Council - Regular Meeting

Heavenly Father, we just thank you for this beautiful day, and we just ask you to be with us during this meeting and just lead and guide us and give us your wisdom and knowledge in making the right decisions for all of our citizens. In your name we pray. Amen.

Amen.

The first item on our agenda is the approval of minutes.

We didn't have any minutes this morning. Oh, that's right.

We sure didn't. Sorry. Any public, no one signed up for public comments. So we'll just move on with our old business. And the first item is the SOAR AIA review. Randy?

We'll turn it over to Mike Tolson. Hey, Mike.

We're glad to have you.

Good morning. Good to be back. Good to see all of you. I like these morning meetings. These are awesome. They are. So I appreciate you guys letting me come before you today. And what you have in your packet is likely a copy of the original AIA that we did. What we have been working on for the past few months is an appendix to that AIA which is your AIA is sort of a living document that you update and keep going on things. This most recent version or this work that we've done was basically closed circuit TV inspection of several parts of the sewer and for one in Regency Estates and that And that subdivision, because that's some older, what we call vitrified clay sewer, terracotta pipe, which is prone to cracking and breaking and things like that. And then other portions of the system that in general would need to be looked at for possible relining. and maybe replacement if the defects are bad enough. What we found is in review of the video, what the guy does is we get a contractor to come out, they have a camera crew that they literally put a camera down in the sewer, they clean the line, jet it, and then they run a camera down and then we inspect that video to see what kind of defects there are in the mains. Luckily in Regency, considering that that is 1970s, early 80s sewer that's been put in, so it's approaching 50 years old and has historically been a very crack prone, root intrusion, lots of joints, infiltration type material has proven to be problematic at best when it comes to longevity and being a useful and reliable material. It's a good material. I don't want to sound like I'm trying to shoot it down, but it just comes with problems, especially in the soils we have in eastern North Carolina. We videoed that, looked at it. Not so many dislocated joints. Not so many bad breaks or anything. A lot of root intrusion, which if there's roots getting into it, that means that water is getting into it as well for infiltration. Which is one of the things that points us to the next step, which is recommending that you line those segments. and renew them. Nothing structurally wrong, nothing wrong enough to be needing a lot of point repair, but we do have some protruding taps, some defects that are, hey, this portion just broke at the manhole, it needs to be repaired. Little things that are not massive defects, not things that are costing you money today, but there are things that long-term, they're going to be larger failures and things to worry about. The main portion that that we've done was over in Regency, but we've done about 25,000 feet of sewer, which is only about 10 to 12% of the existing vitrified clay that you have in your system. So you have it all over town because that was just a very prominent material back in the 60s and 70s when the majority of your system was installed. You know, since then it's been more plastic and ductile iron and larger diameter pipes as well. But what we found was overall, We automatically rate vitrified clay as poor condition because of just, it's got a joint every four feet, which means that it's got a potential failure point every four feet. Modern materials that you put in are 18 to 20 foot joint lengths, which means there's five less joints per section of pipe, less leaking, less potential for leaking, less deflection, less things that can go wrong over time. And at the general recommended manufacturer recommendations, the service life of vitrified clay is around 50 to 75 years. They claim, I've never seen any get that far. I've seen it falling apart in sandier soils where it shifts a little bit more. You've got a lot of deflection at joints and things like that. I would expect that some of the That's some of the youngest vitrified clay in Regency that we did. You've got some older stuff that's near railroad tracks that get a little bit more consolidation in the dirt around them, a little bit more disturbed and everything like that. We would expect to find some more defects. Not necessarily in any of the stuff we've seen in the video, but we automatically score vitrified clay as poor because it needs to be high on the list for priority for relining simply because of the joints, the defects, and it's just at the end of its service life if it's in existence today. bottom line is that's what the ratings are but it doesn't indicate that you have imminent failure in your system or anything it's just we market that way so that it is a candidate for you to be able to go and request funds from the state to further do more lining and more find and fix type projects so that if you were going to prioritize lining in a lining project we would say go hit the VCP first because those are the defects we found. That said, the general condition of it is in what we call good to fair and it would be in that range, but just the sheer volume of VCP that you have in the system is a candidate for a massive lining program. So we've updated the with projects that are pertinent to the actual video that we took. And those are going to be projects that are concentrating on putting clean outs in at the right of way, which you don't have a ton of that wasn't the standard practice back in the day. when a lot of this was put in so that you have a point of service for the town to go and point to and say this side of the main is yours, this side of the main is mine, we clean to here and from here out is the plumber from the clean out to the house. And it typically helps delineate a point of responsibility so that The town is standing on solid ground inside the right of way and up to a point. And it gives you sort of a maintenance delineation of where you need to kind of, okay, we got to fix this or we got to fix that sort of thing. One of those, that's one of the main initiatives. Another is to line manholes, which you guys have an ongoing project that is working very well from my understanding of ceiling manholes and getting a lot of the infiltration that you found in the older style brick manholes and older concrete style manholes that are just leaking at every joint. And then on top of that the aligning project that would be what I would consider ongoing and just Similar to your manhole sealing project, just an initiative every year to have a certain amount of budget to just start lining what you find as defective lines. The video that we've done with this will help kind of prioritize and put on top of that list, hey, go to these segments first, fix this, fix these. Here are the point repairs that need to be done as part of that project, but it helps to feed into another project. to where you focus your lining investment and doing that to get these system assets to last as long as they possibly can. There's no reason that the VCP won't last you 50 more years, but with lining it could even perpetuate past that and fix problems that aren't structural and just get I&I down, which is certainly a plague on the system sort of thing that you deal with that is one of those I always call it death by a thousand cuts. You've got a little leak here, a little leak here. Will a thousand little leaks add up to a real big leak and amount to something significant in your meter at the end of the month? So with that said, that's the general recommendations that we have. There'll be a little bit more detailed fleshed out appendix in the final report we wind up getting to you, but part of the process to get the funding agency to release the funds to pay for the study and everything else is to present these findings. And that is the overwhelming approach to what we've seen in sewer, the sewer CCTV that we did for the system. Overall, good shape, good condition, surprisingly good condition. uh the even the root masses we found weren't that bad uh they but they you expect them and you can see them but they're at the services where there's a knocked a hole in a pipe and put a service in and there's you know not necessarily filled back in with uh caulk and and and done you know over time those things just begin to leak and deteriorate so that's what we've got going on and roots are going to find a path to water there's just no doubt about it so and they're going to find a place in nutrient-rich sewer so that said I am happy to take questions that's the general gist of what our appendix report is but the majority of the funds in this project were to go to CCTV, which is a subcontractor that comes in, is considered engineering services and to give you the report on what they found in the footage that we were able to cover.

