmeriHealth, and Carolina Complete Health. I want to get to this next slide, which then gives you your Dare County breakdown.

Dave, real quick, if you would revisit the definition of a tailored plan and a standard plan for some that may not know the difference.

Good question. So in about 2018, I started telling you that the legislators were moving in this direction. It was implemented in 2021, and what was implemented was they put it out for bid and that they would take all the low to moderate risk individuals, okay, and move them under these insurance companies. And those are called, they basically are the standard plans, okay? That's what's called the standard plan. So Blue Cross is called a standard plan. United is called a standard plan, okay? They then called us, the other managed care organizations that were managing the very high risk individuals, tailored plans, okay? So that's the difference. They manage the low to moderate risk, we manage the high risk individuals, okay? So with this breakdown, you'll see in here how many individuals those private insurance companies are managing in Dare County. All right? I've always encouraged, I've been out here 12 or 13 years in front of you all. Okay? I'll encourage you again, you really do need to get to know these other insurance companies because they're managing a lot of the people in your county. Okay? A lot of the people. I wanted to just briefly go over some of the project updates. We are doing summits and reentry. We did a reentry simulation here in Dare County this past year. Chess Health is an app where people can get on to access mental health services. We are, we still do have, well actually the health department has the mobile clinic, which we really appreciate them taking that over. And I'm seeing the reports on that and they're doing a phenomenal job with that. We also are doing empowerment summer camps with kids with developmental disabilities. I do wanna hit on some of the things that when we oversee programs and projects. When I took over the network department many, many, many years ago, we were focusing a lot of time on the fraud, waste, and abuse, okay? And we cleaned out our system fairly well because it was a closed network. In other words, if Dave wanted to come in and start a new program or a new service, we would assess whether we needed it or not and then open it up, okay, if we needed it. If we didn't need it, it was closed. That reduced a lot of the fraud, okay? There is still fraud happening, but nowhere near as much. That being said, when we are seeing a misuse of funds, okay, we are trying to make sure that that gets addressed locally. And if it's bigger than just us, then we bump that up to the state. And the state has a system, and they are reviewing any mismanagement of funds as we speak. So we do have a compliance office at Trillium, and when we see that, we try to address it. I was part of one of the largest fraud cases in 2008 when I worked in Wake County. And That was when the state realized we need to close the network. I'll do a side note. The state has decided to open the network back up again. Not completely, but they have decided to open the network back up. I think because of the physical health pieces that they want access to care for physical health. If you look at those standard plans, They have an open network, okay? And they wanted us managed care organizations to also have an open network. It's not for all services, though, Commissioner, okay? Not for all. But for the few, and we've argued that 2008 fraud case and said you need to be really careful if we're going to be required to have an open network how many other folks can come in, okay?

Yeah. Yeah. You and I spoke about this, which decision puzzled me greatly with all of the news coverage of the abuse of these plans where people really need funds, be it families in need, children in need, learning centers, et cetera. And we've now opted to open that network, which could revisit the kind of problem you experienced in 2008.

Yes.

And the answer was, we're going to do it anyway.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah. All right, let me hit on just a couple of projects that we're doing, the substance abuse prevention projects. We really are trying to get in front of the substance use issues. Many of you are familiar with Sold Out Youth in Dare County. We also are doing Post Center, which is doing some education for the school systems. But probably by the end of this month, or the beginning of July, we'll be reaching out to you all to distribute your Narcan kits for Dare County that we do every year and we've been, I started that probably 10, 12 years ago. Really important to get those out into the community. And then this last slide is just our phone numbers to accessing services. We have behavioral health licensed clinicians 24-7. But we wanna make sure people have access cuz that's one of our biggest issues. We do not want folks to go into the emergency department. We do not want folks to be arrested and in jail. We need them to be quicker access to services and supports. And so that's why we have crisis chat. We have a variety of different ways that people can get into services. I want to end with a thank you. First, I've been in front of you all for, I don't know, 12, 13 years now. A special thanks to Commissioner Ross and Wally Overman, who have served on our board. I will also say... And talking a few times, not on a regular basis with Bobby, he knows our system. And I remember a conversation several years ago that you were predicting that we'd get down to about three or four managed care organizations. And that's come to fruition. So his knowledge of the system is really helpful for us to be able to build that relationship. You have really super strong leadership with Sheila and Chuck and getting to sit in on some meetings. I will say, you know, you all are always trying to thrive to be better, which is phenomenal. Keep in mind all the great things that you currently are doing, too, at Dare County. I always appreciate people with lived experience sitting in very powerful positions in Dare County. That's a true sign of where Dare County is, okay? And that's always been... I've looked up that for many years. So this is my last time in front of you. I'm getting ready to retire. Some of you know Sean Kenney, who was our DSS leadership at Trillium. He is moving into the regional vice president position. And so next year, and I hope you will see him before next year, but he will be in front of you doing these presentations. So thank you all. Any questions?

Well, Dave, excuse me, go ahead, Irvin. I've got a question.

I just wanted to just thank you for the years that we've worked together, and you've done an outstanding job. We're going to miss you, and thank you very much.

Thank you, Irvin.

Appreciate that. Dave, I'd say the same thing. Thank you for all you've done, and appreciate working with you and just sharing your experience, but There's one slide in here that just blows my mind. The Trillium Health Resources members served 103,000 and 63% is mental health. That literally blows my mind.

Go to the Derrick County slide. 20% of our population is on that slide.

Well, I hadn't finished what I was saying, but that was certainly the next part of that, is mental health in this country is out of control. What in God's name can be done, if any, to improve those numbers?

Yeah, absolutely. So this is a Dave Peterson comment, okay? I will say that after COVID, we're seeing more and more people that have stressed significantly from that, okay? So that had a large impact. I do know that back in the day, I'll just say for my generation, we never talked about it. We never talked about it when it was right in front of us. And now- The more people are talking about it, the more willing they are to say something and go do something about it. Thus, the increase in people going to access services.

20% of our county was listed on that slide.

Yep. And that's about average. That is about average. And when you say 20%, keep in mind, some people may just need... A medication. And I should qualify.

That was listing standard and tailored plan participants all, not just the high need group in Trillium. Yes. Thank you.

Yep. So... Commissioner Woodard, your point is a really good one. I'm really glad that we're starting to have more and more conversations about this. And that's what's bringing people out of the woodwork to feel comfortable saying something that, hey, I'm not doing so well. I need to talk to somebody about it.

Dave, I got a question for you. You were part of the behavior health assessment that we did. with Sheila and Wally and some very intricate part of the community individuals. Do you got any advice for us after that assessment came back? How do we move forward? How do we make a change in Darragh County?

Yeah, one, there were a lot of minds in that meeting that know Dare County better than I do. Let me first start with that, because you have brilliant people in that room. And so Sheila brought together a lot of people with lived experience and clinical experience and systemic experience. That being said, I'll just give you my opinion of, I think the farther upstream we work with individuals, the better off we are. When I say work upstream, early intervention, childhood intervention. But sometimes what we do is we still have to manage the individuals that are today needing services and supports. But the farther we work upstream, the fewer people we'll have to work with when they're 20, 30, 40, 50 years old.

Thank you. Dave, I also want to thank you for your many years of service. And every time you come, it's very enlightening, and it's a wake-up call to all of us of exactly what's going on. And I just wanted to personally thank you again for your years of service and also to reflect on not only what outstanding job you've done, But I also need for you to reflect on how many people and how many lives you saved to change over your career. So thank you so much.

Thank you.

All right. I want to call on it.

Dave, you've been a great friend to Deer County and a great leader for our north central region. Wally and I, I know if he was here, I'm speaking for both of us, have truly enjoyed our relationship. You brought me on board at Trillium some years back when I joined. You were very patient with me. I had to take the remedial course a couple of times, but I was getting there. And I appreciate that. I wish you the very, very best. 43 years, folks, this man. And it is a sometimes very demanding, selfless role, as we have talked over the years. So best wishes, best of luck, and my sincere thanks. Thank you, Commissioner. You bet. Appreciate that. All right.

Chairman, that brings us to item six on the agenda. Michael Tillett, Richard Quigley, and Sarah Hull are here to make a presentation on behalf of the GarageBand Charities.

Welcome this morning. Good morning, commissioners.

Here we go.

Chairman. We can talk about fun a little bit. We appreciate the opportunity to use some of your time, use this venue to let everybody know what Garage Band Charities is about and what we've been doing for the last few years. We, of course, are the ones that are responsible for the OBX Rod and Custom Festival that brings all the loud cars to the beach.

We're very glad we got that this year, folks, so good job.

Thank you. Thank you. That was the sound of charity, as I keep saying. We've been blessed to be able to do something like this that we have a passion for and that at the same time gives back to the community. And it's always the three of us that show up here at the podium, but we've got so many volunteers that just show up.

Mary Ellen.

Mary Ellen. She showed up and parked cars for us. I mean, that's hands-on there. It was fun that day.

It's fun.

And when you're done, you step back and say, wow, we did that. So our attendance this year, our registration for a number of cars, 1,243 registered cars, which I think says a lot for the car people believing in what we do. The number of people that publicly, locally have supported us, you know, had a few speed bumps and things to overcome, and everybody stood up, commissioners included, and said, hey, you know, we've got to make this happen. We've got to figure out how to make it work, and we did make it work. We did a few more public service announcements to remind people that this is still our home. Behave. And for the most part, I think everybody did. Our post-event meeting went very well, and we look forward to 2027. Our application's already in. It hasn't been stamped yet, but we'll see how that all turns out. But we've got a date. So just to let you know, we've got several people here that we're going to be making presentations to this morning. But we have, at this point, 18 different charities that we are supporting. I'll read off some of the ones that will be receiving or have already received presentations from us or checks in the mail. Mount Olivet United Methodist Church Food Pantry. We always look out for our neighbors as well. Hyde County Joy Fund. Hatteras United Methodist Toy Fund. Lower Currituck Food Pantry. The Dare Education Foundation. Mustang Outreach. Interfaith Community Outreach. the Inez Daniels Austin Scholarship Fund, the Sergeant Earl Murray Scholarship Fund, Mighty Millie, I know we've heard a lot with her, young lady having some issues, the Mighty Millie Fund, Blue Mervine Charity Fund, Louise Harrell Scholarship Fund, and last on that list, but not least, the Terry Gray Memorial Scholarship Fund. remembering our good friend. So those are ones that we aren't presenting to today. But the monies that we've received thus far, we still have a few sponsors, wait to collect from them. But at this point right now, we're proud to once again say that 100% of the registration fees is going back to charity. So everybody that paid to come ride, every dime that they paid, is going back to charity, and that number is $66,000 for this year. We do still have more coming down the pipe, and we'll give you a total number at the end of the season when all the dust is settled and we make sure all our bills are paid and everybody's paid us. But at this point, our eight-year total is $315,000. Eight years, $315,000. Yes. Wow. So we're very proud to have that. One of the things that we changed this year, we moved our trailer parking off of the beach over to Mandeo to the airport, which enabled us to remove some of the noise with people coming in and parking late at night and all, which worked out well for us. And we actually had a poster with QR code at the gate at the airport where they allowed us to park the trailers. And it was an honor system. If you want to donate, click the QR code and donate for parking your trailer. We didn't charge anybody, but it was up to them if they wanted. And we actually just random donations collected $890 for parking at the airport. So we just felt that we try and promote children's education, children's health. And the airport museum provides educational value. And so at this time, we would like for Stacy and Irvin to accept a check from us.

Come on, Irvin. Come on down, Irvin.

For the airport museum, a check for $1,000.

That's awesome. Thank you. We've got to start up and put a QR code out there at the parking lot. Put a QR code on my truck.

And next is a donation to the wave function project. And I'll let Alex come up, please. And can you give us a brief synopsis of what your project is about?

Yeah, sure. So it's a brand-new venture, and what we're doing is working to provide right here in Dare County at the Parks and Rec building in Kill Devil Hills a free summer camp for kids with developmental disabilities and young adults as well, you know, in North Carolina. You can attend public school up until you're age 22. So that's our cap for our age range. And these guys have very generously decided to help us get our project going and off the ground. And so it's, you know, free to families, free to enroll. And we're hoping to, you know, offer support not only to the kids, but a little respite to their families as well who don't really have any other options in the summertime for their children, young adults. So that's the goal for us.

Well, we would like to present you. to help kick things off. The check for $2,500. Thank you.

Two envelopes.

