Town Council - Regular Meeting

like to welcome everybody out to the April 13, 2026 budget workshop for department heads. The council will be seeking to go into close session pursuant to 143 31811A6 to consider the qualifications, competence, performance, character, fitness, condition of appointment or conditions of initial employment of an individual public officer or employee or prospective public officer or employee or to hear or investigate a complaint, charge or grievance by or against an individual public officer employee. Do I have a motion from the council to go into close session? I make a motion. Do I have a second? Second. Any discussion? All in favor? All right.

Do I have a motion to come out of close session? I'll make a motion we come out of close session. Do I have a second? Any discussion? All in favor? I welcome everybody out to the April 13, 2026 budget workshop for department heads. Please stand for the pledge of allegiance. 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.

Again, thank you all for coming out. There was no action coming out of close session today. Does any member of council have a conflict interest or the appearance of a conflict interest in regards to any item on the agenda? If so, please state at this time. I do not. No. All right. Moving up on approval of draft agenda. Does any member of council have any questions as far as the draft agenda goes? If not, do I have a motion to approve the draft agenda? I'll make to approve the draft agenda as submitted. Do I have a second? I I have one question. Do we have public comments on to the front? No, it's at the end. Okay, I have a second. Second. Any discussion? All in favor?

I. All right. Department head updates. Start off with the police department. Go ahead, sir.

All right. My report should be fairly short. I think the only thing we needed to cover um after we spoke in the last workshop was the computer prices that that may be inflated uh during our our July budget year. We were able to work with uh the vendor who was in contact with with the manufacturer and we're going to be able to keep the quoted price through the through the budget season. So that's uh that that's all squared away and and good to go. So the exact prices stay the same and I'm trying to find it in this exact stuff here.

I think it was 61,000 I think for all of them for the 22 Panasonic. Yes, ma'am. And then we we had an issue where storage was going up for for the hard drives uh following March, but we were able to secure the price to to to hold on through through our budget season. So So this the 61,000 is is what we're going to go with. Yes, sir. That's that's that that that price is secure. Okay. Thank you for checking on that. Yes, ma'am. Yes. I think without any more questions that's all we had at the last workshop as a anything question.

Good. Thank you. Thank you. Next up be our fire.

Hello. Hey. Good morning.

So, at the last uh budget meeting, we spoke about the uh beach signage um and specifically the signage about the uh no swimming peerto-peer. Um and I think council directed me to look at really uh all of our signage around the pier. So prepared a little presentation for you. So we'll kick that off. Um so this isn't necessarily with with with pricing, but it's just uh asking for council's direction and approval to really look at all our signage surrounding the pier. So um I'll kick this off. Uh so the first few slides are just the current We've got some kind of weird uh

battery tape.

Oh, it wasn't on. I'm sorry.

All right. So, the first thing at every access, every town on beach access, we've got very nice, very largeformational boards, which covers almost every topic that we're we're faced with. No lifeguard on duty, uh, beach rules, uh, rip current information, sea turtle information, and litter information. So, everyone that enters our beach passes this and has the opportunity to really review all the rules and regs and things like that. So, going down the beach, and this is just a enter from the public uh parking area. We've got the beach walker sign with the litter collections. We've got do not ride bikes on the beach access sign, the beach toy library, uh from the rotary out there.

That's just one spot. Yes, ma'am. Just one spot. And that's at the front access of the g uh main beach access. We've got no sitting in this area. No cabanas. No cabanas. Do you know how many we have that are like this? I'm I'm trying to figure out a number of signs as you go through this. And I'm sorry to have interrupted, but No, no problem. For the one that you're showing right now, how many do we have that are like that? Um, we have this one no sitting sign. uh the no cabanas here and I'm if I'm I'm fairly certain we've got them on 29th and 3rd as well. So three three

and I did not include anything outside the gazebo area in this presentation. Uh something new we added this year public works added restricted area to to u cover the emergency access beside the gazebo. We've got one of these on each side. So, two, we've got multiple. I don't have a good number for these, but we've got the incredible down the beach. Um, keep off the dunes.

All right. Trash can poles. We've got multiple and and there's a lot of these down the beach. Uh, no lifeguard on duty, swim at your own risk, rip current information. And then we move these signs, the nose women swimming here to pier that they're currently on the trash can poles right now on all the trash can pools. Just two. Just two. Just two. When you say you moved them, where were they before? So So we added those in the off season. So Okay. And those are just like the ones that are down at the high tide line. Correct. That's not in the pictures. Correct. Okay.

And what's the size of those? 12 in by 18 in maybe. I'm not I'm not certain. As I looked through this, I was I noticed that it was in Spanish. Mhm. Um then I thought, well, where else is it in Spanish? And when as I was looking through the the slides that you showed us prior, I didn't notice it was in Spanish anywhere else. Do we know if there are any other signs that are in Spanish or in a different language? Just these two. Thank you. And again, another photo of the cans. We've got this everywhere.

Underneath the pier, u we've got no sitting in this area that allows emergency vehicles to go pass through under the pier. This area here does get influenced by the sand. Uh Mr. Massie does clean this out occasionally and keeps that dune kind of down. So that that has been moved in the past few years and Mr. Massie has signage down the pier, no swimming within 100 foot and that's currently there in a couple of locations down the pier. Question is that Massie install those?