I know we can slip line all the minor leaks and joints and stuff. How do we go about clearing out root intrusions?

So, slip lining will take care of a lot of that, but also you have a root, well, you run what's called a root cutter through, and when you high pressure clean, they run a root cutter head through that will, little bit more invasive cut, but it cuts the roots out. The roots are gonna come back. And then you typically can chemical treat It's a foaming water chemical that you put in that it foams up and kills them, sort of like round-upping the lines from inside. But then what you typically would try to do at a joint, when I line a line and I've removed that joint from exposure, it's not a problem anymore. You still have issues at surfaces that may be intruding, but one or two of those is not a problem. not gonna stop the whole sewer system. If I have five root balls in a subdivision or 10 root balls in a subdivision, I would root cut them out and then just keep an eye on them and come back and have a routine maintenance schedule that would come back and get them. Because they're not necessarily going to they're not going to cause more defects or anything like that if you keep them at bay. You can get them all, but you can certainly get the worst ones at joints, line over them, and then at the services just know that you need to, you know, probably keep an eye on them and do some video in the future. You're supposed to come back and kind of routine clean them every year, any every couple of years anyway. You typically are supposed to do 10% of your system a year, which is a lot of footage in in a town this size with a system this size. So you would get a good look at them once every 10 years. Those lines probably haven't been looked at in 50 years since they were put in. So Not so bad considering that we didn't see roots that were clogging up the pipes and everything else. What you wind up running into is just routine maintenance. You'll have a blockage that somebody will call and they'll jet the line and that'll clear them out and you'll be in good shape. You'll see the roots come through and the debris that comes through from cleaning up. But you normally line through them. You could replace the services with new boots and everything like that that would come in. That's a more expensive option and is very invasive. Digs up the front yard and is intrusive into the service to the town and to the customer. but there's a bunch of tools in the toolbox to use to get it done. Lining is probably what I would say, and root cutting is going to be the biggest solution, the long term.

So the roots can potentially get through the new lining?

No, they cannot. The only place is, you run the lining through, it's like running the new line inside the pipe, and it cures in place, so it won't be at the joints anymore, it won't be a problem. But at the services where there's a penetration in the, you know there's a it's going to be a hole in the line where something could find its way you can replace that fitting where that service comes in put a new modern fitting that's got a little bit better um uh weather sealing out to keep water out of it but they're going to come back you just they just are and you can't help that and you know they they find it you know but luckily with good maintenance, good operations, and a good routine, you know, you stay on top of them. They're not, in and of themselves, the biggest problem you run into. Much more a problem of holes in the top of old vitrified clay pipe that, you know, the whole crack will come in and it'll just be weeping water in in high ground water situations. Much better to fix those with lining and it solves both the problems at the same time.

so just to piggyback on those two questions so they're about 50 years old the clay ones and and the lining it gives another potentially 50 years or undetermined so so the liner is a fiberglass resin impregnated fiberglass liner

that is i mean as tough as tough as nails uh it is unknown how long they last even though they are very tough it's as tough as a plastic you know pipe would be which has got a 50 to 100 year expectancy depending on it as long as the structural outside of the pipe is not in terrible condition and i've lined ones with cracked tops that are doing great today What they do is they inflate that liner and it seals up and while it cures, it's curing up against the internal wall of that pipe and kind of restoring a bit of structural integrity to the outer wall of the pipe. If you get a good inflation and cure it in place and have them, you know, you can put structural level resin in it that'll be even stronger than your typical, you know, pipeliner. But it's, I mean, it's a very, very strong product that I don't see why it would be 50 to 100 years of use. That's their intended service life and what the manufacturer claims it can do. As long as the overall integrity of the structure of the pipe around it is good, you shouldn't have any problem with it. And with routine cleaning, no, you know, barring any bad defects, bad pipe, you know, bad pipe intrusion. But, you know, we should have seen most of that in the videos and are fixing that as part of the project that will come from this.

And one last question. You said it, and I'm not sure, I wrote it down, I wasn't sure what you said, but so we don't have, every house does not have a point of where the change from the us to them is? No, sir. Okay, I assumed it was.