Yeah. Sorry.

No bonus there. Yeah, right. Appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you.

Michael Tillett, are you going to talk today?

Now you're doing a good job. I would just like to thank all the support that you all have given us over the last eight years. Everybody in the county, our sponsors, our family, friends, everybody that's came out to help this event. As you know, I started this thing back in 2013 trying to get things going to start an event. for 2019, and with the help of everyone in this building and everyone in the county, you all have made this happen. We can want it all we want, but like we said, like Richard was saying, it's three of us that always show up, but it's the whole community that puts this thing together, and we can't do it without anyone. Everybody has a part, and it's just to see a dream come to reality is overwhelming sometimes. But I'd just like to thank everyone that's here, everyone that may be watching that's helped and supported. Just wanted to thank everyone for everything they've done. And we won't go listing all the names of everyone because you'll miss someone. So everyone knows who they are. And we'll do more detail on that at our 10-year anniversary. Thank you all.

Okay, next I'd like to call Miss Margaret Lawler from Food for Thought. We've just been mailing her a check, thought it'd be nice to have her up here this time. Thank you. And at this time, we'd like to present Food for Thought with a check for $5,000. Oh my gosh, thank you so much.

And we are celebrating our 20th anniversary this year.

I'll let you do this one, Michael.

Okay.

Wow. We love Virginia Taylor.

We would like to ask the representative from Elizabeth City State to come up, please. We try to, this event is about kids helping, just helping everyone in the community. Now everyone that knew my mom. You're a good one. You all know this is what she was all about. And to be able to do an event, I can't even get it out. But to be able to do an event that represents what she stood for is overwhelming, as you see. And like I said before, we can't do it without all of you all. And, you know, I've seen her many times up there saying, what about the kids? You all agree? What about the kids? So we would like to call representatives for Elizabeth City State up to accept this $8,000 donation to Elizabeth City State Virginia Tilly Endowment Fund. On behalf of Garage Band Charities, we'd like to present you with this check.

On behalf of the Chancellor, Dr. S. Keith Hargrove, and the Chair of the ECSU Foundation, Kimri Reinhardt, I represent them today as we accept this contribution in honor of Ms. Tillett, former Commissioner Tillett. I worked at ECSU twice and in the early 2000s I had the honor of meeting the jewel of a woman, Ms. Tillett, and so I can understand the overwhelming nature. It is an honor to be here today and I know that she did many wonderful things for the community so we do want to humbly thank the GarageBand charities for this contribution and thank you for allowing time for this presentation to be made. Thank you.

The sound of giving back. That's what all the noise is about.

This is a really fun part. Enjoy this. It's what we work for. So our last presentation is a charity that we have had from day one because we believe in what they do. Children and Youth Partnership. It is our honor. How much was it? Wow. It is our honor to present you with a check for $30,000.

Wow, that's amazing. Speechless. I just want to say thank you so much for your continued support of the programs that we offer to the families and children in our community. Programs such as the Diaper Bank, Dolly Parton's Imagination Library, And one of our new programs is we're creating an outdoor learning environment at our office here in Manteo. So we're looking forward to continued partnership. We appreciate your continued support and generous donation. Thank you.

One more thing. That's another charity that my mom was really proud to be a part of and help with because she knew how they received their funds and she knew that their funds were shrinking every year. So when we were trying to figure out what charities to donate to, she says Children and Youth Partnership. number one, and then go from there to keep them going. And if anyone has a chance to go by their office and check out what they're doing for the kids, it is a cool spot that they're building, and we're so glad we were able to be a part of that.

That concludes our presentation. I do want to thank everybody again for their support, for your time, for kind words. We know we stand, just the three of us, but we know we've got a lot of good folks behind us. And that means the world to us. Thank you. God bless you all. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you all so much.

If we can get everybody outside for one big picture.

Jim, that brings us to item seven on the agenda. As you all know, several months ago we engaged Career Meeting Consulting to help us come up with a plan for improvements to Highway 12 to solve some of our hotspot problems. Jim Trogdon's here today to help to give us an update on that project and the work that they've been doing over the last few months. Jim? Yes, sir.

Thank you. Well, first, thanks to the Board of Commission for the opportunity to serve you in this important issue. On behalf of Greer, Brady, and myself, I wanted to first remind you a little bit about why we're doing this project, but then also talk about where we are in the process, and then more importantly, where we're going over the next three to four months. So a little history, I won't bore you with too much, but I can tell you my first involvement with NC-12 was in 2005 in the spring when Senator Bassnight came in, asked me to come in on a Friday and say, I want you to read this EIS and give me your assessment by Monday morning. I said, yes, sir. He handed me 8,000 pages in which I read every word of it over the weekend. And that started my involvement on NC-12, and I've been involved with everything from the Bonner to Bass Night Bridge, what I call the modular, but everyone else is known as the Lego Bridge, the Etheridge Bridge, and the Jug Handle Bridge, along with every other hurricane from Fran through, gosh, I think I missed Matthew in the state responding to So lots of experience on NC-12 and I think a deep knowledge of its importance in the community. So the left side of this slide, I won't bore you with why it's important. I mean, you guys on the board know exactly what NC-12 means to Derrick County and the economy. But the goal was, what can we do in the interim to help solve some of these challenges? And so our goal on this project was, can we do something while, and the NC-12 Task Force has done a great job of identifying what are the long-term solutions. they're working with DOT to get those programmed but as you guys already know the the TIP is a long process right and so we don't know how long all of those hot spots are going to have to wait that's part of what I want to get an assessment on over the next few months but it's you know we've got to do something in the interim because travel time reliability and reliability and access to the community is is critical and so Back in January, when I was talking with the Dare County leadership here, I recommended investigating and developing what I call an interim bridge strategy. And that's using, not limited to this, but this is what we're starting with, at least the traditional cord slab bridges, which is, if you think of the Etheridge Bridge as a cord slab bridge. the modular or panel bridges, that's the Lego bridge, and then timber bridges as well, which historically North Carolina used extensive amount of timber bridges, transitioned away from those because of the longer lifespans of concrete and other materials in the early 90s, but a bridge system that was used extensively in North Carolina for a long period of time. So the key considerations is, can we develop a strategy and a funding options that will allow the moderate to low cost, high speed, would stand over wash and stay within the existing right of way. And that one's important because we wanna avoid a long term and extensive permitting. And so the task that I'm working on on this project, task one was to build contacts with the industry to develop strategies for these three types of bridges. That task is complete. I've made contact with Acro and other panel bridge companies, timber bridge companies, and then all the data we got on Chord Slab because it's used so prevalently at NCDOT was their data sets. That task is complete. We started on NCDOT team building and coordination, met with the chief engineer, got his buy-in, the division engineers, the division's subject matter experts, which I'm working with, that'll help us in the review of the hotspots and the engineering required at each site. the state bridge engineer and the state estimator, as well as someone you all know, the DOT Board of Transportation member, Tess Judge, who's firmly very supportive in helping me with all our DOT work. Task two has been completed. So we're moving to task three starting today, this afternoon. Task three is hotspot review and ultimate prioritization. We will review each of the hotspots and evaluate each of the bridging options, which ones may not work at that particular site, hoping not to abandon too many of them, and then once completed with that, we'll start prioritizing those. Okay, where will this project be in the TIP? If it's very far out, that may be a high priority. If we can help DOT with strategies to get some of those moved in faster, that may be a lower priority for interim bridging and a higher priority for acceleration of the long-term strategy. And then the last task will be funding analysis and strategy development. And I will certainly be starting that task somewhere around the 1st of August. Each of the hotspots is not going to be a one-size-fits-all. So it's what's the topography of the site? What's the hydrology requirements? What's the geotechnical requirements? What's the travel demand and public access requirements? And so we're going to be looking at all of these starting this afternoon to find that balance and the right options for each. But it's certainly not going to be a one-size-fits-all. And so as I said, that'll be today, starting hotspot analysis, move to prioritization, move to financial strategy, and hope to complete my plan by early October so that we can give the county as much flexibility as possible in how we look at those future funding options and who we may need to interface for that, state legislature or Congress. And with that, I will take any questions you may have.

I'll ask the board if anyone has any questions.

Just for reference, the bridge in Slash Creek where they just replaced that, was that a wooden modular style?

I do not know the answer to that question, but I'll find it out this afternoon when I'm at the division because I'm not familiar with the bridge at Slash Creek.

Yeah, they replaced it.

It was a regular bridge replacement project.

But I think it was wooden trestles under it.

It may have been. It was?

Where was this?

In Hatter's Village?

Yeah, it was in Hatter's Village. It's an existing bridge. Yes. That they just replaced and they just did it. Okay. Yeah. And that's just for my own metal.

And it may, because of the age, it may have been a timber pile with a concrete superstructure. Okay.

Yes. That's the one that's been under construction for a while.

It was, yeah. They finished it. They finished it. Okay. I think they finished it since the last time you came here.

I would just close by really wanting to thank Dare County for the partnership, but the folks at NCDOT from central office all the way through, everyone we're working with has been very collaborative, and so we'll just look forward to gaining more of the industry partners. We're looking forward to gaining more of their expertise, and let's find some solutions.

Jim, thank you. Thank you. This is one of, in my view, the top three strategic issues facing Dare County. And this report in your planned timeline, I don't want to speak for everybody, but it's the most encouraging and thoughtful and frankly optimistic plan that I've seen in quite a while. And I know we've had the task force and I'm pleased to see it is culminating in a plan of action. So full speed ahead and thank you for this.

Commissioner, after 36 years in the military, I always use this saying, change is not mandatory, survival is optional.

Very true.

I think everyone wants to survive, so let's find a change that works.

The positives here, Commissioner, is we're working on multiple levels of options, especially reaching out to the Secretary, also our relationship with the some of the leadership in the state and DOT. So we're working on multiple levels trying to come to, and the secretary here is working with those folks as well with us. So we can't thank you enough. Yes, sir. I have it. Yes, sir.

Another question. I know they're doing the sand project thing. Are you communicating?

I'm coordinating with DOT, who is working on that. That is through a grant that they're looking at some of the options, but I don't think any that we're talking about today.

Okay, but you're still going to be looking on options for that too, regardless of what they come up with?

Yeah, because what I see is what we come up with will ultimately be able to nest with the task force recommendations and the recommendations out of the same plan. So you may be able to put them all together.

Great. And I do want to thank you as well for your time and effort on this. And I've got to give a little shout-out to Natalie and Beth back there from Hatters because they have –

Great teammates. Yeah, they are.

Yeah, they are. Yeah. Jim, I want to say thanks for coming on board with this project, with your expertise as Secretary of Transportation for many years. I was thrilled to learn that you were interested in heading up this project, and I just wanted to say thank you. My pleasure. And your expertise is well needed.

Yes, sir. I will say there is potentially a light at the end of this tunnel. Obviously, this has been a sand hole. They've been shoveling money in for 20 years. But if we can still push, and obviously you're a well-respected man of state, if we can push for the CAMA restrictions to be lifted, because building a bridge on no foundation, you're building a bridge to nowhere. I mean, that's the process. With that beach eroding like this, I mean, even in this picture, you can see it. If we can put something to stabilize that beach, and then in turn come behind it and build these bridges like you're talking about and have suggested, it will work. I'm 100% believer in the project itself, but we've got to stabilize that beach as well.

And I certainly don't think anyone that's experienced with coastal engineering knows you never eliminate any option. You just pick the best one that works at the given time with the given problem that you have. And so having as many tools as you possibly can, I would encourage that. Absolutely.

I'd just like to say thank you. And your partners back there are like my coon dog. They never give up.

They've gotten a lot of stuff done for us.

Yes.

All right. Anyone else?

Thank you, Mr. Secretary. We appreciate it.

Chairman, that brings us to item eight on the agenda. This is a proclamation for World Elder Abuse Awareness Day. And with your permission, I'll read that proclamation. Yes, sir.

Please.