All right. Um moving on recommendation. Um it's my recommendation and again I'm looking for uh guidance from town council but uh maintain and obviously maintain the largeformational boards at every access uh update that when necessary. Um I'd like to eliminate some duplicate signs and some redundant signage. Um again that's mostly the no no lifeguard on duty and the rip current signage that already on theformational boards. I think that'll clean up some area out there if we do that. Um, another recommendation is um replace the existing signage we have with one uniform style design, however that may look like. But, um, either do it all at once or as we replace signage, just choose a a style of signage and go with it with the town logo, something along those lines. Choose what we need to keep. and uh go with that style. Um whenever we can add QR codes um if we do want to keep something uh on the beach. I think a lot of people have their cell phones. A lot of people utilize the QR codes. We can put a lot of information on a QR code. So that's a a good thing we can do there.

Um do you have a cost on what it would be to replace the signs? I didn't notice it in I do not. I do not. I'm I'm kind of seeking for guidance on what we what we what we want to do and then we can go hit some some um pricing for you. But you're talking every access point across the whole beach strand.

Well, that's good. That's good. I think we leave that there. I think um um if you'd like, I'll go let me let me shoot this at you and then I'll go back and and kind of talk about uh each individual signage there. So I would like to u ask you to consider uh one of these options here. So um during the last presentation we pitched the large uh no swimming signage and again uh that's still an option but it's it's it's large. Uh the options here uh original go with that original design make it smaller with a 2x4 foot sign. um that would still utilize the two poles on either side. Um just make it a touch smaller. Another option we have, and again this is with Mr. Massiey's permission, but uh update those signs that are currently on the pier. Um I've spoken to him, uh whatever we s shall choose to do, we'll go back and touch base with him, but he's very supportive on anything we want to do here with this uh safety aspect. Um and then lastly, um if the if council would like to consider the signage that's 100 foot off the pier, uh at the high tide mark, we can do a beach safety station. So, a photo of that is here, a single pole, much smaller signage. Uh we utilize life rings instead of the foam rescue device. uh installing a life ring and then um we need a Spanish type sign there, but we would utilize the flags with the uh red circle with the no swimming sign. Uh so that'll take care of that. Um I think

that would be a great idea to install a life ring at that location. Um so that's a much cheaper option. That's something we can afford to do out of this year's budget. Um, and install that. Again, that would be at 100 foot either side of the pier at the high tide mark. Is this in addition to your larger sign or two two signs are going to be up there? This would replace that. Th this would replace instead of the aluminum sign. Okay. So, we got two options there. Yes. Yes. Do you have a cost?

Um, so the the 4x4 post we keep it in house. really all we would need to buy is the sign. Uh so depending on how what we want to put on the sign again we can do that out of this current budget. I don't think it would be very much money. Is there a way to use the current signs that are out there now at the high tide mark? Because to me those signs are very sufficient. We definitely could um um because your goal is not to me the ones out there right now look very nice at the high tide with the black post and everything but your issue is the stand of it because y'all remove those. You don't leave them out there. Is that correct? That's correct. That's correct. And will you leave the flag out there and the dingy out there as well?

Yeah. The life ring would be we we typically leave the life rings out um until it gets cold. So, uh eight months out of the year and then we pull them in the winter time. So, they would be out there eight months out of the year. The flag would stay that same amount. Okay. Because I've noticed our beach flags get removed at like 3:15 to four o'clock every day. They do. This this Easter center when we leave the beach, we we take those down, right? But but if we're thinking safety, it when many people come to the beach after that and and do is is it theft the reason or the reason we don't leave the flags up because to me those are a

that's a known flag system um for beach for most people. So last year we left the flags up overnight the whole time. Uh if it was green, so a green day, we would change the flags to yellow. Uh if it was a red day, we'd obviously we'd leave them at red, but overnight we left them at yellow just for precautionary in case it changes. That's correct. Okay. Correct. But but I noticed this weekend they were removed. So is that um we're Sunday was our last day out there until May 15th. So we'll start back May 15th on that daily. Okay. So those can't remain I mean people are out there every day until now to then. So to me should we leave those out there for

we can we can leave them up. I'm asking you your opinion because to me that is something that everybody looks for and wants to know what kind of day is it in the water. Um we can leave them up. No problem. So, an option is to have the the pole, which you said you've got, and put a flag on it and put the sign that says no swimming here at the high and then the dingy. Do you already have it? The flotation device. So, really hardly be no cost to do that option.

That's right. Because when you have the flat the the the recommended signage, the no swimming $50 fine. Did we decide against that? Because I think we determined. We did. We did. Yeah. So, to me, we need to mark Yeah. that off. Um really the the biggest information we want to put on there is no swimming with the arrow here to pier.

Yeah. And to me, the pier signs that Gary has up that are great like they're looking if you're looking at the pier this way. to me. If there was one place on um going down on one of the pylons there, if there was one place when they're looking at the ocean straight on, not looking at the pier, that might be an option to see if you put it out far enough where it would be seen whether it's high or low tide. Um because to me, there are a lot of signs out there like I've said before. So, it's um and if you like I I'll go through those other signage and we'll kind of talk about those as we go.