That was routine. Back in the 70s, 60s, and 70s, it was, We're happy to get service to the subdivision and the clean out has become sort of the standard point of responsibility. Used to be that you could call your town public works department and they'd come up and jet all the way up to your house. Legally, that's probably not a very good idea, a little bit too much liability on the town to possibly have damaged plumbing inside of a house if you do that or anything like that, because those are very high pressure jetters that can shoot water all through your toilets into your bathroom. Better to have that demarcation, let the plumber do that and handle that with the homeowner, and that way you're handling your public side of your system versus your private side. I still have towns that will go and jet your whole line for you. And much against my advisement, but at the same time, it's just a good point to be able to stand at the right of way and say, this side's yours, that side's mine. You know, and your plumber handles that and town public works.

But do we need a policy if there's not a clean-out?

In your opinion? Anything that's installed today new would get a clean-out. If you build a new subdivision, that clean-out would be at the right-of-way and it would be marked on the drawings that come in that say town's point of responsibility ends here. You know, in plan review and just in the practice today. I'm sorry.

Just let me... We do have a policy in place. Okay. So there's already a policy in place and it... It is verbatim. It lays it out. The utility easement is the point of service. If you do not have a clean out, we'll provide the material and a plumber will install one on the utility easement. So there is a policy in place that we follow Meticulously. It has become the practice.

And you guys are doing that. It's just 1970s, 1960s, not necessarily the case. And a lot of the times there may be one out there. They did put them in, but they might be covered up by landscaping or rosebush or somebody came out there and didn't like that little white pipe sticking out of the ground. So there's some of that in just, hey, We may not have seen it if there was one to shoot. We shot it, but we couldn't. If we didn't go digging through Grandma's Rose Garden to go find it, if that was where we thought it was, apparently. What we do as part of our inspection in the CCTV side of things is we see where those services are coming into the main. We mark them on the plan, and so you know roughly where a clean-out should be if there is one. or at least where that service is leaving the main and going up to the house. So we try to give all that information because there's a lot of information to be pulled out of those videos. But what it does is allow you to have a little bit more when you're out in the field to say, well, that service is 100 feet from that manhole. It should be coming up somewhere in here. I don't see a clean out. We need to probably market for, hey, we'll give them a clean out to put on it if they ever have any issues kind of thing.

Any other questions? Thank you, Mike. That was very helpful.

Appreciate it. Thank you all very much. Have a great day.

You too. Do I hear a motion to approve the water waste asset inventory assessment that Mike just talked with us about with Mack and Gay and Associates has completed for our sewer system?

To approve.

Is there a second? Second. All those in favor, let it be known by saying aye. Aye. Thank you.

Appreciate it, Mike.

The next item on our agenda is Sean, the CDBG desk in our housing replacement program.

Good morning, Mayor and Council. As you know, at our May 13th meeting, we did the voting to sign all the forms for our consultant, Administrator Mr. Ben Faulkner. The Faulkner consultant sent up to the state. After reviewing the policy procedures, me and Ben both thought it would be a smart idea to add a new section in. So if you turn in your packet to page, I had it. I had to fold it back in my eyes, and I knew once I moved up here, I wouldn't have it. Page number 89, section F. We're adding in a new standard called Municipal Account Standing Requirements. So anybody that wants to be eligible and a participant in the CDBG program must be up current with their taxes and any water bill accounts owed to the town. We have had some participants when we started doing research that were not and the state said that makes them uneligible so we wanted to go in and add that section to our policy procedures to let people know that if you're participating and once you agree you must stay current with all of your assets to the town so that's what we have mayor we would like a vote of recommendation to approve this so that the mayor can sign to update the policy procedures and then can forward us up to these states

A couple questions.

Okay. Yes, sir.

So what does good standing mean? Is it is there an agreement for past due being paid or is it or is it current like they owe zero or we won't current?

Oh, zero. If there's any past bills that are outstanding, you're on a payment plan and you're having a good faith by showing that you're making payments every month. So we have told some people on the program if you do owe and you'll get on a payment plan and you skip two, three months, that automatically takes you off. You have to show good faith. that you're making a payment.

How long does the payment plan have to be in place?

Until the bill is paid off.

No, I mean prior to them getting the grant.

Oh, we want everything paid off before you get the grant. So before we go to your house and begin the demolition work, we want everything paid off to the town. We want you to walk, the object of the program is when you get the new house and you walk into this program, your debt that you owe the town is cleared and you have showed the town and the staff that you're able to maintain your bills, keep them paid on a just a timely matter so that we know that you are eligible to maintain this house. Because of course, when we build the new house, the taxes will go up because it's a brand new house and a new tax value versus the former house that you had.

Does that knock a lot of people off the list?

It does not. We only had one person that we had to send a letter to let them know that due to talking with the state and some other issues this person had, we can't make them as a participant anymore.

Can they reapply for the next round?

They can. That's what we put in the letter after we talked with the state, with Mr. Lorenzo and Cynthia up there, that this person will be able to reapply once the town applies again for another CDBG grant. If, once again, everything is satisfied to the town of what you owe. Okay.

Thank you, Sean.

Yes, ma'am, Mayor.

Do I hear a motion to approve the additional requirement for participation in the town's community development block grant neighborhood revitalization housing replacement program that participants affirm they're in good standing with the town and have the financial ability to maintain to the program's ongoing obligation?

So moved.