Whereas older adults deserve to be treated with respect and dignity to enable them to serve as leaders, mentors, volunteers, and vital participating members of our communities, and whereas in 2006, the International Network for the Prevention of Elder Abuse in support of the United Nations International Plan of Action proclaimed a day to recognize the significance of elder abuse as a public health and human rights issue. And whereas 2026 marks the 20th annual World Elder Abuse Awareness Day, its recognition will promote a better understanding of abuse and neglect of older adults. And whereas the National Center on Elder Abuse, the NCEA, the Albemarle Commission Area Agency on Aging, Dare County Department of Health and Human Services, and Dare County recognize the importance of taking action to raise awareness to prevent and address elder abuse. And whereas as our population lives longer, we are presented with an opportunity to think about our collective needs and future as a nation. And whereas ageism and social isolation are major causes of elder abuse in the United States, and whereas recognizing that it is up to all of us to ensure the proper social structures exist so that people can retain community and societal connections, reducing the likelihood of abuse. And whereas preventing abuse of older adults through maintaining and improving social supports like senior centers, human services, and transportation will allow everyone to continue to live as independently as possible and contribute to the life and to the vibrancy of our communities. And whereas, where there is justice, there can be no abuse. Therefore, NCEA urges all people to restore justice by honoring older adults. And whereas, join us in our engaging and empowering movement, putting an end to elder abuse. Therefore, the Dare County Commissioners proclaim June 15th, 2026 as World Elder Abuse Awareness Day in Dare County and encourage all of our communities to recognize and celebrate older adults, and their ongoing contributions to the success and vitality of our country. This is the ninth day of June, 2026.

Motion to approve? I move. Motion on the floor by Commissioner Bateman to approve the resolution as presented. Is there a second? Seconded by Commissioner Balance. Any further discussion? Hearing none, those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, like sign. Motion carries unanimously.

Next is the Dare County Health and Human Services Public Health Opioid Settlement Funds Resolution and Budget Amendment for Fiscal Year 2027. And Sheila Davis is here for that. Good morning, Sheila.

Good morning. Last month. Wally Oberman and I came before you and presented the recommendations from the Saving Lives Task Force for the upcoming fiscal year spending plan for the opioid settlement dollars. You all received that presentation. We asked for feedback. You all were in agreement with the recommendations for spending. So today I'm just back before you to finalize that based on the requirements of the funding, which includes adopting a budget amendment for the expenditures as well as the Opioid Settlement Fund resolution. Would you like for me to read the resolution?

It's rather long.

Absolutely. So it's required that we spell out the different ways the funding's going to be utilized, and then put it in a resolution that meets the state's requirement for how there's funding, or how the funding will be used in particular categories. So after the therefore be it resolved, you will see broken down one through four on basically the itemization of those categories. priorities and initiatives that are compliant with the state's requirement for how we can legally use the opioid settlement funds.

Right. Do you want to do these individually, the budget amendment and the resolution? Do you want to do them?

I'm going to defer to the county manager on that.

I would say adopt, do them individually, adopt the resolution and then approve the budget amendment based on the resolution you just adopted. Okay.

All right. So is there a motion to approve the resolution as presented?

Yes. So moved.

Okay. Motion on the floor by Commissioner Ross. Is there a second?

Second.

Second by Commissioner Bateman. Floor is open for discussion. Hearing none, those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, like signed. Motion carries unanimous on the resolution. Now let's talk about the budget amendment. Sheila, you want to?

Yes, sir. So this basically takes what you just approved and then puts it in an amendment format for us to be able to utilize the funds.

Motion to approve the budget amendment.

Second. Okay. There's a motion on the floor by Commissioner Balance to approve the budget amendment, and it's been seconded by the Vice Chair. The floor is once again open for discussion.

I just want to say that this means so much to the schools to have that extra help. In the schools, it was something you guys did before I got on the board, but very, very happy to see that in play. It's made a difference.

Any further discussion? Hearing none, those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Who's likes that? Motion carries unanimously.

Thank you, Sheila.

Thank you.

Chairman, that brings us to item 10 on the agenda. As you know, several meetings ago, we talked about a rule banning the use of kratom or selling kratom in Dare County. As a result of those conversations, the Dare County Health Board adopted some health rules that banned the sale of kratom in Dare County. And then I think at our last meeting, you all asked us to bring that back in ordinance form. And so in that white envelope that you have on your desk is sort of the history of that and is the proposed ordinance and some of that documentation. The action that we're asking for today would be that we set a public hearing at our next board meeting to hear from the public and then following that public hearing, if you chose to, you could adopt that language as your ordinance that, again, follows the same rules as the health board put in place. I will tell you that you're not required to have a public hearing. This isn't a land use matter. It's a police power matter. But typically we've had public hearings before we adopted new ordinances, and so we're requesting one here as well.

All right. Do I have a motion to adopt a public hearing? I presume would be at our July meeting. So moved. Is that correct, County Manager?

Yes.

Okay. That's been moved by the vice chair. Is there a second? Second. Seconded by Commissioner Burris and Bateman. Any further discussion? Hearing none, those in favor of the motion signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, like signed. Motion carries unanimously.

And then for item 11, she was still there. She's going to give you an update on the school-based behavioral health services.

Thank you.

I am, but thanks to Skyler's brilliancy on putting the agenda together, it just kept me up instead of coming back and forth. So thank you. One thing I do want to point out back to the Kratom item in that envelope that you have, we were asked to kind of share the communication and education we did with the businesses. So when the Health and Human Services Board adopted their public health rule, we had discussed with the board that we would take a proactive approach to going out and educating businesses who we were aware were selling Kratom products. So what you have in front of you is a packet that we sent to all of the businesses. It includes, as Bobby indicated, the history of kind of how this came into being and why, the public health importance. It includes an informational flyer as well as a sticker that they can use or not to put in their window just to help them with the communication to their patrons. I will say that, knock on wood, but we have not received any significant pushback from this. I've had a couple of businesses call me personally to ask for clarification, but at least brought to our attention, there has not been issues. That's it. Mr. Ross?

Tiny question.

Certainly.

On the very first page in the handout, the rules, so to speak, on page three of four, line item one, two, three, A and B, I just had a question.

Okay.

It says if it's adulterated with a dangerous non-kratom substance, what if it's adulterated with baking soda? that would not qualify under the rule. It would then still be a kratom for sale, not prohibited under this rule. I just, and again, I was reading this thing, the word dangerous caught me between adulterated as in a kratom product for sale that is as is, that is not commingled or mixed or formulated with something else, and then the use of the word dangerous in this rule.

Yeah, I think that's a great point. I think probably from the attorney perspective, bring some ambiguity with that word. We could certainly modify the proposed... Oh, I'm not changing and proposing.

I'm just curious.

Well, not for the rule, but I'm thinking for the ordinance that's still going to come before you at your public hearing, that word could just be removed and it's just adulterated. What do you think about it?

I don't know the answer to that. Maybe Ervin knows more than I do. The answer, legally, is you do have some ambiguity. I think if my recollection of this discussion was we were concerned about adulterated kratom, I don't know if that distinguishes adulterated from unadulterated. Is unadulterated kratom OK and adulterated kratom is not? And if so, then that word has some meaning. If it's the same either way, then maybe it does not.

Well, would you consider a dangerous drug? I would consider it to be dangerous when it affects the welfare of the individual.

Oh, yeah, that's not my point. No, no, I'm with you, Irv. My only question was, I'm with Bobby. When we discussed this in the rule, it was kratom, unadulterated, kratom, adulterated, not allowed. And by the use of the word dangerous, is there a middle zone that says it's adulterated, but it's with common baking soda or cornstarch or something, and therefore it's okay? I was kind of a black and white in my mind. And that makes sense. That's all I was asking about.

And our discussions have said, I don't think the word was intentional. I think the discussion is adulterated versus unadulterated. And even when this came before you, months and months ago with the resolution and there was some pushback in the community, it was because of that adulterated and using that true in its synthetic form has therapeutic value. Once you start adulterating it with any substance, it becomes a more dangerous substance. So I think My recommendation would be in the ordinance, the board has already taken their action, but in the ordinance would be to remove the word dangerous and just have the distinction adulterated.

That's kind of where I was.

I wouldn't have a problem with that. So this discussion, I think what we should do is have our public hearing hear what, if anything, the public has, see if anything comes of that that would make you want to do something different. We already know this one, and then we can make whatever changes, if any, comes out of that public hearing and out of this discussion then before we actually adopt any ordinances, if we adopt ordinances going forward. Okay.

I'm good with that.

That's good.

Thanks, guys.

But I agree. I mean, a clarification process for the public. I mean, I think we do need to have some kind of a diagram, like what's legal, what's not. Have some kind of thing, this is legal, this isn't. Because if you expect somebody who owns a gas station or whatever to understand that a kratom product containing a level of 7-hydroxymitrogenine in the alkaloid fraction that is greater than 2% or 0.4 milligrams... on a dry matter basis, 23 over the overall alkaloid composition of the product. I have no idea what that means. Does anybody here know what that means? I don't, but we're making an ordinance about it. So I would like to have some kind of educational process in this.

Absolutely. Okay. So we'll transition to the behavioral health update and presentation. And I have a, slide packet that was in your packet. Great. Okay. So we'll move to the first slide in the presentation. I think I have a clicker here. Yep. So you all recall, it's hard to believe, but it's been about a year ago with the adoption of the budget that we officially established funding for the school-based behavioral health program.

Just to clarify, I jumped ahead when we did that last one. It's because I was looking at the school thing, but this is the one I was talking about.

Yes. Yeah, you'll see the data there is pretty amazing for one year. So after the funding was approved, we spent the summer trying to hire and fill the position so we could officially launch this program when the school year started back in August of 2025. Fortunately, we were able to move swiftly in developing this initiative in large part to the strong relationship that we have with Dare County Schools. You all know we have a school nurse in every school with just such an extraordinary relationship with the schools as our partners. And this program really built off of that and built off of that model, but a little bit different, of course, because it's behavioral health services. The goal was to reduce and eliminate some of the barriers for students to be able to receive behavioral health care. And overall, the partnership with the school, the focus was on improving student outcomes. So I think when I was before you presenting this as a concept of how we could use these funds appropriately, and if you recall, these were funds that were being directed to Port Health, but because of their challenges in staffing, we did not feel that it was meeting the needs, the best needs of the use of the money. And when I was presenting this, it was this slide I think that really resonated with you all too about the unfortunate increase in student mental health needs over the last decade with a significant growth of students presenting primarily to the school nurse or being directed to the school nurse. They keep data on this and just showing the increase in demand and need. So the program was designed with very specific thoughts of benefits. We talked about, just a moment ago, I mentioned reducing barriers, barriers like transportation, barriers like scheduling concerns, parents having to either miss work, take off work, pull students out of the classroom, and then also just availability of clinicians to be able to see and work with children. So the program... built to try to address those and being able to help students early, early intervention. You heard Dave mention that just a few minutes ago. One of the questions I think when we approached you all with that initiative is can we hire the staff? We had heard of Port Health having the challenges and we were optimistic that yes we could and I feel really, really fortunate that we put together I think, a dream team of school-based counselors. They're comprised of either certifications as licensed clinical social workers or licensed child mental health counselors. And we early on worked, again, building off the relationship with our school nurses on integrating them within the schools. There's great value in these employees being Health and Human Services employees though, because that way their dedicated focus is on the initiative of this program, not necessarily being pulled into other school initiatives. Again, built off the model of the school nurses. So our team that we were able to assemble of providers, we have Breanne South. Breanne actually is here. They're back there waving. She serves Nags Head Elementary, First Flight Elementary, Kitty Hawk Elementary, and then splits time at First Flight Middle School. We have Jessica Owen, who is serving both schools down in Cape Hatteras, Naomi Whitley serving the Manteo schools and the Early College, and Rebecca Woods serving First Flight Middle and First Flight High. And instrumental to helping me pull this program together is Jody Wyant. You heard from Jody earlier. Jodi used to be the school nurse supervisor, but has been promoted to a larger leadership role, still supporting that program, but also supporting our clinic operations. It's really building off of Jodi's connection with the school-based counselors, or excuse me, with the school guidance counselors who are also instrumental to the success of this program. the school guidance counselors actually manage the referrals as well as school nurses. So if a teacher thinks that a student is in need of services or would benefit services, they would go through one of those avenues to then the student be screened to determine if they're appropriate and if there's availability with the behavioral health provider. So as far as the type of services mental health needs that are being addressed with our school-based counselors. This list includes anxiety, depression, adverse childhood experiences, grief or loss, behavioral challenges, emotional regulation difficulties, challenges with social skills or peer conflicts, peer navigation with issues, also family life stressors. bullying that students may experience. There's a number of students that present to our providers who are having issues with attendance related to other behavioral health needs or maybe even substance use needs, self-esteem issues, adjustment, being able to manage things that are going on in their lives and then being able to adjust and cope with those, self-harm issues, early intervention with substance use, and then just academic performance issues. And so the way the behavioral health counselors work with students to address these issues is looking at helping the students build skills to navigate the challenges and issues they're facing. Work includes emotional regulations, building resilience. How do we cope and handle these issues that they're confronting? looking at critical thinking, self-awareness, oftentimes it starts with recognizing what you're feeling and then learning how to cope and deal with those feelings. It's a team-based approach to make this happen. Our counselors not only are working with the students, they're also engaging the family where appropriate and where they can engage with them, also helping students how to navigate some of these issues with their family. They look at some of the students need services beyond the level of what's appropriate for us to provide. So they're navigating care coordination and referrals to students to additional providers. And then in general, serving as a strong, yes, sir.