And Ocean Beach has the safety station. They do along their strand. Yeah. And I've seen those at other beaches with the round flotation devices.

They do. Okay. Here's some signage that could be deleted. Uh it's a bit redundant. Again, we would be if you approve to do the no swimming signage for us, uh we would obviously move that sign there uh down to that high tide mark. Uh we could get rid of and delete the no lifeguard on duty because again that's already on theformational uhformational boards. And the little white signs there, I think they're no smoking signs. They're almost impossible to see. Go go go go go back to that page, please. Are you talking about removing those signs? Yes, sir. And now putting another pole somewhere to put another sign. Yes, ma'am.

Even though we already have a pole there and that's that sign is already there. We're going to put another sign somewhere else. Yes, ma'am. That's what you're proposing.

Yes, ma'am. That's what I'm asking. Um, this is all the way at the dunes and that's a long way during periods of low tide and it's really not easily seen by visitors. Well, I I would say that I don't understand fully why we would get rid of those signs because to me, those signs are there. They're paid for. People see them. People put stuff in the trash. People walking the mat or walking from the pier, you see those signs. You're going to see those. The one that's down at the high tide mark, if there if it's crowded, which around there is normally always very crowded, you don't see it unless you're looking for it, unless you walk by it, or unless it's a early in the morning or later in the evening. Um, so to me, we should leave those signs if we're talking safety there. Um, but I don't know why we remove them. Um, and as we know, those signs can add up real fast in cost.

So to me, they're functioning. That would be my take. Um, and that's okay. I was under the impression we wanted to clean it up a little bit. So that's how however that that's totally fine. I was just saying there's a lot of sign. I agree with you, Miss Bachelor. We've the town taxpayers have already paid for these signs. Why would you take them down? Now granted, you can't see them if you're at the shoreline. You know, you'd have to have a magnifying glass to look up there to see it. But as you are throwing your disposing of your trash, you would see it. Um, but your whole pitch though is to reduce signs.

Well, I I was under the impression that was kind of the direction to kind of reduce it. But that it's obvious we we can definitely leave them. That's that's no problem. What do you all think about leaving the signs up as opposed to taking them down? People tend, if I believe, people will tend, if they're dropping their garbage off to look up and look at the sign and read it, whereas most of the time heading to the beach, they will walk right past the sign real quickly because they're looking for a spot. Okay. So, if they're there and we're not we've already paid for them, leave them up. When they fall down, we'll discuss it. Mr. Arnold, you I'm I agree with Mike. I was giving you something.

All right. I just You're asking for direction and I didn't want to leave, you know, this issue because this is pretty big. Yeah. Um for us not to have some type of consensus up here. So, you have some direction. Quick question. If I can interject, go back one sign or one slide. The small white signs, you said those are possibly no smoking. I think there So, there's no ordinance to prohibit smoking on the beach. Um I don't know why those are there. It may be uh uh when I say no smoking, it may be uh take care of your butts or something along those lines. You know, dispose properly disposed cigarette cigarette but

in regards to the chief pres I mean yeah chief fire chief's presentation and his response to that. Were you talking about this today? I was under impression too because I've heard y'all say multiple times y'all were against all the signage. Too many signs. I think that's why he came back with this. Maybe they was in it. Yeah. mis misunderstanding there, but that's why I think you presented this because I thought that's what y'all had. That was my understanding, Mr. Mayor, from last that was a topic of discussion. It was well couple months ago

and I think that's because you were looking at adding more signs and I know I was saying there's already a lot of signs out there that say do not swim by the pier. Like it's very evident and when y'all are on duty, they're blowing whistles. they're, you know, it's but that still doesn't stop them from you blow a whistle, they move down and then 10 minutes later they're right back in the same position. So,

one of the things I' I' I'd really like to uh accomplish with this additional signage is our uh late afternoon swimmers. Um during the daytime, we're out there. We're blowing our whistle. We're keeping people out of the the no swim area. um when we come off the beach 7:00 p.m. we still have a good population on the beach and uh we have a high concern that there's swimmers underneath the pier in that time frame. So this this poll that I'm requesting is for that reason. Uh 7 8 9:00 at night, we've got swimmers sometimes under that pier. Currents pick up in the late afternoon. So um that that's really a big thing. It's not so much during the daytime because again we have staffing out there, but it's that it's that nighttime population that that we really want to make sure that they they've got a clear visible sign to know that. Um, so just want to make sure we didn't miss anything here. Um, I think that's it. I think we covered it. No questions for the fire chief.

I was going to touch again on the every beach access point. Um I know when you walk down every boardwalk going to the beach, there's a large sign, the large sign you did that has all kind of the beach rules on it, which is pretty large one that has um Yeah. ones like that are at every boardwalk. So is that the ones you're talking about wanting to replace those?

No. No. Um, so what I put this slide on there, if you notice the no lifeguard on duty and the rip current signage. So, um, again, I was under the impression we wanted to to reduce some of the signage out there. So, in this presentation, um, that's there. Everyone walks by that, the no lifeguard on duty, the rules and things like that. So, that's Well, it said recommendations maintain anformational board at every beach access point. So, what was that? That or something else? That's just keeping this keeping it updated and things like that. No additional So, we're not redoing it. Absolutely not. No. Okay.