Is there a second? Second. All those in favor, let it be known by saying aye. Aye. The next item on our agenda is Jason with the bulk item collection.

morning mayor council i apologize for not being at this the last meeting but i'm gonna make up for it today i promise um so last meeting i if my memory serves me correct by watching it we did not pass the rate so we're here to talk about the rates correct correct So we had proposed changing some stuff with our bulk pickup going from every Friday to the first Friday of every month with the potential of a quarterly or biannual bulk pickup, mass pickup type thing. so hearing from council um i've kind of revamped it just a little bit now the we have the same 25 and 50 dollar we've done away with whole house cleanup and talking with randy and sean if we do have a whole house cleanup we're going to recommend that they seek a contractor or a top dog or someone like that to come and set up a dumpster and pick it up So tier one will be $25. Again, tier two would be $50. Tier one is greater or tier one is less than two cubic yards. Tier two is greater than two cubic yards. If you look on your packet on page 98, I've given you a demonstration that's about a two cubic yard dumpster. The cone and the person is kind of a reference. Obviously, if you have a whole couch, a whole bedroom suit, a big recliner, love seat, that's probably going to automatically be a tier two, but just some little toys or some small things obviously is a tier one so that gives us a good reference point to go by for that also instead of doing a five dollar per tv we were looking at doing a 15 cent per month increase to the utility bill with that being marked just for the electronics pickup That way everybody's paying it, everybody's getting the service. It makes it extremely easy and simplicity on us. We just go and pick up the items and we dispose of it. Looking at the 15 cent per utility bill per month, we should be able to get a rider truck to come in and pick up all the electronic waste one time a year. And then all that's doing is just covering our expenses. And again, that money will be put into account and that'll be the sole purpose of that account is to pay for the proper disposal of this.

That will be applied to everybody. Yeah, correct.

Yes, sir.

Be $1.80 a year.

And then if it's out there, the citizens will call town hall, let them know and we'll swing by and pick it up on the first Friday of every month.

Do we not just want to lump electronics into bulk pickup where you have to schedule it and it's $25?

$25 is a big ass to go pick up one TV where this minimal fee, average citizens probably not going to notice a 15 cent increase on the bill and that's going to cover and it's just going to be a running benefit to every citizen of the town now. No more worrying about carrying it to Nash County or anywhere else. And then it could be any electronics. So if you have a TV today, a computer monitor, or an old laptop or something like that, we'll swing by and pick it up. If we lump that into $25 per TV, unfortunately if lightning strikes and you have two or three TVs go out, that could get it costly.

And then what is the process for the electronic where you put it out?

So you would just let Town Hall know. We would come by on the first Friday of every month. We would pick it up. We would put it down there at what we call the dog pound. We put pallets. Then we'll store that. Once we have seven or eight pallets, we'll call the disposal company. They'll come. They'll load it up, and we'll pay the fee out of this account.

I'm going to ask a question you may not know. What's the percentage of people that actually have bulk pickup? Do we have a figure on that?

It varies. It could be a lot or it could be a little. It just varies depending on the time of the year. Normally we see it on like your spring cleaning and your fall cleaning as people are getting rid of stuff. That's one reason why we're kind of proposing if we want to do a spring clean and a fall clean, then that would help the citizens as far as cost goes. You know you're going to clean it out in the spring and in the fall. We'll go around and pick that up at no cost. but you know for the average person it just depends i've seen anything from a lamp lamp on the side of the road a mirror to i mean a whole house so it just depends on the citizens and when they decide are we including that two time a year thing in this i must have no it's not included correct this is mainly just the fees

What we'd like to do is see how the once a month bulk pickup goes. And if we don't have a mountain of stuff to pick up, we just continue with once a month you call ahead and we come get it. If it needs to be, we can always entertain having a spring or fall cleanup day. There are concerns, pros and cons, with virtually everything. Cleanup days, having been in towns that had them in the past, uh they're very popular and uh residents and their relatives and friends who don't live in town you will have some of that a lot importing of stuff for cleanup day but a lot of it a lot of the material that's put out is Somebody goes through it. It's a recycling event. You know, anything metal, the scrappers get. And people who like to go to rummages and flea markets, they like to go through and see what they can find, too. So by the time the guys actually get there, about half the volume is gone from what was originally set out. The other drawback is some people start a month ahead putting stuff out. And then it's at the curb for the whole month and subject to everybody rooting through it and the wind blowing it away. So we just like to start with going with our bulk pickup once a month and see how that works out. And then we can bring it back and report to the council and let you know how it's going.

I don't have a problem with what we're trying to do as far as saving man hours and wear and tear on the vehicle. I do have a concern that we go from once a week picked up to once a month picture. I don't want the time to start looking like a trash trash pile throughout town. Uh, you said we could go back and revisit. How soon can we go back and revisit this if it does not work out the way we plan for it to?

I would say 60 days. Give it two months. If we see that it's not going favorable, then we can always look at adjusting it. Per the town policy right now, the public works director has the ability to adjust the schedules. So we can adjust it, see how it goes. If there is concerns, we can always go back and revisit it. I mean, we could go back and revisit it and maybe do it twice a month, sort of like what I'm proposing with the leaf machine or the yard waste.

That was what I was leaning toward rather than going from from four times a month to one, let's try two and see how two times a month would work before we go to the far extreme as to once a month.

And if that's what the council desires, I'm all for that. Just looking to try and reduce some man hours and repurpose those for other projects.

I understand that.