As far as referrals to additional providers, I recently saw something about a company called LearningRx, Train Your Brain, where young students are offered these sort of sessions or counseling sessions where they learn to think more efficiently or improve their cognitive skills. I was wondering if that was anywhere on the radar. Sure. I don't want to pin you down. Breanne, anything? No? Okay. Just a question. Keep going, Sheila.

No, but there are more tools becoming available and websites to help, so I'm not familiar with that one, but yeah.

Sheila, I got a question on the back of the slide.

Yes, sir.

On the connection to the psychiatrist medical services, with the assessment we just did, are we having difficulty taking an adolescent and finding services here on the Outer Banks? Are we having to take them agreement were somewhere else?

I would say yes. Some services are available, but some of the higher, the more complex, it can be challenging to try to find those services. Is that appropriate? Yep. Yes, sir. So at some point, we do. There's more that can be done in the community. There's certainly a need for greater capacity.

Okay.

So one of the great values of this program is the early identification and prevention. So I was joking with Dave right before he left after he presented to you all. I said, wow, you really primed this presentation when you asked the question, what can be done? And he talked about early intervention. And this program and the results that we're already seeing really speaks to that by trying to engage early, invest early in the children, the goal is that they will learn to cope and deal and have strategies to effectively navigate the symptoms and the issues they're facing so it doesn't manifest into much larger issues as they grow up. I think this is going to be a pretty fascinating, I'm wearing my PhD academic hat, a pretty fascinating study in a few years to see the outcomes and track that and as these young people who are getting these services in elementary school and middle school, hopefully we'll see we can move the needle with the mental health situation. But by also giving them the coping strategies and teaching them how to recognize and navigate, it helps prevent them from heading into crisis mode. So they may be battling anxiety, they may be battling low-level depression, behavior issues, learning behavior modification and recognition, to prevent crisis. By having these services available in the school, there's definitely a positive reduction in stigma. They're integrated into the school environment. The providers that are in the schools are recognizable, like the school nurses and students, by going to them. They don't necessarily feel isolated going to services. There's a positive culture of wellness. We've also heard today that more and more people are talking about mental health and substance abuse issues, so it's not as taboo. There's still great work to be done, but there's work in the community that's happening. I think of the Breaking Through Task Force and the work that they've been doing over the past few years with really focusing on reducing stigma, that it is okay to reach out for help, just like you need to reach out to help with your physical conditions. So students, when they are evaluated to first be seen in this program, the providers will determine the level of services they need. Some students come once a week, maybe twice a week, some come once a month, some start off with a more frequent cadence of visits and then can space that out as they are doing better. And so the program works in close communication with the school guidance counselors for that coordination. So I'm thrilled with some of the results that we've been able to document this year. I actually had this presentation prepared in April. So the number of visits by the end of April, the four clinicians or four providers that I mentioned, had provided 1,489 visits, sessions with students. Actually updated to reflect the end of May, that was 1,684. So roughly for this school year, there were just under 1,700 visits for students between these four providers. The average caseload on a monthly basis, 42 in the elementary, so on a given month, 42 students being seen multiple visits, but 22 caseload in the middle school and 20 at the high school. So your average monthly caseload of students you know, under 200. The highest combined caseload on any given particular month was 93, 93 students seen between the four providers.

Do we know, Sheila, how many students in total are being helped or seen through the program? I know there's more than 93. I was just curious if we knew that in the total population of students, we're seeing roughly 187, 243. I don't know.

Yes, sir. And I thought I had that.

Even around numbers, fine. I'm not trying to pin you down or anything.

Yeah, I can email that. I'll pull that out. We have it. We definitely have the data.

Again, I'm just saying that for the board's consideration to understand that. how broad this issue is within our student, how many kids we have in our schools? 5,000. Okay, 4,800 students. I'm just trying to get a feel for the number of the 4,800 that might benefit and are being helped with the program.

I will get that number.

I think that's a good number to know.

And the interesting thing with that number, and I can send you that later today, and I was going to talk about this in a couple of minutes, the four clinicians, two of them were already at capacity heading into Christmas break, meaning they could not take any more referrals. Their numbers were as high as they could serve. The other two were at capacity in January. So when we look at the average monthly caseload, we couldn't accept necessarily many new students. So if someone was able to not need services, we could replace. And we don't maintain a wait list, per se, because we don't want the student to feel like I could just hang in there because I don't know when there's space for you. So if we weren't able to see them, then we'd be working with trying to find out who could see them so they weren't just waiting. But I share that. So, you know, we were at capacity, fully at capacity in January with the program that just started roughly September when, you know, August, but September when we were really starting able to see students. So I put that in context with the number served because it could have been a lot more, but we just didn't have capacity. Yeah.

I'm trying to hold myself back here. Go ahead, keep going.

Okay. So I wanted to share just a couple of success stories with you. These were from, you know, they're de-identified, so you wouldn't have names, but these are from the counselors just talking about, or the providers just talking about the positive results they've seen in their students. So just some testimonials of students that had come in you know, one with extreme anxiety that was basically preventing them from functioning both at home and in the school, and through counseling were able to overcome those. Significant improvement, while it's represented in the last testimonial about school attendance, that's something that they've been seeing over and over, that when students are able to benefit from these counseling sessions and improve their coping skills, that school attendance improves, social networking improves, and just overall adjustment to life. So really pleased. We just threw a few of these in here, but we're seeing the same theme. And as I transition to talk about the feedback from the school, these are some of the school administrators or school counselors. We're seeing the same really positive feedback, talking about just what an integral part of the school this program has become. and a positive impact that it's making in the schools in the community. One particular individual in one of the schools said that they think this is one of the most vital supports that are now being offered to families needing emotional, behavioral, and social support. Talking about the value of the program in supporting the whole child. Some specific observations again by school staff and administrator is that the program is valuable because it's meeting students where they are. It's providing supports not only to help them socially, but that's turning to what we were hoping to achieve with the program into academic success. Students are building confidence and clarity It's the program's definitely been described as a tremendous asset to the school. Other observations is that there's been a decrease in aggressive behavior with some students and reduction in suicidal ideation. And we've heard over and over again because we are at capacity about the need for expanding the program. Which, when Jody was up here presenting the 10-year service pin to Angie Grant, she was talking about what an extraordinary job Angie has been doing in the billing department. And she really has. We were billing for some behavioral health services. You may recall a few years ago, we were able to employ two providers in the health clinic, in the health department, to see... Patients of social services and public health who needed substance abuse or excuse me needed mental health behavioral health Treatment and those two individuals have been doing an amazing job And so we were already doing billing and Angie was learning billing working with them but this took it to a whole new level with doing, you know school-based billing and And we have exceeded expectations in our billing. We budgeted very conservatively this past year because we weren't sure how the billing would go. We bill for services for any student. We have a sliding fee scale for families who don't have insurance. And we ended up, I think we had a budget... of about 40,000 and through our billing and Angie's extraordinary work and the work of the clinicians, we brought in over 100,000. So my goal next year would be to come back before you and probably request at least one position. I anticipate we would be able to fully fund with the revenue that we are generating by doing the billing. That would be ideal. But I received an email, I know, last night from Commissioner Ross asking about can you quantify the gap, like the unmet need, and what would it take to meet that need? It's hard to quantify that because, as I indicated, we don't keep a specific wait list. I don't think that's really the therapeutic appropriate thing to do. But drawing back on looking at, you know, that we had reached capacity in January, I think that my ultimate vision of this program would be similar to the school nurse program where we have, you know, a school-based mental health provider at each school. I think it would take a long time to get there, but I think if we can look at, you know, we roughly could fund probably 30 to 40% of a position based on the way we're billing now. So try to grow that way.

What I was fishing for was, yeah, we're kind of at capacity and we had to deny service to 394 students last year, mostly in elementary, and refer them to others because we don't keep a wait list. Or we denied three and had to refer them outside. I'm trying to get a feel. I'm not trying to pin you down.

Sure. The denials were happening, or I hate using the term deny. But having to redirect or not be able to serve, and I don't know, we're not able to follow, so we don't know did they get services, was happening in every single school.

Jody's nodding her head. By the dozens? By a handful? I'm trying to get a feel for scope and context here, guys.

And some of them don't even come to the behavioral health counselor because the school counselors already know that they can't accept anymore, but yeah. Okay.

They're full as well.

So by school... Anybody seeing a pattern here?

I'm just thinking if you've got four providers now and you've got ten schools and your goal is to put one in each school, does one in each school solve the problem or is one school so overloaded even that school's going to be behind and some other school may have capacity? I mean, I don't know how it...

Right. Well, right now they float between the schools. So I think they would be kept at capacity with the referrals because there's, and I mean, unless Jody feels strongly differently, I don't think you can say one school has a dramatically higher need than another school. You're seeing this pretty

And then I guess the other thing is the hiring side of that. Are there people out there that can fill those positions?

I was going to say, even if you all were like, we can come up with the extra 650,000 to do this today, I don't think we could go hire immediately six more people. So that's why I think building this is a good strategy. And hopefully, I mean, I can't speak highly enough about the amazing team that we have. And we weren't sure if we could get them because Port was saying they couldn't get them. So there's definitely, and this is a calling for some people. And so I think there's value. And I think the environment that we provide, the work environment is really positive. I don't have the confidence to say that I could bring on six new people, right?

Why? Work environment's positive. These are great people. They're working in a great organization. The results are incredible.

You probably don't want to hear the word, but the housing situation is the housing situation. And they're not already in our community.

Thank you. Sorry. There's that earlier version of me. Now I'm the new, renewed version.

But I will say, Brianne made it work and moved here. She actually relocated for this position.

These are staff positions? Is this a contractible position?

Actually, it's a mixture. The way we were able to make this work too is Breanne is a full-time staff employee with family benefits. The other three are contracted. So yes, and that one is actually a part-time contract. So she does other work as well. So being able to offer that flexibility has absolutely, I think, enabled us to do what we're doing.

Chief, I got a question. First of all, I can't tell you how important I think this is and I think the whole board to our children. When it's determined that the child's problem centers directly around the parents, how effective are we in dealing with that situation, getting the parents also counseling and help? Because we all know where it starts from.

Absolutely. Well, I can say it can be incredibly challenging. I know our team works really hard to try to communicate with parents to get them engaged at the appropriate level that they can get them engaged. Some parents are great and families are great to work with and they're ready to accept help and they're willing to participate. Others, they're not and they can't reach, you know, they can't connect with the parent to engage them in the therapeutic modalities. But So it varies. But they work really hard to do that. And they have seen some great success.

I mean, I see the report we get that you issue every month. Some of those things just, you cringe at what these families are going through. And you reflect back, if the parents of this messed up, how about the poor kid?

Absolutely.

I just don't understand these numbers at all. I mean, elementary school is your highest. That's where we have the highest average case volume with elementary school students.

And we saw that shoot up dramatically after COVID.

Well, I mean, obviously, we're a victim of our own creation here now. Now, that's top to bottom. I mean, I'm not talking about the county. I'm talking about the entire nation as a whole. COVID was an all-time disaster for children. I mean, we're going to be dealing with that for the next 10, 15 years at least until these students go on, and who knows. But, like, when I was in school, this didn't happen. And it wasn't that long ago. And it was here. I went to school here, Derrick County Schools. We didn't have these issues. I mean, is it our education system? I mean, are we not hands-on enough with our kids at a teacher level? Is it the parents? I mean, we got to find the root of the problem, not necessarily the treatment solutions. Because numbers like this were unheard of when I was in school. So what changed?