I think he's trying to reduce some of the redundancy. So, you walk by a sign here that says no lifeguard on duty and then you walk another 100 ft down to the beach and there's another sign says no life on duty. So, if we're going to add an additional sign, is there other signs that we could remove just to have less clutter on the beach?

Okay. And along the less clutter on the beach, if we install the beach safety station, which is your last slide, that's the red pole with the it shows the yellow flag and it's got the flag system on it and it's got the dingy. Um there you could add on there the sign we already own, the one that's on the black mounted um at the high tide mark. Could you add that on there? So, so, so my theory was to take the one off of the trash can pole and move it to there. Uh, I would still like to keep the black pole by the water's edge while we're staffing the beach. So, I'd still like to keep that in play. Okay. Um,

so keep that in play and add another one and add another one again because the black pole's not out there overnight. It gets removed. But could you leave it overnight or you wouldn't leave it overnight? I'm I'm going to say no. Uh again, that gets into to the trouble. Um if we fill that thing completely up with water, it becomes so heavy staff really struggles moving it. Uh if we uh leave it where it's movable and things, we really need somebody. We don't want it flipping over at at the night time. Not to be redundant, but this sign we are not doing. We're going to do

if you support that. Yes. And and you need direction on do we like this or do we like this? That is correct. That's you need a decision today. I would like one. Yes. So I like the red. I don't think he's quite finished. That's good. I'm in favor of this. Yes. Sounds good. I am as well. Pause. Which two? Um we have the option of either this or what's on the screen right now. And Uh, Mr. Arnold, Miss Miss Bachelor, and myself are in favor of what's on the screen now as opposed to the larger sign and they're not paged, but can you see what? Yeah, I know which one I have.

So, he just need the chief needs some direction on which way to go. I'll go along with that for this year. Super. Thank you. So, we need to come back um a week from today with that cost needs to be to Alicia so that we can have that in our budget for Well, you're you're gonna fund that out of this year. So, disreg item for Okay. This year, we got it. Thank you. Thank you.

All right. Next up be our public streets storm water. Good morning. All right. So after our um last budget workshop, we were asked to come back with some more hard numbers on um certain items that we proposed to you all. Um the first up is the paving. Uh like I said last month, we had a um a road survey that we got back. Um there were some high-end numbers on that from the engineering firm, but we we reached out to a contractor and got some hard-nosed uh numbers back. So, um, one of the roads we were looking at, uh, repairing was Old Point, intersection of Sunset Boulevard and Clubhouse Road. Um, coming back with a, um, 98765, uh, price tag on it. Um and then um Clubhouse Road. I I know last month I mentioned that as far as Clubhouse Road goes, uh not a whole bunch of work will be done to that um probably over the next few years because of all the work that's being um completed inside of Seat Trail itself with the big trucks and everything um in order to get that road where it needs to be. I don't believe that would be um the best idea to go ahead and work on that, but I just wanted to throw a number out there, but I I'm not recommending this right now at all. Um same thing with Clubhouse Road and Seatrol Drive West. Um we met with the contractor, we rode over this road. Um Seatrol Drive West really isn't a big issue. Um I mean, he even recommended not doing it himself, so we're not going to look into that. Um

but 27th Street, Mr. Can I back up just you? You're mentioning the contractor that you met with. Yes, ma'am. Could you elaborate on that? Who that is? What What do they look at? That's how did they come up with these prices? I think Sure. We should know that.

Yes, ma'am. Um, so the contractor we we reached out to a few contractors. The one that came back and um we rode around with them was Barnhill Contractor. Um they used to have a plant in supply. I think they're out of Wilmington or Leela now, but they're they're more local. They do a lot of work for us. They've done a lot of work in the past for us. Um so what this gentleman's uh was looking at was obviously the cracks, the the potholes, um edges of the roads, you know, if it's holding water, if it's able to get the water off the side of the road, that also determines a lot of factors into the the cracking and everything of the pavement. Um so he was able to look at everything. Um he went back out after we had rode with him um to look more in depth at everything, measure the roads and all that. Uh so he came up with these numbers per what he uses for material, labor cost, things of that nature, equipment.

And how did that work in tandem with the study, the road survey that McGill and Associates did? I know we had a meeting with them a couple weeks ago. We did. Um and they were to bring back updated numbers. Correct. I don't know if you got updated numbers or not, but how did this contractor, Barnhill Construction, how did those numbers compare with those numbers? Um um far less from what we've seen as far as what the contractor what the engineer had recommended

um with pricing. Now um when we met with them a few weeks ago, they did say that they were on the high end of what they proposed as far as numbers go. Um so we actually met with who's doing the work um and what they're currently providing with numbers and they came down far less than what the engineering firm had proposed to us. Did you get any updates with that road survey? No ma'am I have not. I reached out um they were supposed to have a meeting from my understanding on Friday with their staff and we were supposed to get a report back. I have not received one yet. Okay. As far as that sure would help us understand, you know, their priorization Yes, ma'am. for these roads and and what they saw so that we could make a more informed decision. I agree. But thank you for explaining that. Yes, ma'am. Amen.