I'm on board with that, but I just... Well, it looks like maybe we could at least try it for 60 days just to see if we can change it.

And then go to two and see how that works for 60 days. And then if that doesn't work.

If we can go back to two immediately if it comes out to be a problem, I can understand that.

We need to communicate. And the problem is nobody reads anything, so it's hard to communicate.

You're right. Everybody's going to say, I didn't know we went to once a month.

Yeah, all this will be put in with the July utility bill, whatever the council decides today on these three programs. So it'll at least get into the hands of every household in town that potentially could use this service. And we won't know how it works until we try it.

Well, what is the reality of the current situation? If you can't get to every place with the bulk pickup on a Friday, does it just wait until the next Friday?

We get to every, you get to everything on Fridays, normally about half a day, a little bit less than half a day. And then we're doing other, we're maintaining garbage trucks, greasing them, adding hydraulic fluid as needed, repairing garbage bins, replacing some garbage bins. So we have other other tasks. We're just trying to streamline the process so we can

One time instead of four, you're going to be working more than you were before.

Correct. And my projection is that on Friday, the first Friday of every month, that's going to be a bulk pickup route. We're going to do it in a full eight-hour day with two guys. But then that leaves me the second, third, and fourth Friday to deliver new trash cans, work on old trash cans, do litter pickup, do some other projects that we've not been doing because we've been so strapped for manpower.

Sounds good. Do I hear a motion to approve a change?

I just want to add that from the finance department that we get the call first. And so when they call, we make sure they know, do not put it out until this day. This is the date they'll be picked up. So we will handle that part on the front end as far as you're concerned.

Except some people call after they put it out to the court. I've never called.

I put it out there. I never called, and they pick it up.

They're not going to go back to the street and pull it back into the yard.

I think you're great because I put out I never call and it's gone so I don't know if somebody gets it or if they get it. We provide excellent customer service. There you go. So do I hear a motion to approve a change in the collection of residential but refuge items from

every Friday about forward to the first Friday of each month by former with a two-tier fee schedule $25 for the items that have a volume up to cubic feet in size and $50 for items that have a volume larger than two cubic feet in size and we'll try it for 60 days and it doesn't work we're going to revisit do I hear a motion and you need to include the 15 cent per month well that's the next item that's the next item I'm sorry okay

I'll make a motion when we include the 60-day revisit.

Second. All those in favor, let it be known by saying aye. Aye. The next item on our agenda is the yard waste. He said aye.

Are we going to do the 15 cents?

Do we vote separately on the 15 cents? Yes, yes.

We've got three separate items.

The 15 cents is the third thing he gets to, though, isn't it? Correct. Okay, that's what I thought. Okay, Jason, yard waste collection. Yes, ma'am.

So again, what I have proposed is to change our yard waste pickup from currently we're doing it every week. So we have a three man crew that is working approximately 180 man hours a month picking up yard waste. And one thing that I have proposed is to cut that to the first and the third Friday of the month. It just gives us more manpower. Some of the things that we can do with the extra 90 hours is paving and concrete repairs, fixing pavement issues, utility cuts and sidewalk spots, traffic safety, painting crosswalks that are bright and visible, replacing faded and damaged signs. Stormwater issues is a big thing for us. Cleaning and cutting the ditches so the water can actually flow. adequately flow to keep the roads from flooding and heavy rains. Town cleanup is keeping the routine sweeper routes, mowing and running regular litter pickup and sweeps, pruning tree limbs, edging curbs, and keeping public spaces looking sharp. And community events, handling setup and logistics and cleaning for the Blooming Festival, hanging seasonal flags, and knocking out daily work orders. as well as the watering of all of our beautiful flower baskets. So those are some of the things that we can do. One of the things why this makes sense to me is there's no extra hiring. We're not asking for any tax increase. We're still going to provide excellent services, but we're just going to do it on the first and third instead of every week running that three-man route. And I presented all of y'all kind of a proposal on what I feel is necessary for us to keep moving.

Do I hear any questions? Does anyone have any questions? If not, do I hear a motion to approve the curbside's collection of residential yard waste the first and the third weeks of the month?

I think this is another one that we might want to revisit after a period of time. I just foresee when it's like, you know, fall time, leaves everywhere, it might be an issue with piles that are sitting out there for a long time. Same with brass clippings over the summer. So we might want to shift it so that maybe there's like four months where we do one-time collection during those times that it's really not necessary. And then for those high times, continue.

Yes, ma'am. Councilman Barnes, so me and Brent have kind of, and Chad as well, have kind of discussed this. We see that during the fall when we have peak leaf season, that we'll probably be running that leaf machine weekly. So we'll probably have to continue running that weekly. But as far as your chipping and your limb hauling, we would like to keep that on the first and third week. But obviously, if we can't get to everybody in that week, then we're going to continue and go into the second week. We have that problem now. We don't get through the whole route on a Monday, Wednesday and Friday on the leaves. So Brent is essentially continually running the leaf machine just to keep up. So we're going to continue doing that.

That's good common sense. Okay, do I hear a motion to approve the curbside collection of residential yard waste the first and the third weeks of the month?

me is there a second second all those in favor let it be known by saying aye all right and i presume the report for the yard weight or the the garbage the bulk pickup i'll have some some details in 60 days about the yard waste as well thank you thank you okay jason electronic device pickup Correct, Mayor and Council. We've already kind of talked about this before. We're proposing adding 15 cents instead of what the previous proposal was, was $5 per device. That way it'll streamline the process. It offers the benefit to every citizen that's in Nashville. You'll put it out. You'll call Town Hall on the first Friday of every month. We'll come and pick it up. It wouldn't be no exchange of money, no making sure we collect it before we pick it up and so on and so forth.