And a couple of things. And we're not unique. This is not unique to Dare County. I think what's unique is our aggressiveness and desire to make a positive impact and change and the commitment to do so. And Commissioner Kreef, you know, one of the things that you did not have, I wouldn't say when you were growing up, I think you're- We didn't have computers. You didn't have these, right? And the tablets and the constant social media and the, you know, the barraging of, you know, we talk about bullying. The cyber bullying has taken a whole new level. Kids don't escape it. Their phones ding throughout the whole evenings and then, you know, into the early hours of the morning and they They can't escape it. So some of the things that we were able to... Maybe you dealt with some issues at school between 8 and 3, but when you left, you didn't have to deal with it until the next day. That's not the case now with the Snapchats and group texting.

But then we use those same platforms to teach the kids.

Because that's what they're on. The thing that we tell them to get away from, we use.

I will say, I was... I'm equally surprised that the numbers were higher at the elementary school level than the high school level because when you think about mental health and you look at the list of potential things that are being treated, I would think that the high school age kids are the ones going through the tougher part of life with the more social media related things because they are. I would think the older kids would be the ones that would have the electronic devices on them all the time with that stimulus of the constant ding or the need for acceptance or check my likes or whatever. you know, reposts or whatever, I would think that would be something that would affect the older kids more than the younger kids to see the elementary school. But then I also see the flip side of it, that whole generation that's coming through the elementary school now that is going to have this available to them, I think is going to open them up to be more likely to, to seek out treatment for things that they need as they grow. So I think that's a great thing that we're getting on the ground, so to speak, the ground level now and working through with the next generation that's coming through the schools. But I also thought it would be more high school kids seeking treatment or needing treatment than elementary. So I did find that. puzzling. I don't, I don't know if there's some way to explain that difference or, or if it's just, you know, I had a predetermined, you know, result that I thought of that because that's the way I thought maybe high school was harder for me than it was elementary. So maybe I would have been one of those high school students, you know, or I don't know.

Maybe it's, it's the combination. I really think it's the combination of, but I think it's great.

I think it's fantastic. The work y'all are doing. I think it's great to, like I said, it, it, the more you get it in someone as a child, anything, any kind of training, it carries with them longer through life. So, you know, I think people need to, I think a lot of times people don't seek out help when they need it. And that's part of the main root of the problem is some people don't seek it out. So, you know, if a generation comes through and they're taught and they're trained that they can seek out that and there's people there that care and willing to work with them and help them through a tough situation or a behavioral problem, then, you know, we can nip a lot of problems in the bud.

Eddie, one of the things I'll mention when we talk about the phones and the tablets and the social media, as these things rolled out to everyone to utilize, there wasn't a guidebook or a map or, you know, there wasn't indication that this could be harmful and how should you use it, what's an appropriate use and but they will get that through this type of, you know, through, they talk about that in sessions, and there's more education information in general going out to students about appropriate social media use and the harms and all, but that wasn't there when it first rolled out, so you get bombarded with all this, then people recognize it's an issue, and now there's work coming behind, you know, not prevention that would have been nice when all this stuff rolled out, but it wasn't there, so... Any other questions? So no action today. Just really wanted to provide that update on this first year of service. And thank you all for your support of the program.

Thank you, Sheila. We're going to take a five-minute break. I call the Dare County Board of Commissioners meeting back to order. Turn it over to the county manager.

Chair, that brings us to item 12, and this is a public hearing on the manager's budget before you all take action on the budget. Following a workshop that we had last month, we presented the budget to you. Today we're going to have the public hearing on that budget. Nothing has changed in the interim since it was presented until now except one thing. In the water rate, we have a normally scheduled rate increase, and in the budget we had added an additional increase to that to cover something. When the Raphtala study came back, we did not need that additional increase, and so we're back to the normal rate increase that's on the schedule already. So we're back to where we started on the rate increase. Which is good news. Yeah. With that said, unless there's questions, then now's the time for anyone to speak. They would like to speak to the budget. Is there anyone here that would like to speak? Seeing none, is there anybody in Buxton that would like to speak to the budget?

No comment from Buxton.

With that, Mr. Chairman, we would close the public hearing, and now it's before you. You have the You can adopt it today if you choose, if you have questions or concerns, and if there's anything that has changed since we last talked, you can bring those changes up now as well.

I'll ask the pleasure of the board. I make a motion to adopt the budget.

Second.

Okay, there's a motion on the floor to adopt the budget as presented by our vice chairman. It's been seconded by Commissioner Ross. Any further discussion? Hearing none, those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, like so. Motion carries unanimous.

Can I say one quick thing? Being my second year on this, the amount of work that goes into this is, like, huge. And so I just want to say thank you for your time. And for the veteran commissioners that have helped me understand this whole process thing, thank you guys for being the eyes and ears for us newbies here trying to figure this out because it's different. It's a lot. Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner.

County Manager. All right. Item 13, Mr. Chairman, we're in the midst of our beach nourishment starting down in Avon and then to move to Buxton, and Dustin's here to give you an update on that.

While he's walking up, do you want to mention that other thing? Do what? Mention the FEMA thing. Yeah, I've mentioned it since you brought it up.

Good news from FEMA.

Yeah, we got good news.

The FEMA thing got moved into the obligation stage, and so that money is now obligated. Got an email from our lobbyists that said that they're going to move it to the state here in the next... coming days and then the state will have it and then when we finish the project we get reimbursed from the state with that money. So that's a nice thing to finally get concluded after a lot of work by us and our staff, Dustin and Matt, and then we had all of our congressional delegations involved as well and we had our lobbyists involved as well. And then Dave Claussen and Norma Houston that work with the Association of County Commissioners now, And they're helping with the Helene funding from FEMA out west. They had some connections with some people at FEMA that put us in contact with them. And the people that we talked to there helped us move the needle as well. So a lot of people, a lot of involved to try to get this moving. And once we got momentum, we got it. So it's a good thing. That's going to really help us in our business. It's roughly $30?

Around $30 million, yes.

So good news. Good thing is the Fed's family. You eliminated the shutdown. That's what saved us, thank heavens. Justin.

Good morning, everybody. So that was going to be good news of what I was going to start with, but that thunder got stolen a little bit.

Thank you, Dustin, for that update.

Thank you. I appreciate that.

So, Dustin, what's your good news?

Just a quick update on beach nourishment. So we started in Avon. We have pumped about 30 loads to date. We've put just about 110,000 cubic yards worldwide. which is roughly 33% of the project. They're going to continue to work north towards the pier. Once they hit the northern terminus, they're then going to work south towards the end of the project. They're thinking they've got another 12 to 14 days of time in Avon. At that point, they'll begin demobilization, and they'll start mobilizing their equipment in Buxton. We're thinking we're going to start pumping in Buxton the week of June 21st, give or take a couple days, weather-dependent. We are doing 2 million cubic yards in Buxton. They've got an expected project timeline of about 90 to 95 days, which would put us towards the end of September when we complete that project. So that's where we are with beach nourishment. Are there any questions?

When are they fixing the groin?

That's a great question. And so that was the next agenda item. I think we might have skipped around a little bit on the agenda. But in your packet, you've got the bid tab for the groin. We had three bidders received yesterday. The low bid was $5.8 million. And so what I would ask you all to do is approve the apparent low bidder and then authorize...

We'll get there. We'll come to that on the agenda. There's some things we need to do ahead of that before you actually approve that.

All right. So that's my update on beach nourishment.

Thank you, Dust. My fault.

Was the goal to empower you to?

Whenever we get to the place on the agenda where we're going to adopt This is that place. This is that place. All right. So we've got a bid in, and we haven't accepted the bid yet. We'd like to do some due diligence to be sure timing, capacity, some of the things that are involved that are important. We can make sure we're okay on those things. And so what we would ask you to do is are we asking them to –

I think we're asking them to empower you to approve the low bidder due diligence period.

So what we need is authority. I need authority from you to approve the low bidder after we've done due diligence. If we do due diligence and find anything that concerns us, then we will ask you all to have a special meeting or something to come back and talk about that to decide whether we accept the bid or not. Uh, if, if we in due diligence don't find anything, then I'm asking for the authority to accept that bid.

Good. So motion to do so. So move. So move by the vice chair. Second. Second. Second by commissioner balance. Any further discussion? Hearing none, those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed like sign. Motion carries unanimously.

All right. Um, The next four or five items are going to be by Matt. First of these is the series 2026A, series 2026B, limited obligation bonds and the approving resolution for that. And, Matt, I'll turn that over to you.

And, Matt, do me a favor. Make sure that mic is close to you so we can hear you. Okay. You have a tendency of speaking very low. Okay.

Can you hear me? I will make sure that I speak up. This is the resolution for the series 26A and B limited obligation bonds. You approve the initial resolution at the prior meeting when we held the public hearing. This is for the beach nourishment debt. So we will close on this loan or these bonds on June 15th. It's a privately placed bond, both series with Regions Bank. This is presented as an amendment to our 2021 installment financing contract. When we discussed this originally, we were evaluating the collateral, and so this is using the county's justice center as collateral for the loan. The loan amounts for the 2026A issuance are $13,095,000 at a rate of 3.41%. and that is for the Nags Head contribution. The 2026B is $42 million at 3.62%, and that is for Buxton and Avon, and that has the higher interest rate because we have the call option on that because we'll pay that back, and effectively we'll save $2 million in interest when we get the FEMA monies. So... Following this meeting today, I'll be at the LGC meeting virtually where they will sign off, and then this will go to close at the middle of the month.

Any questions of that? Move to adopt a resolution. Okay. Motion on the floor by the Vice Chair to approve the resolution as presented. I believe it was seconded by Commissioner Ross. Excuse me. Those in favor of the motion signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed, like sign. Motion carries unanimously.

And then item 15 is the capital project ordinance amendments for the series 2024A and 2021A. I see, and Matt will make that presentation as well.

So this is setting the stage for our CIP approval, and what this is doing is it is closing the 2021A issuance, which is sort of a housekeeping issue. But 2024A, in closing that issuance, the accounting, what we're doing is realizing the savings on the phase two of the EMS projects. And so the total savings on phase two, which was Man's Harbor EMS, Kitty Hawk EMS, and the Manny O Youth Center was $3,264,037. We had additional savings in our cost of issuance and we earned income on that borrowing to total $3,578,180. So how we're using that savings is as follows. We had paid for part of the Nags Head EMS land in a previous ordinance, and we had intended to borrow for the remainder, but we're actually gonna use this savings for the remainder of the Nags Head EMS land We are going to reimburse ourselves for the Rodanthe EMS land, which we use fund balance to purchase at $2,105,071. And then the balance is $396,478. And that's applied to effectively the Nags Head EMS, which we're going to present to you later. So the motion is to approve these two capital project ordinances, the first closing out the 2021, the second closing out the 2024A series, and what it's effectively doing is allowing us to take that savings and apply it to the projects we're going to present to you in a later agenda item.

So moved. Second. That's right.

Any questions of Matt?

No, I made the motion to approve the bond.

Capital project ordinance? Yes. No, no, no, no. Amendments? There we go. Yeah. Is that your motion? Yes. Approve the resolution. Okay. No, approve the ordinance amendment. I'm sorry, yes.

I'm sorry. I said so moved. He said it.

There's a motion on the floor by Commissioner Ballantz. to approve the capital project ordinance amendments, and it's been seconded by the vice chairman. Floor is open for further discussion. Hearing none, those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, like, sign. Motion carries unanimously.

Item 16 is the Capital Improvement Plan. The Capital Improvement Plan has been to the Capital Improvement Committee. The Capital Improvement Committee has spent a considerable amount of time going through it and has recommended approval. This is the Capital Improvement Plan for Dare County. We'll come to you next month with the water capital improvement plan and also with the school capital improvement plan for your approval at that time. Matt has a presentation to take you through this, and so, Matt, I'll turn it back over to you. Thank you.

Okay. So this presentation reflects the recommendation from the Capital Improvement Committee that met Wednesday, June 3rd. It is split through the county CIP and then capital outlays. And I think the only relevant piece to this is there's three funding sources that fund our capital improvement plans. But this is intended to represent all of our capital expenditure plan for FY27. So I'm actually going to skip right over this and take you to the next slide, which is this chart. So the recommended County's capital improvement plan totals $108,386,036. It includes 12 new requests. So this is a five-year model. And so in this year, when we refresh the five-year model, we received 12 new requests that totaled $2.07 million. There are 51 County CIP projects, seven finance capital outlay requests. So that reflects the vehicles and replacement for seven departments within the county. And then there are 16 PAYGO capital outlay requests. And what this chart is showing you is that distribution at our lowest level of detail. So you can see the public works, which is our public works project, is 44% and represents $48 million. EMS, this is not labeled well, is 27.9 million and 26% of that five-year plan. Where's that? I'm sorry.