I agree with that, too. Uh this for this slide right here where it says clubhouse road to bridge. Are we talking uh I'm coming from the stop sign, I cross the bridge and then 120 ft up like going towards Maples. Is that the area you're talking about? Yes, sir. when you come off of Old Point going towards Old Georgetown between um I guess it's the Calabash Creek. Um right there at the the low part. Okay. Okay. Yeah. You know that old old old Yeah. the old road. What's it called? Old old ridge. There's some roots there from the trees. There are. How are we going to bait that?

We are uh talking with Seaw Master Association. Okay. There's a few members that are part of that board that we've met with in the past. Um, we're uh trying to figure out a way to obviously not kill the trees since we are a Tree City USA, but um we we need to figure out a way with them to construct this road and make it usable for everyone instead of having these buckles in the road. And Matt, can you go back one slide because we had um Yeah, that one. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Can we talk about that Old Point Sunset Boulevard? That one you recommend? Yeah. So, that one you recommend? Yes, ma'am. Um, why am I recommending it?

No, you re I'm saying you do recommend making a note of what's recommended. Yes, ma'am. So, you recommend that one? No. Okay. And then the clubhouse road at the bridge, you're saying you do not recommend this year. When do you recommend it? I mean, that could be um with some of these numbers and what we budget for, some of them could come back lower. So, we may be able to actually utilize the excess money that we have to, you know, $24,000, $25,000 to maybe put into this road. Um, okay. So, I mean, it's a small price for section of row that, you know, we we could use. Okay. So, if we have the exit extra money. Okay.

Uh, I've got a question. How much money is going to be available when you realize that we have the power tax and what'sever left over from prior years till and today Alicia have that in that's included in this presentation there is yeah it's a couple pages I'll get to it in a couple minutes I know what you got okay I've got that I just want to lower those validated numbers I got you so we're at clubhouse what about clubhouse road from rice mill to joint at old Georgetown because I had I need to mark that

right I did not recommend that. That is a big section where um they're building a lot of roads near Jonesburg Clubhouse. Um big trucks are coming in and out, concrete trucks. There's I just I hadn't get didn't get the chance to take it off the presentation to be honest with you. So, you'd recommend it later after construction? Is that true? Yes. And that could be two years, three years down the road. Now, don't get me wrong, there may there may be minor band-aids that we have to do in between that time. Okay. Um, but as of right now, would you Okay. If you're not recommending that one is obviously a larger dollar amount, is that something you would recommend putting funds aside to do that later?

I think we're going to need to put funds aside, especially for Clubhouse Road in its entirety. Yeah. Okay. Um, and it's going to be far more than $500,000. I remember that's what I'm thinking because that's why I'm crying. And I know I asked you questions No, that's fine. Friday about these dollars cuz I'm like are these accurate dollars? Um this is an accurate as of today two to three years from now it could be a million. You don't know. It definitely could be. Yes. As of today.

I remember years ago like two and three four even five years ago talked about clubhouse road and we're still talking about clubhouse road. It's almost like we're giving that road um we keep promising them and we're not doing anything. that that's a very bad look for councils to say we're going to do something because I remember sitting in the audience where these folks are sitting and hearing council talk about well next year we're going to do clubhouse road and next year we're going to do clubhouse road right um I just now I'm hearing it might be three to five years that we're going to do clubhouse road correct

and I think if that's truly what we're going to do I mean five years from now we may not be up here but but we we need to stop promising folks stuff and not delivering because that that's a bad image that we have. Um or any road. I don't care what road it is. It's just I feel very uncomfortable, right? Knowing that it was on the list and now it's gone down the list. And I understand what you're saying about construction, but we have construction going on all over Sunset Beach. So, it's just I I'm just uncomfortable that we promised them. I heard it. Everybody else heard it and now it's it's not going to be and it's a very heavily traveled road.

It is. Um so I just my comments, not trying to sway anybody. I'm just pointing that out.

Okay. I know we have no authority about this, but I just wish the builders on between the builder that's building that area that's off of Angel Trace would do a construction road from Angel Trace. So, should put the trucks back on Angel Trace and off of our roads. However, as long as they continue to use the roads we have, we're going to continue to have to repair them. And I I agree with you. But to spend half a million dollars to repair the road now and in 3 years when they're done with construction to re do it again seems a waste of of the rested all the citizens money to do the same road twice within 5 years. That's all

there multiple owners, right? Is that correct? Multiple owners that cut through there that but there's only one that accesses Georgetown I mean clubhouse road to do the construction that they're doing. That's right. But the whole angel trades to do is multiple others. Is that correct? There's three or four. There four. I think four. I'd like to say that I mean I understand what you're saying as far as this construction and you know what's going on in the area, but we've got to do something very soon with with Clubhouse Road. And I'm not saying, you know, uh mill and pavement. What I want first of all, and we heard this in our in our conversation with the engineer, is particularly in that area between the two uh rice mills. Yeah.