I think that's good. There's no more than a soft drink or a bottle of water. Correct.

And those funds, again, will be sent into an account, and that account will just be used for the proper disposal of electronic waste.

Do I hear a motion to approve the new curbside electronic device pickup service for the town, the first private each month, that collects and recycles electronic devices with a new $0.15 monthly fee on sanitation customers' monthly utility bill?

So moved.

Second? Second. All those in favor let it be known by saying aye. Aye. Thank you, Mayor and Council. Thank you. Thank you. And tell your crew we appreciate all they do today. Yes, ma'am.

For sure.

The next item on our agenda is the FY27 fee schedule. Randy?

Mayor and Council, at the June 2nd Council meeting, the Council tabled adopting the FY27 fee schedule. for town services and utilities give extra time to establish a fee for the town's new curbside pickup of discarded electronic devices and for clarification on volumes for bulk item pickup and for additional discussion on reduced curbside yard waste collection. So having had that discussion with some decisions made here today regarding those, we do have the proposed fee schedule for the FY27 fiscal year coming up, and it's in the packet there. Anything in yellow is something that has been adjusted, or in most all cases, increased, including on page 105, the electronic device pickup at 15 cents per utility account per month, and then the two-tier bulk item pickup with $25 and $50.

Any questions about this fee schedule?

Randy, if we go back to page 104, except for the bottom section, all these increases at the top, did we use a percentage of an increase for each one of them? We did. Arbitrarily. What percent did we use?

It was the 15%.

Everything is a 15% increase?

Yes. Yeah, like for a 5.8 water meter, the base fee is going from $19 to $21.85. Again, everything in yellow there has been increased.

We didn't choose this 15% rate based on our counterpart's 15% levy on us.

Well, in part we did. I mean, again, this was part of that analysis that the School of Government did our water and sewer rate study. And we came up with their help on what our rates needed to be to continue to allow us to provide all the water and sewer service we do, plus pay the wholesale water costs and the wholesale sewer expenses with the city of Rocky Mount.

So this is a direct result of the increase in Rocky Mountain. Yes.

And in our rate study.

Any other questions? If not, do I hear a motion to approve FY27 fee schedule set in the town's fee services and utilities for fiscal year beginning July 1st, 2026 and ending June 30th, 2027. Motion to approve. Is there a second? Second.

What's your solution?

From what I've seen, I don't have a solution. I really don't have a solution, but I hate that we're falling into the grasp of what

Oh, no, I agree. But if we don't do this, then we go into the red.

I know we do, but don't type this in the paper, but it's a damn shame that we have been pushed into this corner. And I just refuse to let them mandate what we have to do here in the town of Nashville.

Okay, thank you. The next item on our agenda is the Regency Lift Station Abandonment Project. Randy?

Yes, Mayor and Council, if you will recall, the town was awarded a $959,752 grant from Congressman Don Davis. Originally, it was for the Essex Road and Regent CSA sewer extension projects. However, we got state funding for those two projects, so then we put in a request to repurpose this $999,000 959,000 for the Regency Lift Station Abandonment Project, and that was approved. So going forward now, we need to select a project engineer for that project. So we followed the many books requirement, and we did a request for proposals, or request for qualifications. We had three engineering companies submit proposals, For that, myself, Jason, and Chad then reviewed those requests for qualifications and scored them. And based on that score, according to the Minnie Brooks Act, you're supposed to select the most qualified professional who submitted a proposal for your project. So we determined that Wooten Company was the most qualified to do this project for us, and then we negotiated a contract. And what we have here before the council today is a contract with the Wooten Company to engineer that project and to help oversee that $959,000 grant. And the total cost on that contract is $218,200. And it's less than the original engineer's cost estimate for engineering and grant administration by about $30,000. If that makes you feel any better.

I'm glad to see it's getting that fixed, though. They've been waiting a long time. To approve 218, do I hear a motion to approve $218,200 engineering and grant administration agreement with the Wooten Company for the Regency Lift Station abandonment project.

So moved.

Second? Second. All those in favor, let it be known by saying aye.

Aye.

The next item on our agenda is additional downtown trash receptacles.

Good morning once again Mayor and Council. At the April 28th MSD meeting, the MSD advisory board asked me to look into some new products that we could buy for our downtown for regarding with benches, trash cans, and dog way stations. We were able to reach out to Barco Products and they were able to send us a few items for them to scan through and look at. The items we looked at they have selected were six six foot gateway aluminum benches eight gateway trash receptacles to match those benches, and three dogway stations to situate in the downtown, one by the Nashville Junction, one by Barnes Street, and one on Body Street by Parks and Rec, so that we can have the guys on Friday go by and dump them. So if you turn over to page 133 in your packet, you will see the total cost the MSD is asking for you guys to approve and use MSD funding to buy 13,925.18. And on page 135 is a dogway station. It will get the sign and it will be black and white to match the benches and the trash receptions on 136. The MSD is asking the board of town council to approve allotting 13,000 92518, MSD funding to utilize to buy these things on July 1st while we have a discount.

I am just so excited to see them spending money to make our downtown such a more attractive and nicer areas. So let them know how much we appreciate it.

I definitely will send it.