Is that the blue color at the 2 o'clock point on the?

Exactly. Okay. This label looks to be cut off. Okay. Thank you. And that's primarily the two EMS stations. Next to that, the gray slice is our EMS medical helicopter, and that It primarily is the engine replacement, which is scheduled within the five-year period. So this slide is showing you that at a detail level. And then the next slide is rolling up to the, we'll say, summary level. So you can see public works is 64% of our total. EMS is 29%. So those are... That aligns, if you think about it, with where we have our capital projects planned. This next slide is just showing you the funding. So that $108 million is made up of $82 million of planned limited obligation bond issuance. We'll have short-term financing of $13.5 million. And then within this, there is PAYGO and other sources of roughly $12 million. So as a refresher, the county's capital improvement plan is funded by the capital investment fund in that model, which is funded by land transfer tax, which for FY27 is $6.9 million, and the general fund contribution of $9.825 million. We have a framework where we look at the coverage in relation to our debt service. We have a floor... of .50 times, and we have a targeted coverage ratio of one time. So the capital investment, the capital improvement, the CIP committee met last in January, and so this box on the right-hand side is showing you the things that have been updated in the model since that meeting. So we have restored the operating contribution beginning in FY28. This was a temporary adjustment to the current 9.825 down from 10.425 million.

Let's stop on that one second just to remind you what that means. You all took that money out of the capital improvement fund two budgets ago to balance the budget. So for two years we haven't contributed that money to the fund. As we talked about when we presented the budget, next year you're going to be asked to put that money back in because your two-year that you said is up and it's time to put those funds back in. This capital improvement plan to work assumes that you're going to actually do that. So we're making an assumption that you're going to do what you said you were going to do two years ago. And by doing that, we've used that as revenue to balance the fund going forward.

So additional changes since that January approval, we update the land transfer tax projection. The land transfer tax, we'll show you the assumptions in the model, but it basically takes what we think is going to happen this year and it projects it forward using a flat percentage. So as we are anticipating coming in $325,000 under our budget, that fact that we are under budget is then compounded over the life. So it has, it puts pressure on the fund. We're going to present to you in a later agenda item, the NAG said EMS, but that GMP amount is reflected in the model. And we've also put the Rodanthe EMS station back in the model. So to make the model work last year, we had pulled the Rodanthe EMS station out of the funding model and we were looking to use our reserves to pay for that. So with the additional of the $600,000 and the other changes that have happened, we can now afford that in a traditional way within the model. We've reduced the interest rates from 4.25% to 4% for the issuances that are planned in this fiscal year. As of right now, Public Works is at the budget and GMP that you approved will Once we get our FAA approval, we'll come back to you with an update on that Public Works project and the pricing of that. And pickleball in this model is unchanged. And that's, I believe, pickleball is our last agenda item of today. So Dustin will give an update on that. This slide is showing you the coverage ratios. So the table on the left is showing you basically where we were in January. The table on the right is showing you where we are today with the model. So if you recall, our floor is 0.50. Our target is 1.0. We're well ahead of our target right now at a projected 2.23 for 2027. There is some pressure in 2037 in this model where it's at 0.47, which would technically be below our floor. But There is a lot of assumptions in the 12 years between now and then, and it's a small difference to make up. So we didn't do that within this presentation. These are some highlights of things that are included in the five-year CIP. We plan to do the next cell of the landfill in FY27. The helicopter engine replacements happened in 28, as well as right now, that's when the landfill compactor replacement is scheduled. We also have the Collins walkway scheduled for 2028, and that is probably a high number given that we have some momentum on some restricted funding sources for that. 2029, we have HVAC replacement plans. This is part of a model that we maintain for our HVAC replacement, so Health and Human Services and COA. We have a scheduled AV update at the EOC as well as a network update. It starts in 2030, ends in 2031. It's a two-year HVAC replacement for the EOC. And then we have a landfill dump truck. which was a new request for FY 31. This slide is just showing you the assumptions in the model. Vehicles and equipment are financed at 4% for three years. So using that as an example, we did our financing in FY 26, and our interest rate was actually 3.24%, meaning that savings The C word. You going to say conservative? I didn't say a word. Rob was going to say that was because we're conservative in our estimates. Intentionally so, and that savings goes back into the fund, which takes the pressure off the next year. Helicopter engine is also 4% at five years. I already mentioned the change in the bond rates. The actual replacement of the helicopter itself is a 10-year debt issuance in 2035.

Matt, just for, not for this meeting, but for later.

Yeah.

I'd like you to run a stress test in the model. At what point of interest would the model then be, quote, break down that we would be in violation of our own .5 coverage? Is it four and a half? Is it five? Is it five and a half?

In what time frame are you looking? Because we're already at 35 or whatever it is below five.

Well, we modeled this, and what assurance do we have on the the upcoming bonds that will fund public works, and we're going to finance the Rodanthe EMS station.

Yeah.

So we're financing the NAGS head station as well?

Yeah.

Yeah. I apologize. How many of those actually have the bond terms relatively secured?

None. Meaning we will go to market when we, get through the LGC process with EPA.

My question is, and again, not for here to answer now, if we go to market and the rate is 5%, what happens to the model? Where do we start to break down? It would be before 2037 or whatever. I'm trying to get a stress test view of how bad would bad be if rates for some reason skyrocketed to 5%, 5.5%, 6%. That's all. Just a financial exercise.

I'll do it. So it sounds like you're thinking of the capital projects, the long-term debt.

Oh, yeah. That's where I'm at.

Not as much the three-year vehicles. I'm not looking at three-year vehicles.

Just looking at the long-term. Sorry. Yeah.

Yeah, I can put something together for sure. So the land transfer tax that I mentioned is under budget, grows at 2% a year. So now we're going to grow at a lower rate. We did a quick schedule that showed that it's going to take us four years to get back to where we were. last year with that revenue side of the model. We talked about the general fund contribution. And then the last bullet is just to say we don't model residual value assumptions. So we're going to sell our helicopter when we buy a new one, which is going to offset the purchase price within the model, which, again, is conservative.

Well, one thing I'll tell you about that One of its lessons learned because the last time we did model the revenues in our capital improvement plan for the sale of the helicopter, and when we finally sold the helicopter, it was so far below what we thought the market was because there was no market for that helicopter that we created a problem in our CIP because we had modeled that revenue. So we're not going to do the same thing twice. That's true.

So this slide is just showing you that in the years of the CIP, we're well within our coverage ratios. And then the mechanics of the approval of the CIP, these next two slides are showing you the detail of what we just summarized. What we're going to ask you to do in your approval of the plan is to approve the budget amendments that, so there is a capital project ordinance which funds the projects that are in the plan. There is a budget amendment which is taking the money from the capital investment fund and putting it in the fund where those projects are funded. And then there is a second capital project ordinance which is the closeout of 2025 CIP projects. So your vote will include those. two capital project ordinances, and the one budget amendment. So I can stop there and take questions.

Is that it? That's it. All right. Let's go back to you need approval of the recommended plan and adopt. related capital project ordinances and budget amendments, correct? That is correct. Pleasure of the board. So moved. So moved by the Vice Chair. Second?

Second.

Seconded by Commissioner Ross and Burris. Any further discussion? Hearing none, those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed, like signed. Motion carries unanimous.

Chairman, in an abundance of caution, we approved the budget a moment ago. But I think we probably need to go back and make a motion to approve the budget ordinance and get a separate vote on the ordinance as well.

TODD BANDUCCI. Isn't that what we just did? TODD BANDUCCI.

No, that's a capital improvement. TODD BANDUCCI.

Oh, you're going back. TODD BANDUCCI. I'm going back to the budget.

We didn't specifically include the budget ordinance in the motion. TODD BANDUCCI. I got you. I got you. TODD BANDUCCI. That's fair, probably. TODD BANDUCCI.

All right, fair enough. Is there a motion to do so? There's a motion by Commissioner Bateman to do so. Is there a second? Second. Seconded by the Vice Chair. Further discussion? Hearing none, those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, likes that? Motion carries unanimously.

All right. That brings us to Item 17, and that's the NAGSA EMS Series 2026C Capital Project Ordinance Amendment and Guarantee Minimum Price Contract. Matt? Eight.

So the first thing we're going to do is the capital project ordinance amendment, which will then allow Dustin to present the GMP for you to approve. So the GMP that he will present is $10,692,212. That is part of a project total of $13,184,317 with an estimated cost of issuance of $287,726 for a total of $13,472,043. In a previous capital project ordinance, you have already approved the architect and other service fees as well as the pre-construction fee. So this capital project ordinance is just budgeting the other lines to get to that project total. And the funding of that is the $396,000 that we just saved from the previous phase, and then the balance is going to be the debt issuance that we'll do for that project. So I'll ask that you approve that capital project ordinance.

So moved. Okay, there's a motion on the floor to do so by the Vice Chair. Is there a second?

Second.

Seconded by Commissioner Burris. Further discussion? Hearing none, those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, like sign. Motion carries unanimously. And then don't we need to approve the NAGCID EMS contract with Barnhill? And ask the county manager to sign the contract?

Yes, sir. So as Matt has just presented, you've got a GMP contract from Barnhill in front of you. and I would ask that you all approve the contract and then authorize the county manager to sign that contract.

All right. Do we have a motion to do so? Motion to approve. Vice Chair, motion? Second? Second. Commissioner Balance, further discussion? Hearing none, those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, like so? Motion carries unanimous.

All right. And then Matt's last item is item 18, and that's some budget amendments for fiscal year 26. So what...

This budget amendment is doing is two things. One, it is moving one-time purchases that were requested through the 27 budget process to 26. And then the other thing that it's doing is transferring $35,000 to our law enforcement special separation fund to reflect our actual expenditures during the year. So we have this trust. It has investments. It is actually fully invested, and we could draw that from our trust. But what we do each June, it's an exercise to calculate how much we need to contribute to that trust. And so we're going to just pay the $35,000 rather than take it out and send it back in two months. So that's a little behind the scenes, but that's why we're doing it in that way. So $151,000. is the transfer from the general fund for those one-time purchases, and $35,000 is to fund the LEOS.

And the 151, those were fiscal 27 requests that were moving into fiscal 26?

Yes, exactly. So when we had that... And I'm not challenging them.

I just wanted to understand that that's what they were.

That's exactly what they were. And they're one-time, meaning they're not going to be reoccurring. Right, right. So, yeah. So when we did that workshop, we had a column of these things that we were able to handle in this way.

If you recall, each year at budget time, we have these requests, and the ones that we can pay for in the fiscal year put less pressure on the next year's budget, so we go ahead and take care of them. That's what these are. Got it. Yep.

So we'll ask that you approve the budget amendments.

Motion to approve the budget amendments.

Okay. There's a motion on the floor by Commissioner Ballas. to approve the budget amendments as presented. Is there a second?

Second.

Second by the Vice Chair. Any further discussion? Hearing none, those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, like signed. Motion carries unanimously.

Thank you very much. Item 19 is the Soundside Pickleball Project.

Oh, man. Bob and I got the first match when the courts are complete.

Fair enough. On May the 14th, the county received bids for the Southside Event Pickleball Court. We had four bidders. The low bidder was Barnhill Contracting Company, not to be confused with Barnhill Building Group, who does all of our vertical construction. This is going to be their civil group who you see doing highways. So they were the low bid. Their bid amount, base bid plus the accepted alternates, came in at $651,110. So I would ask for you all to approve Barnhill as the low bidder, approve the contract, and then authorize the county manager to sign that contract.

So moved. Second. Motion on the floor to approve as presented by the vice chair. Is there a second? Second. Second. Second by Commissioner Bateman. Any further discussion?

Just a quick summary, Dustin, for my recollection. The scope of the work will be how many courts again?

Ten competitive size pickleball courts.

Ten regulation pickleball courts with lighting for evening play and wind fencing or screening to help cut down wind.

That's right.

The exterior of the parking and restroom facility.

Yes, sir. There's an existing restroom facility on site already.

And there's existing parking there, but we're not building new parking.

Parking's already there.

Got it. But what we are going to do with the parking is we're going to update the existing parking lot lights that are currently there. They're not operational, so we're going to take care of that. The pickleball will have, I think it's an eight-foot black vinyl chain link fence that'll have the windscreens around it, and then you'll have four-foot chain link fences within the court to prevent balls rolling from one court to the next. Got it.