They told us they could go in and drill those areas and diagnose a problem. There's a great chance, a very great chance that our problem with in that section is coming from underneath the road. And we need to start a process now trying to diagnose that. And you know, we're going to have to spend some money after July. We got to start somewhere and leap off on this thing. And if we can come back, you know, later on in the year and, you know, like I say, you if you don't want to mill and pay those whole things, that's fine. I I respect that. I understand. I know where you're coming from, right?

But we're going to have to we're going to have to do something with that asphalt. It's in bad shape. Now, the longer we leave it like that, the more water's penetrating it. We know what 27th Street looks like and how it's humped up, right? What causes that is the water penetrating it and floating things back up. I, you know, I mentioned to you when we had that 12 inches of snow, I really thought that you had come and thrown some sand on my street, but what it was was this water penetrated it and brought the subgrade up because the street was actually muddy. Yes. From the sub subgrade riding up there.

And that's that's very critical to me right now. if if we've got to get something going to start a plan and a process to get this thing going. And listen, we could plan for it now and put everything in place. And when you say, you know, we're ready to pull the trigger, let's then we can do it. But we got to start somewhere with that. I I would like to see us take care of these bad areas just because it's going to make a problem worse and worse and worse if we don't going forward. Okay. All right. Okay. Sea trail west, we skipped that one.

Yes, we did. That's in in fairly good condition. Um, in the report, it was it was ranked, I think, third. Um, but this is this is a fairly good road, okay, compared to a lot of others. And I think it goes back to Katie's comment that this report from McGill, an accurate updated report from them is peritative. Yes. And I appreciate all this you put together, but I also think we've got to see that report. Yes.

Maybe before we finalize, excuse me, what we're funding here because to me, we know some streets were left off the report. Some didn't seem to be modified from the last time it was done. Um, to me, it questions the accuracy of the report and some, especially if you're saying one of the top streets really isn't a bad street. Um, when we know 40th Street is 40th Street is awful. I mean, we we've all seen that and I've gotten I've probably gotten more calls on that road than than any road. It's pitted. It's um, you know, just underneath it looks like it's not right. I'm not an engineer. I don't have no idea what what that is, but I know it doesn't look right. And that's not on here. So,

correct. We really need to have an accurate Yeah. analysis from experts on what roads are bad and why they're bad and how much is it going to cost rather than like we're looking at all this and it's confusing because down at the bottom it's got recommended not to do from contractor. I don't really know why we're even disc right why we're talking about them if we're not going to do them right when we have other roads that are um right understand okay yeah I mean the only thing I can do is keep reaching out to them I mean I can't produce the report um so I can nag them every single day until we get something we paid for that

we paid for that yeah we paid like $10,000 for it I believe it was $10,000 that we paid for Right. And it was just peacemeal. And they know they know what we want as a town back. Yes. Yes. We've talked with Miguel and Associates several times on their product not being good that it's a defective product. And um yeah. So we either need $10,000 we either need $10,000 back from them or we so that we can apply it to a different vendor to get some accurate information. Okay.

And maybe if we can have administration reach out to them again that that report is critical and accurate up-to-date report is critical. Okay. I will say the numbers you've gotten is is very good you know from your contractor. Uh that does give us a a good a very good idea of what current prices are today uh to base decisions off of. Yeah. And another thing is too, I wanted to mention this. Obviously with what's happening in the world, um these prices could obviously change. They will in a week, especially two or three months down the road. So um like you said, getting that accurate report from the engineer would help us out tremendously. Um so we can at least pick the roads that we want to.

The the transportation and the manufacturing of the asphalt that that price is already going up, right? Um, so with these next couple slides, would you just like me to kind of push past those until we get a better report and I can get on to the streets? You can talk about it briefly. No, we're probably not approving until we understand see the final report. All right. Um, so 27th Street I brought up um last month as well. Um, as as you drive along 27th Street, as soon as you turn on from Northshore Drive West, it is it's bumpy. It's like you're going off-roading.

Um it's it's fairly bad. So price had come back as as of today $71,660 to um level that out, pave it, and build the shoulders up how it needs to be done. And then 36 Street as well, um paving that, restriping it, 62,400. So with those three, which again I know you're not um approving anything today, um but for those three, Old Point, 2736 Street, it's a total of $232,000. $2325 is that that is the complete project cost. So that includes labor and it's

material everything that the contractor had sent back to us as far as labor, materials, equipment used. Okay, that's what that would be.

And then our last report um last month was looking into a couple of the the three fish streets, the three marl streets, Marlin, Sailfish, and Dolphin. Um contractor also looked at those um looking at removing the existing Marl um which I told you all last month that it's a it's a safety hazard. It's a nuisance. Um, it's bad for our canals getting in after, like I said, after we've dredged everything and we're assessing these property owners, we're putting material back in. Even though it's fine over time, it builds up. Um, we need to prevent that the best we can. Um, so with these next three slides, it's like I said, it's Marlin, sailfish, and dolphin. The exact same thing, removing the removing the marl, installing ABC stone, and paving it. Um they all the same cost, $190, $600 um for each one.

I got a question for you. Yes. Previously, uh we've had other streets along other other streets that were paved by the uh residents distributing the cost between them. Yes. Uh and uh do you know is the price close to what these are? Um I have not been a part of the paving side of it. Now the rock on 17th Street is the closest the one I remember the most. Um obviously that's a lot different as far as how much 57 slate cost compared to the asphalt and everything, but I looked at I'm going to jump ahead for a second.