And the benches and the trash receptacles I think have been talked about for the last eight years.

This is definitely a necessity. That's exciting. So do I hear a motion to approve the Nashville downtown strong advisory board in recommending the purchase and placement of six park benches, eight trash receptacles and three dog waste stations in the downtown

municipal service district with budgeted msd funds let me add one other thing yes since they are doing that the benches that we already have downtown yes sir i've noticed several of them we need to go by and repaint those benches they look they're half black and half raw iron and they look terrible

probably what we'll do councilman taylor is the new ones we'll put those where the old ones at and i can get with uh department full of words director jason glover to see one day when his guys have some free time if they can paint them and just situate them in other places throughout the msd well you don't need to take them up i mean and put a new one down just paint the one that we got but there's nothing structurally wrong with them they're just the paint's just peeling we gotta get rid of that three-legged one on the street so you know the main part make it look pretty Right.

We'll take care of it. We'll make sure that happens. I don't see going through man hours to pull one up just to put the same thing back down.

Just paint that one and take these new ones and put them where you want to put them. Yes, sir. I'll take care of it.

The next item is additional downtown Christmas decorations, Sean.

Once again, MSD, during their work session, had a discussion on buying additional Christmas decorations for the MSD downtown area. Their vision is to have it not only on Washington Street, but try to carry them down Barnes and Boddy Street. if Duke Energy were able to get the utility poles fixed. The MSD has found three of these items that they like. The illuminated Christmas wreath, the bells and bow, and the holly and canes. They're all on page number 141 of your packet and 143. We will be working once again with Moscow Design who came that evening to show us how it would look. Moscow Design will be able to match these up to what we already have now with the warm white lights. So they are looking at wanting to spend $10,898.54 of MSD funding to buy 12 items, which would be three of everything, four of everything, excuse me, four of everything.

And you said... We already have working utilities for these, or we're waiting on working utilities for some of these?

We're waiting on working utilities, and MSD has tasked Time Manager Lansing and myself to pretty much stay on Duke Energy about getting these utilities fixed. Some of these poles are operating to go, but there's still some lagging they have not done.

And that's been like two years now that we've been waiting, right?

Yes, and I talked with him.

Three years.

We're not the longest. I talked with a city outside of Charlotte. The parks were written over there being met at the class in UNC Chapel Hill. He's been waiting five years.

It's a shame you can't stop payment when there's a failure to ask.

So how many do we still have inofferable on Main Street?

Right.

It's just they got last year.

They got a bunch of like three, one or three or four.

So we still got three in front of my house works. They couldn't get it.

Three that we've been working on for the last four years.

The gentleman with the company was selling his items to us, recommended we put a stent course to the house. That's not from us. That's not from us.

Maybe what we have to do.

So they're going to make sure that these new ones blend in with what we have and it's not going to look like hodgepodge.

No, it's going to be the warm white lights that we have now and the warm white design that they did for the snowflakes and the other items we have. So they're going to make sure everything matches up nice before they ship it out.

We're just extending. Right.

And what we're going to be doing at MSD is every pole will be a different design. Snowflake at one, holly and cane at the next one, rebuild and repeat.

I just hate that some of these might be sitting in storage for the next couple of years.

We just don't have working poles.

We're just going to have to get poles working. We'll still put them out for daytime. But again, it's exciting to see them spend their money to help our town be beautified. Great group. Do I hear a motion to approve the National Downtown Strong Advisory Board's recommendation to purchase the 12 additional Christmas decoration lights for placement in the Townsville Municipal Service District?

I move to approve.

Second. All those in favor, let it be known by saying aye.

Aye.

The next item is the stop sign ordinance. Randy?

Mayor and council, we recently had one of our police officers, Officer Peel, went out and did a stop sign inventory and compared it to the list of stop signs that are in our town ordinance. I did review this with RASP before, and he advised that, yes, we still need to maintain an active list in our ordinance, in our code of ordinances, where the stop signs are. So Peel went out and did the inventory. We knew in the new subdivisions, Harvest Creek and Cardinal Woods, that those stop signs weren't in there. But there were others that were missing, and some streets don't... Don't even open anymore anyway with his help we were able to come up with the stop signs ordinance and making changes the the first section of that ordinance there are about About nine Intersections that have a stop sign with the removal of the sign at the following intersections and And the reason for the removal is there, you know, one of them is now a roundabout. That's that one out there at Regency and Eastern Avenue. There was one listed in there twice, in the list twice. Cross Street at West Body doesn't stop anymore. We pulled that one out. And... Well, again, the various reasons are there. A majority of those had to do with parts of Drake and Elm Street being closed for the jail expansion. So that is just some changes, corrections on the names. The intersection of each Richardson Court, and it said North Cedar was actually Elm Street. And the same with Thorn Street, it's actually Elm Street. And Indian Trail, it had Red Oak Road Highway, Indian Trail doesn't intersect with Red Oak, it intersects with First Street Extension. So just correcting those. And then the third section of that ordinance is all the stop signs that are out in the field but weren't in our ordinance. So it adds all those to our ordinance.

That's a complete list or supposed to be a list.

No, this is just what we're changing. Oh, okay. Cause I think there's several. Okay. Yeah. The complete list and the ordinance is like four pages long and you know, there's still probably something out there. If you go look, you can find one that just isn't quite as it should be. But this gets us much, much closer.