I get hit with a lot of questions. I was just refreshing my memory when the good citizens of Nags Head approached me.

Where's that team? Pickleball court.

Okay.

We'll name it the Rob Ross. No, no.

This is the Bob Woodard eternal rest pickleball court where we'll scattle your ashes.

Oh, Lord.

Okay. I'm going to be serious. Sorry.

Okay. Do I have a motion to approve? Motion approved. Vice Chairman, is there a second?

Second.

Second by Commissioner Ross. Any further discussion? Hearing any, those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed, like signed. Motion carries unanimously. Thank you all. All right, let me, hey, Justin. Yes, sir.

What's our timeline now? So we'll issue a notice of award to Barnhill. That will allow them to go ahead and start procuring materials. I think we're looking to start breaking ground sometime around the end of this month, early July. That keeps slipping.

We're estimating. It keeps slipping, Dustin, every time. It's another couple of weeks every time.

It keeps slipping enough where it won't be able to play until warm weather next year.

No, we'll be able to get it in this summer. I think we're going to finish probably towards the end of September. But I'll keep you all on the loop as those things progress. All right. Thank you, sir. Yes, sir. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, that brings us to our consent agenda. On the consent agenda, we have the approval of the minutes from May the 4th and from May the 11th, the tax collector's report. We have the SRF Act BAA, the Intradime BAA, the airport hangar lease, the Microsoft Enterprise Agreement, the utility easement for the airport authority. We have an AT&T water tower release for Avon, Duck, Hatters, Collington, and Rodanthe. We have a budget amendment for the A250 committee, a budget amendment for the bomb center, senior games, Manny O'Shaughnessy dreads permitting Project B.A., the Derrick County Transportation Scheduled Software Proposal, the Avon Properties Association 2026 Fourth Fireworks, the Older Adult Services Advisory Council and update to their bylaws, the Budget Amendment for Subscription-Based Information Technology Agreements, Health and Human Services, Social Services Divisions, Memorandum of Understanding between NC Department of Health and Human Services and Derrick County, the DHHS Public Health 2027 Budget Transfer to purchase ADA required exam tables and other equipment.

Motion to approve consent agenda.

Okay.

There's a motion on the floor by the Vice Chair to approve the consent agenda as presented. Is there a second? Second. Second by Commissioner Bateman. Further discussion? Hearing none, those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, like sign. Motion carries unanimous.

Next are your board appointments. The President's Center Advisory Board Commissioner Mary Ellen Balance, Jennifer Cromwell, James Kenner, Wendy Munden, and Marcy Shoemaker all have terms expiring this month, and they all wish to be reappointed. In addition, Forrest Paddock has resigned from the advisory board, and the advisory board will meet in June to make a recommendation for that vacancy.

Pleasure of the board. Motion to reappoint. Motion on the floor by Commissioner Kreef to reappoint. Second.

I second.

Seconded by Commissioner Bateman. Further discussion? Hearing none, those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, like signed. Motion carries unanimous.

Next, you have the Hatters Community Center Advisory Board. Ron Whitaker and Laura Young both have terms expiring this month, and they both wish to be reappointed.

Motion to approve. Motion to approve by Commissioner Ballant. Seconded by Vice Chairman. Further discussion? Hearing none, those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed, like, sign. Motion carries, unanimous.

Next is the Juvenile Crime Prevention Council. Shania Burris, Stephan Westcott, and Spencer Gregory all have terms expiring this month, all wish to be reappointed. Stephen Vanover's terms expires this month, and he is not seeking reappointment. The JPC recognizes there are multiple vacancies, and they'll come back to you at a later date with recommendations.

Motion to reappoint.

Motion on the floor by Vice Chairman to reappoint. Seconded by Commissioner Bateman. Any further discussion? Hearing none, those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed, like signed. Motion carries unanimous.

Next is the Man's Harbor Community Center Advisory Board. Bonnie Sawyer and Clyde Gard both have terms expiring this month and both wish to be reappointed.

Motion to reappoint. Motion to approve and reappoint. Second. Commissioner Bateman, seconded by Commissioner Balance. Further discussion? Hearing none, those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, like sign. Motion carries unanimously.

Next is the Roanoke Island Community Center Advisory Board. Lynette Ford and Daniel Selby both have terms expiring this month, and they both wish to be reappointed.

Motion to reappoint. Motion to reappoint. On the floor by Commissioner Balance. Second. Seconded by the Vice Chair. Any further discussion? Hearing none, those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Like signed. Motion carries unanimous.

Next is the Transportation Advisory Board. Alex Chandler, Chuck Lysette, Nessie Siler all have terms expiring this month and all wish to be reappointed.

Motion to reappoint. Motion on the floor by the Vice Chair. Seconded by Commissioner Balance. Any further discussion? Hearing none, those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? The motion carries unanimous.

Next is the Water Waste Commission. Ernie Foster, Natalie Cavanaugh, Steve Coulter, and Carson Kreef have terms expiring this month and all wish to be reappointed.

I'd like to make a motion to appoint Ernie Foster, Natalie Cavanaugh, and Steve Coulter, and also to appoint Mary Ellen Balance.

There's a motion on the floor by the Vice Chair. Is there a second? I'll second the motion. Further discussion? Hearing none, those in favor of the motion signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, blank sign. Motion carries unanimous.

Your upcoming Board and Committee appointments. In July, the Airport Authority has one term. The Game and Wildlife Commission has four terms. The Wanchese Community Center Advisory Board has two terms. In August, the ABC Board has two terms, and the Virginia Tillett Community Center has four terms. And in September the health and human services advisory board has four terms and the transportation advisory board has one term. And that would be your agenda. Mr. Chairman.

Thank you. County manager. That brings us to item 22 commissioners business and manager attorney business. Does the manager or attorney have any additional business for us today? Um,

You all got an email and have heard about the occupancy tax bill. I think it's Senate 484 that's up there pending. I've been in contact with, I let all the local town managers know, and I don't know what their boards are doing or what the impacts are. I've also been in contact multiple times with our lobbyists trying to track it, trying to make sure we understand what it means. What we're told is that the bill is intended to say that if you don't have special legislation that gives you authority to use the oxytransport tax for certain purposes, then it can't be used for things that you would normally use money for for the local people to do. The problem with the bill is our enabling legislation says we can use the OxyTax for sanitation, for EMS, for law enforcement, I don't know what else, a couple more things. And then we have legislation later on that says we can use it for beach nourishment. And so that's what we've been doing and we've apportioned, we don't use it 100% for that, we use it for like, I don't know what the percentage is, 30% of the EMS is related to tourism, so we take that amount of our EMS budget and pull it out of the oxy tax. That's how we've done it across any things that are impacted by tourism, which is the correct way to do it. The problem with the bill is that the bill seems to try to say that if you've got that kind of special legislation that you're okay, but it's so awkwardly worded that nobody really knows if it really accomplishes that or not. They send out a memo with the bills that the legislature gets. And I've got a copy of that memo. And it says what I just said. And it says that's the intention of the bill. Again, the bill's not well written. I can make an argument that, yes, in fact, that's exactly what it does. But if you put me on the other side, it's ambiguous enough. I could say, no, it doesn't. It means this. And so what we're trying to do is get some clarity from the legislature to be sure that we're okay. We keep being told we're fine, we're fine, we're fine. When I contacted the Association of County Commissioners, they said, you're fine, you're fine, you're fine. But, again, it's so complicated. inartfully drafted that I'm not certain about it. So we'll see where that goes. Again, our lobbyists are working on it. And I'll make you aware we're doing the things that we need to do to make sure we're covered there. Were it to work out where we're not covered by it, that would be some significant impact to both our budget and our beach nourishment projects. And it would be problematic. So be aware. Let's see. I'm going to need to have a closed session at the appropriate time.

Okay. Will do. All right. Let's go to our public information office. Ms. Hester, do you have anything for us?

I have two items. I just wanted to let you all know that we, Caitlin and myself, have been meeting with Sheila and Spencer and a couple of members of the Parks and Rec Advisory Committee to talk about the information that we'll share with the public about the sales tax referendum and It's in the web page is right now being reviewed by everyone. And Bobby, you should have it as well to take a look at. And then hopefully in August, they'll make a presentation. Caitlin and Spencer can make a presentation to show you what we plan to share since that'll be coming up. I think people will start paying attention in the fall. So I wanted to mention that. And then I need your approval. We have T-shirts left over from the A250 event. And what I'd like to propose is that those be given to the Veterans Advisory Council because they do a lot of outreach at markets. And then they could sell those and that money would go to the Wreath Project that they do for around Christmas time. So I wanted to ask you all. to authorize that, or is there any other information they need for that, Matt?

I think we're going to, the plan is that we'll quantify what that would represent as a donation, but ultimately you can empower.

And authorize us to sign any budget amendments or whatever we need to make that happen.

You need a motion or a consensus? I need a motion. I'll motion it.

Okay. I'll second.

Vice Chair made the motion and seconded by Commissioner Balance. The floor is open for discussion.

Great idea.

Absolutely. Yep. Very good. All right.

Thank you. That's all I have.

Any further discussion? Hearing none, those in favor, signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed, like signed. Motion carries unanimously. You did have a bunch of t-shirts left. Yeah. All right. Our finance director, Matt, do you have anything else for us?

I'll just, I just quickly pulled up what Bobby was referencing. So, The occupancy tax, 15% is earmarked for garbage, refuse, and solid waste, which is roughly $1.1 million. 35% is used for law enforcement, which is roughly $2.6 million. And the balance, the 50% that's left of $3.8 million is used for EMS. And I don't have any additional items.

Yeah, that would be very problematic. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. I heard you say something about nourishment, Bobby. The legislation approved us using two cents of our six cents. This new bill's not going to affect that, is it?

I'm more comfortable that it doesn't affect that than I am what he just... Because the difference is that the original legislation was done in 1985, and then... everything changed and now that we have this is the amendment that's up there is for a post 2000 the post 1985 legislation our occupancy tax use for beach nourishment came after that so it's not connected to the same legislation so I think we're probably pretty good on that side I was hoping that was I was thinking that but I just wanted to hear from you as well so

All right. That brings us to commissioner business. Commissioner Ross, do you mind kicking it off?

Sure. I'm extremely brief today. Two points. Last weekend, the Lynx ladies of Magshead Golf Lynx held their annual Drive for the Cure charity golf tournament, which funds cancer and charitable issues with cancer victims here in Dare County and have historically raised between, I'm looking at Susan, 40, 50. Susan was a participating golfer in that, to which we will not go any further. And roughly 40.

Good gracious.

40 to 50. Well, sorry. Did I create a scene? I created a scene. Mary Helen, don't write that down, Mary Helen. Don't write that. Anyway, $40,000 to $50,000 a year.

Let me ask you something.

Yes, sir.

I'd hit him with a golf ball. Was this a single-person score, or was it a team score?

Four-person team event, yeah.

So you're speaking specifically about her team.

Her team, yes, not her specifically. Nice name, Bob. I would never. There's a reason he's our chair. I don't think that's good enough, but anyway. It's going to work on that. Anyway, it was a great tournament. They raised a lot of money for cancer assistance, especially for people dealing with the costs. Anyway, it's a great tournament. And number two, on a sad note, a dear friend, a member of our community, Ms. Maddie Lawson, is dealing with a pretty serious health issue, and I just want to offer our thoughts and prayers to you, Maddie, to get well.

Thank you, Commissioner.

Thank you.

Vice Chairman.

Thank you. This past week, I had the Jeanette's Peer Advisory Council meeting, and there is some phenomenal stuff going on there. If you haven't been there in the past couple of months, I urge you to go check it out. All of the deck platform from the drop, from the, uh, Parking lot all the way out to the very end of the pier has been changed. It's no longer a wood platform It's a dyna plank and it costs 3.5 million dollars to get that project done and that project is now complete and it looks phenomenal it really does and Also with that going on at the end of the pier there's a observation deck and for Research and stuff on the pier itself at the very end of that clubhouse thing. CSI donated $150,000 to revamp most of that building since they use it. And it's really neat the way that they've redone that thing. And one of the things that's very unique about that building at the end, this was already done before this $150,000. I didn't realize it was there until we went and looked at it. They've actually got a winch system with a basket that they can put a diver in it and lower him to the water underneath the pier. Don't give her any ideas. And that way it doesn't affect any of the guys fishing along the pier. So he can actually go in and do what he needs to do and come back up and nobody even knows he's been down there. That's pretty cool. They do have some very big projects coming up, test projects. A couple of them are a buoy system that fits out into the water, and with the wave action, it'll turn salt water into fresh water, into drinking water. And that's one of the things they're researching and developing out there too. Also, there's another situation where they have wave water action doing the same kind of configuration, but it actually generates electricity. See, that's pretty neat because it goes up and down in the gyrations and charges.