Yes, sir. uh paving those fi those fish streets if you wish. We as a town required other streets that were going to be paid for the for the residents or the owners of those houses along that street to chip to actually split the money and pay for the paving. Yes, sir. to do these on town prop uh town dollars. Are we we could very well open ourselves to a lawsuit from the people who had to pay to have their street paved. And people say, "Well, uh the streets in, let's say, SeaTrail are paved."

And I'm going to use this excuse. When Seat Trail, whoever was the developer there, when they put in all the infrastructure and paved the streets, part of their cost got built into the cost for the lots they sold. So these people up obviously if they paid they didn't pay for their house for the streets to be paved. And I don't think we can throw all that expense onto the rest of the residents of this town. If they want to pay for their street to be paved, fine. But other than that, I don't think we should do that because we're opening ourselves up to a lawsuit from the other streets that we had the town the residents pay. So, I think we've got to be very careful here that we don't do something that's going to get us in a real problem.

Do we know during that time when they were paved, were they town maintained streets? Do we know that? No, they weren't. They weren't. Well, not all of them. I know a lot of the streets that were uh were just deed to the town in the last four years or five years which means and they had to be tested to make sure they fulfilled the what the town required as far as the depth and everything else. So these most of these were done without being deed to the town until later

because once it becomes a town maintain road then we are we have the we are supposed to maintain the roads. We should do that. Um, you've got the streets, excuse me, what we call the fish streets on here.

The other streets that are closer to the ocean that go toward the marsh, the the runoff that runs that way. Are they paved? Are they unpaved? Do we um I'm trying to in my mind look at it, but I'm not out there. Um cuz you know the runoff is going to continue to run from those streets, the numbered streets going to you know bounce over canal and then they're going to go on to the fish streets off into the canal. Has there been any look at that?

Uh no, not immediately. Um the short streets, for example, 7th through 12th Street, we actually um had repurposed those, refinished those with uh slate rock um a few years ago. So the runoff coming from those streets is minimal and we own all those streets in comparison to the roads or excuse me, the streets that we didn't own in the town didn't own in the past where they were those property owners were assessed and I think that might be the difference. Right. So the slate was put on the half streets without any cost additional cost to the taxpayers. Is that correct? Is that what you're saying? Okay. From what I understand. Yes.

Now 17th Street, for example, homeowners went through the petition process. They wanted 57 slate because it used to be a moral road that we maintained and they had to go through the process of petitioning and we got the numbers back and they were assessed like you're talking about, Mr. possible.

And I've always found that's a very strange process when you're a taxpayer. And if the town took over any road, there are also roads that are on the mainland that are not paved. I personally feel like all the town roads should be brought up to a certain code. If they were taken over at some point, they met the criteria for the town to accept the roads. And once you're a town road, you should be, and that's where I was saying I felt like every street in our town, no matter what type of street it is, should be ranked on that their report, not just look at certain ones. Um, and just to see where we fall because we do have to have some criteria in in theory that experts telling us should be definitely one we should be looking at that data. We we paid for that data for a reason to see. and you know whether sampling needs to be done or whatever to determine how to make the roads the best and last the longest that we can. But um I'm a proponent for the the runoff off of some of these island streets into our canals which is costing us money which were then billing back to property owners who you know paid almost $8,000 due to sediment runoff that we're creating in a way. Um, these are just the fish streets. I know. I can see First Street, which is also It's like a dust tunnel going through there. Even when y'all's cruise sweep Main Street or the It the D I mean, it's unbelievable. And all of that is ending up in our storm water. Um,

so I'm a proponent for all the streets in the town, mainland and island, that have not been paid. It's coming up with a plan to pave them. Um, unless there's some reason unbeknownst to me not to. To me, we should look at that. To me, that should kind of be a minimum standard to have a paved road in our town. And obviously, our taxpayers pay good bit of taxes. So, it should to me that that the the way it was given out, my understanding in the past, you had to go down your street and try to get 51% to sign on. and they're signing on to something having no clue what it's going to cost because the town would never give them a cost until you had 51%. Then they would bid it out and then they would say, "Here's your bill."

To me, no one wants that. Um, but that's my take on it. So, I'm glad you're looking at it because there's truly a safety environmental issue there with all that dust, not to mention what we're putting in the waterways. If we're going to look at all paving all the streets, as uh councilwoman's mentioned, uh I think it's got to be looked at a five-year plan or more because doing all of this in any one, two, or three cycles is going to be astronomical. Okay? And in the meantime, we have to look at what the repercussions will be from, like I said, the residents who have to pay to have their street, right?

And I agree, Mike. I I also think it's it's a plan alone. You know, unfortunately, we don't have funds unless somebody wants to give us millions of dollars to make this happen. We don't have the funds. Uh assume what we can try to do is uh get the report back from the engineer. And then the same thing we did with the storm water cip years ago, put it into a 10-year plan, fiveyear plan, however you would like to do it, dispersing the money. And then each year, you know, everyone knows, okay, my street's going to be repaved or or rocked, whatever the case is. every week.