Oh, any questions? If not, do I hear a motion to approve ordinance 2026-19, adding, removing, and correcting the number of stop signs listed in section 36-33B, stop signs at three street intersections of the Nashville code of ordinance. Do I hear a motion?

Motion to approve. Second?

Second. All those in favor, let me know by saying aye. Aye. The next item on our agenda is the financial management internal controls policy.

Mayor and Council, we had an audit on some of our ARPA grant money. You know, the asset inventory assessments that Mike Tolson was talking about is one of those grants in addition to another. And as we were going through that with Paige Hufford, with the state, we need to have a fiscal or a financial assessment financial management and internal controls policy. What we have wasn't sufficient. She reviewed it. She gave us some ideas. We took a stab at it. We sent it back to her thinking we nailed it. We didn't quite nail it. So I'm going to ask the council to table this. Tressa put together a revised one yesterday. We just got through it. We didn't have a chance to get it into your hands. It's not a simple two-page one anymore. Naturally, to comply. But we'll have this back on the July 22nd council meeting for the council to approve.

Do I hear a motion to table this item on our agenda?

Move to table.

Is there a second?

Second.

All those in favor, let it be known by saying aye. Thank you. Budget Amendment 22, Tressa.

Budget Amendment number 22 recognizes the receipt of the lease vehicle lease police vehicles purchased during fiscal year 26 to record the associate lease financing and capital assets acquisitions. This amendment is necessary to properly account for the lease vehicles and related financial activity. In accordance to the budgetary and accounting requirements, budget amendment 22 increases revenues and expenditures expenses by $130,000 for FY26. Any questions?

If not, do I hear a motion to approve budget Amendment number 22, increasing FY26 general fund revenues and expenses $130,000 for the police department's leased vehicles.

Move to approve.

Second. Second. All those in favor, let me know by saying aye. Aye. Next, budget amendment 23. Budget amendment number 23 on October 22nd, 2025.

Council approved the change order 1 and 2 for the JW Global Park project. Budget amendment number 23 covers the additional cost and the change order totaling $24,000. Budget amendment 23 increases FY26 revenues and expenditures by $24,000.

Any questions? If not, do I hear a motion to approve budget amendment number 23. Increase in FY26 general fund revenues and expenses by $24,000 for approved change orders to the Global Park Improvement Project.

So moved.

Second. All those in favor let me know by saying aye. Aye. Budget amendment number 24.

Okay, budget amendment number 24 amends the fiscal year 26 budget to recognize additional revenue and transfers between departments to adequately reflect actual END OF YEAR FINANCIAL ACTIVITIES. EVERYBODY SHOULD HAVE A COPY. YEAH. OH. AND JUST FROM THE VERY START, WE SOLD PROPERTY. WE PURCHASED PROPERTY. SO WE JUST RECOGNIZED REVENUE THAT WE DID NOT ANTICIPATE ON GETTING. SO THIS IS ALL ADDITIONAL REVENUE. AND RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE SECTION IS TRANSFERS BETWEEN DEPARTMENTS TO MAKE SURE THAT WE END THE YEAR If you have any questions about any of them, I can explain.

Any questions?

Move to approve.

Is there a second? Second. All those in favor, let it be known by saying aye. Aye. Is that it? Well, do you have anything else you'd like to say, Randy?

Just want to let you know, the Red Oak Road Water Project, from First Street Extension down to the new medical clinic, pressure tested. They got clean bacteria samples out of it, from it. And we'll get permission from Stocks Engineering today to open that up. And then the clinic will have water today.

When is the clinic planning on opening?

August 1st.

August 1st is when they take their first patient.

Wow.

I don't know if they're scheduling appointments yet or not.

I got some work to do between now and then.

They sure do, yes.

Councilman, do you have anything to say?

Do you have any information that you can share with us about the properties across from the medical unit?

Other than that's being logged, I mean, that property's owned by 3MR Limited Partnership, and they decided to log it. I think everybody was surprised to see how relatively flat that property is. Originally only thinking there was 20 acres developable in there. There's a good probably 45 acres that can be developed in there. No immediate plans that I know of.

I don't know how they cleared it out so fast. One day it was wood, and the next day I came by and it was cleared up. It was quick. I don't know when the trucks did it. They must have did it at night like they're paving the streets in Nashville.

Yeah, and Lou's right. Everybody's asking what's going in there. So far, no plans have been announced.

But that property's not in the town limits anyway.

Not yet.

Not yet, okay. I mean, obviously if they want that new access to that new water main, then they have to, uh, Sean, uh, my, my, my sandwich up. Is this still on board to come in?

We, uh, just, uh, completed TRC and we have turned it over to Nash County. They are satisfied with the town's review and then. Both of them spoke out of regards to the town. I passed our TRC. Was able to move to get this project coming. So they're looking forward to coming to Nashville. They don't end up very soon.

Where in Nashville?

They're going to be at the side food lines in Nashville. Very nice. So they said it's going to take a while to change views, but if they keep going at the way they're going, they'll look it up for us sometime this fall.

Good. Now be Jersey Mike's. Yes.

That would be good. Well, thank each of you for coming out. And thank you, town people, for making us look good. And we just appreciate you so much. And thank you, council.

Sorry, just for the July meeting, I just want to verify we have one. Correct. That's on the 22nd. Correct. Okay. Thank you.

Vacations galore.

If there are no other questions or input, do I hear a motion to adjourn our council meeting?

Move to adjourn.

Second. Second. All those in favor, let it be known by saying aye.

Aye.