So you can be sunbathing on the beach and get hit with a wave and turn it into fresh water and you don't have to go to your cottage to drink water?

Exactly. You just get a straw out to where that buoy is and that's it. Also, they're having to do the... The HVAC system, if you've ever been in the top floor of CSI where they had the big meeting room, sometimes it can get kind of warm in there during the summer. Heating has not really been a big issue in that room, but cooling it has been. So they have spent $2.5 million for a new HVAC system for that upper level. That's a lot of money.

Yeah.

A lot of people have been asking about the wind turbines that have been on the pier. The ones that are up there, they're inoperable and have been since Dorian. They have new turbines coming. The state has to approve the new turbines because these are actually brand new. I mean, brand spanking new. They've actually got to go through and make sure all the development stuff for those is correct before they can put them up. The state has to approve that. And they will put out 15 kilowatts, which will actually, with the old turbines, they could run about 20% of the pier's electrical use. With these new ones, they're projecting maybe somewhere between 30% and 50%. And that's a $220,000 project.

So they have the funds for that. They just need the approval.

No, it's the design of the instrument itself has to be approved by the state. Um, so yeah, they're working on all that. Um, and they're hoping that the turbines will be up and operational if everything goes smoothly, uh, by this fall. So that's actually pretty good phenomenal work that's being, being done out there. Um, and, uh, that was about it for that. And, uh, I just want to let everybody know that yes, we're in the summer and yes, the tourists are down. Uh, if you haven't noticed, traffic has increased over the last few weeks. And now a lot of kids are out of school. Traffic will increase even more. Be diligent. Be safe. And let's have a great summer. Thank you.

Great. That's good stuff on the pier. Thank you, Vice Chair. Commissioner Bateman. Yes, sir.

So I went to One Cheese Dare Day. Saw Mike out there. It was a pretty good little event. A lot of participation from... A lot of hometown guys there, saw a lot of people, and it was a good day out there. We also went to graduations. Guys, I've got to tell you from one point of view, I had 10 Sugar Creekers graduated Friday and Saturday.

Wow.

It was phenomenal.

Four of them. So say you were short-staffed that weekend.

Most definitely. I mean, it was bad, yeah. But four of them are legacies where the moms and dads worked for us. I had one of them who was going to North Carolina Wesleyan on a football scholarship, this third-generation sugar creaker.

Wow.

We have one that graduated with an associate's degree and going as a junior at East Carolina University. And we have, I think, three or four are taking care of the, or taking advantage of the DARE guarantee and going to College of Albemarle, which this board was so, and had a big part in making that happen. It's really a great thing. I was proud of all the graduates, but really proud of mine. I went down to Hatterson, and I saw Mary Ellen, and I saw their graduation down there. They do it differently than we do it up here. And it was in... Good time. They had a lot of enthusiasm. They had one little kid, man, he was so happy to graduate, let me tell you. Good time down there for all. I don't want to jump on the bandwagon, but I think we're going to have an issue in the future. I think Parks and Rec has already addressed it. I think the Board of Education addressed it yesterday, the e-bikes. on the bike path running with a coon dog. I had this e-bike go by me, y'all, on a swerving bike path on Kitty Oak Woods Road. He had to be going 35 miles an hour at least. Didn't have a helmet on. Probably 12, 13 years old. And I can just visualize that kid taking us out off the road or something or swerving in a car, hitting him or running into a tree with no kind of safety equipment. And I've been told that some of those bikes can go up at 50 miles an hour with these new batteries and stuff.

I'm getting a lot of calls on Patterson Island about going down amongst the back road and driving between the villages.

So I don't know. I'm not proposing to do anything. I'm just kind of letting you know the observation that I'll see.

Well, Kill Double Hills is addressing it now, and I believe the school board is looking at it. Yeah. We'll be interested to see what kind of criteria or stipulations. And my last thing, how about Bright Speed?

How about it? Do we have anybody that can give me a number so I can give it to my people to call, to fuzz, to cry? Good luck. The gentleman that you gave me before, he's not there anymore. No. He's gone.

Surprise, surprise.

And he was the main contact.

The turnover is extreme.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

They're terrible, y'all.

I've gotten four or five phone numbers to call, and when you call any of those five, they ultimately wind up in the same place. And it was with that guy who left.

Yeah. Which is probably why you left.

Anyway, that's it. Good. Thank you, Commissioner. Yes, sir. Commissioner Kree.

Yeah. First off, since our last meeting, Manteo Middle School won the baseball championship. Yep. back-to-back years. That was fun. Got to go to a bunch of those games, and really good for them. And congratulations to all our graduates from all of our Darryl County schools, all the way up, elementary school, high school, middle school. Enjoy your summer. I wish I could get some new ones. It's hard to get work these days. One of our guys from a commercial fishing store in Manteo just got accepted, and this following semester is going to be attending graduate school at Harvard University. To come from a little commercial fishing store to go into Harvard is quite the jump. So we're super proud of him. And other than that, I did attend the Rod and Custom Festival with all the cars and everything. Hopefully that event's less controversial in the future. I think it's a great event. They donate to a lot of local charities, and I saw a ton of those cars in a bunch of our small and local family-owned businesses around. So I personally think it's a great thing. Other than that, last thing I got, go Canes tonight. Let's get us a Stanley Cup back here in North Carolina.

Thank you, Commissioner. Yeah, and thank you for pointing out the – Rod and Custom. I want to just put some thanks out to Nags Head Town Council because they did, there was some controversy with that, and they approved it, and I've been assured by the mayor that they're not going to have any problems in the future, so let's hope that is the case. Commissioner Burris.

Yeah, I'll start by saying, you know, what a fantastic job. Michael Tillett and Richard Quidley do putting that on. And to give that amount of money back to the community is really heart-moving. It's fantastic. And I know a lot of people here locally benefit from the giving. We have a great community here in Dare County, a lot of nonprofits, a lot of fundraising, and a lot of money that goes back into the community. It's something we should be proud of here as a community. It's something I'm... happy to be a part of to the little bit that I'm able to get back in a year. Um, the day at the docks on, on Saturday was fantastic. It was a nice day, good weather down there. Uh, and wine cheese, we had, you know, light breeze keeping it just cool enough for everybody to enjoy walking around and seeing what all the vendors had out, um, had a good crowd, uh, good turnout. And, uh, I think they'll probably look forward to doing it again. Um, Other than that, I don't really have a whole lot going on right now. I know it's that time of year. Everybody's, like Vice Chairman said, everybody's out on the roads. And I just encourage everybody to think twice, be patient, and Think about your safety first because, you know, if something bad were to happen, sometimes there's no coming back from it. So just take your time, be patient, and be safe out there this summer and enjoy beautiful Outer Banks weather. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner.

Commissioner Balance.

Okay.

Waterways meeting was last night, and there's a couple things going on. When we were at the, if you remember, when we were at the, on our way to the coalition meeting last week uh... week for last we had some issues coming up with Cottrell. One, there's two different things going on. One thing is the Corps uses, they mirrored a permit that we have for a disposal site at the end of Rawlinson Channel. And so they have authorized, they're authorized to dump there, but they were limited in how much they could dump. Well, they're dumping all in one section and they violate, Cottrell has violated the contract with the Army Corps. So we raised a little stink last night on the meeting, but the Coast Guard is talking to the Corps. The Corps is aware of it. They're trying to get up to reduce that back down to the five feet. So we're not ready to do anything now, but we did have discussions about asking for me to come and ask the board if they would write a letter or put our two cents in on that. because Coast Guard is kind of on it and his name's Patrick, he's trying to see if he can get some danger buoys to go around that that are lit, which would be nice because people come in and it's so close to that channel. It's kind of interesting. So they're working on that, but I might be coming back to you on that for next month. So depending on how that goes, hopefully it will be resolved quickly. And then the sloop channel, they're basically, Cottrell's doing basically the same thing. They're dumping in a, in a site that we feel like is going to probably cause a similar situation. And what we were meeting about during that other meeting, we were on our way to the, um, coalition meeting is, uh, the fairies cannot pass in the same channel. So they have to, they're doing eight hours stretch at hours. So they have to, so controls on standby for 14 hours and then they dredge for eight hours from 10 at night until, 6 in the morning. So it's a little bit of a, it's a lot of an inconvenience because we've got big rock going on right now. You've got ferries going back and forth to Hatteras. It's interesting. So there's a lot of stuff going on down there with what the Army Corps is doing with that dredging. I think that's all I had for that part. Housing Foundation is great. We just had our inaugural event. We had a little breakfast meeting. How is this going to go? Simmer down. We do have the website has launched and we are doing a, it's called Castles for the Cause and it's kind of a cool thing. So we've been walking up in the beach seeing sand castles built so Donna had this great idea to do a, we're doing a fundraiser so it's a photograph a photograph competition. You can go on the website. It's darefoundation.org, darehousingfoundation.org, sorry. And there's a bunch of different, there's a couple different levels. It's just a fun contest to kind of bring awareness to what's happening there. In fishing, and I mentioned this at the coalition, they've put out this survey to commercial fishermen that I've I talked to my husband about it last night. He's like, nobody's filling this out. No, they've all thrown it in the trash. There nobody's, he said, nobody's doing anything with it. So I'm going to see if I can get up with, um, John Nichols and see, cause I mean, I mean, maybe he can give us some insight on that a little bit of what, what they're trying to do. They are going to do an amendment, a flounder amendment five, um, Advisory panel, I did apply for that. I got a phone call that I was appointed, but I haven't gotten the email yet. So I will be ready for that one.

Fantastic.

Quick update, preschool, they are, I met with them last night. Bobby listened in and helped us out on answering some questions. But they're kind of working towards that. They're establishing a nonprofit. So more to come in the future, I hope, on that. But as Bobby mentioned last night, I think this is, apparently there's a Kitty Hawk. or Kill Devil Hills is also looking at, you know, trying to solve this issue in some way. So we'll see.

Not in towns. There's a group of mothers up there that have the same problem that they're having in Harris.

That's all I got.

All right. Thank you, Commissioner. Bobby, we need a closed session. Would you like to read that?

I need a closed session pursuant to HCGS 143.318.11.83 to consult with the attorney employed or retained by the county in order to preserve the attorney-client privilege and pursuant to 143.318.11.85 to instruct the county staff or negotiating agents concerning the position to be taken by or on behalf of the county in negotiating the price of other material terms of a contract, proposed contract, for the acquisition of real property along Driftwood Drive.

Motion to go into closed session? Motion. Second. Vice Chair, seconded by Commissioner Bateman. Any further discussion? Hearing none, those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, like signed. Motion carries unanimously. The commissioner is meeting back to order and turn it over to the county manager.

In the closed session, the board gave the county attorney direction And we talked about two real estate matters, and we'll talk about them right now. One is I need a motion for you to authorize me to enter into a lease with the airport authority for that lease that we swapped for the old Hilo house that we had before. Okay. Is there a prayer?

Second. All right. It's a motion on the floor by Commissioner Bateman. It's a seconded by the Vice Chair. Any further discussion? Hearing none, those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, like signed. Motion carries unanimous.

And then by the county pumps, there's an easement that runs back to the Kellogg Supply property. And I need a motion that authorizes us to grant an easement to the property owner that owns the land at the end of that easement in return for him granting us his rights in the property that adjoins our buildings and ground site where it connects at Driftwood Drive. So we would do a swap there, and that swap would be subject to the new property owner and Kellogg Supply working out an agreement with regard to maintaining the easement that we've given both of them.

Motion to approve. Okay, there's a motion on the floor to approve by the Vice Chair. Is there a second? Second. Second by Commissioner Bateman, I mean, Valance. Any further discussion? Hearing none, those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, like signed. Motion carries unanimously. There's no other action. Thank you, County Managers. I need a motion to adjourn until 9 a.m. on July the 7th. So moved. Vice Chair, is there a second? Second. Second by Commissioner Burris. Any further discussion? Hearing none, those in favor signify by saying aye. Opposed, like sign. Motion carries unanimously.