It would be good to do immediate goal, two year goal, three year goal, four year goal, five year goal and know that that's going to be fluid that it'll change, but at least give the ne next year when we're looking at this. So, we're not firing off questions at you that it's already been looked at throughout the year and you know, work with your folks, work with experts. You may even want to come up with some kind of little subcommittee

that that helps what roads need to be immediate. What let's let's have some goals. If we're going to run government like a business, let's run it like a business. Let's have some short-term goals, long-term goals, immediate goals. And then with the option that it that it is a fluid um list so that we know next year when we're going into this that we identified these roads. We've had you to go out look, other people to go out and look to say that these roads need to be done. This is how much money it's going to be so that we're benchmarking accordingly rather than peacemailing these roads because if not, we will never achieve anything. Um, but sit up here and discuss and we rather have some action on the on the roads.

Excuse me. I have a question. We were talking about the POW bill balances and you said it's in the presentation. Yes. if you would flip to that for me. I know you can come back. I just want to go back to that.

I'm I want to get a better reading. We're talking about $387,774, let's say, of saving balance, fund balance. Where's is that fund balance titled POW bill or is that just a balance? I believe that's the forgive me but I believe that's just the excess that we've had left over that goes into the fund. I don't know if it's allocated just for power bill or not.

Okay. So that means that including the new revenues of 27,448 we're right now we have a 540 $595,000. I'm rounding numbers. Mhm. So we've got basically $795,000 by the end of 20 2526 to use on roads or or is it total of 595 and then we've got to back out the 200. Yeah. The 207 is included in that 595. Okay. So we got 595,000 basically, right? Okay.

Uh if you take a look at and I'm going to jump now back to where we were. If you look at what it's going to cost for, you picked out the two areas that we're most concerned. Uh Old Point is almost 100,000 and 98.

And if you look at 26th and 27th 27th and 36th Street, you're looking another 134. So looking at spending 234,000 of the 595,000. Okay. Which will leave about 350 left for us to look at other options. And uh one of the other options may be uh clubhouse road at the bridge or maybe we should take a look and see what we can do with the runoff issues. Right. Okay. But that gives us

follow through with what you're saying. Another strategy might be would be to see what's um our finance director can look at maybe in May and June before we approve the budget of course to look at how much we would have left over from this budget take that money those funds and say we're going to earmark that capital improvement for our roads so that we will have additional dollars because we know at the end of the year we're going to have additional dollars um because we've we've um trimmed some things We've had some positions that have not been utilized to the to the max with the allotted amount of money that we used. So, we could do some type of amendment.

Um, you know, our finance director would be key in this to find out how much it is. Take whatever amount that is. If if we like this and if this if streets are a priority to priority to us and take those funds and say that we are um appropriating that to this budget this fiscal year 27 and in 27 appropriate those funds um so that we would have more money rather than 595 we might have a million. I mean, I'm just saying I don't I don't know what the number will be, but hey, if it's 700, that's part of another road that that we could do. Do you all like that strategy?

Yes. I don't think it's a bad idea. We We've got to get going. That's that's, you know, that's my thing. This is a way to get going. Yeah. And for the PAL bill balance, it said budgeted for this year, this physical year we're in 200,000. Have we spent all of that 200,000? We have not. No, we have not. Okay. So, how much left roughly do we have left in this year's budget? I think it's aboutund 30,000 I believe. Something along those lines. 130. And some of that will be for like um minimum repair. Say you have a pothole. We know that's not cheap. That takes some money. Um or gravel needs to go somewhere else or

Okay. Uh, so it's 130 right now, but at the we're only in April, so it could be diminished. Could be. Yes, absolutely. I mean, if we have Yeah. I mean, for example, the section on Clubhouse, if we absolutely want to do something like that, that's $25,000. I mean, that's within our means to do it this year. So, do you recommend that we do that with these dollars? I mean, we Yeah, why not? I mean, okay, we have other places, like I said, there's a couple on 40th Street that are there's patches that we've we've patched, so to speak, with uh with our rock and everything that need to be paved over, so we can utilize those uh those monies to

kind of patch those. And we know we know 40th Street is going to get worse with the traffic as the season progresses, right? Um it's already in poor shape now. It's not going to get better, right? Um it's a lot to look at. Yeah. But I believe what we can do is reach out to the contractors and um we have certain contractors that are, you know, smaller companies that their bread and butter is patches, potholes, things like that. So they should be able to reach back out to us fairly soon and maybe get something in the works with that.

And some things I think too, Matt, you've got to look at obviously as I know you do, but look at is it worth patch? Should we patch it or should we get it right? because to me we don't want to just throw money to patch when what we really need to do is pay you know or whatever that's your area to recommend but I do feel again this report from McGill is vital in us looking at is it because you know so I know many things were addressed in within that report so to have an accurate data there that we did pay for that so okay understand and just remember this report from a gill is just a surface review.

Correct. We still we still need the underneath uh to address the problem correctly. But I I want to say somewhere in this in a public works concept, we've got to get into also going around and crack sealing these roads too. For instance, some of the roads that were repaved in 21 now are starting to show a lot of wear and tear and we're getting cracks in them. If we don't do anything with those cracks and you know, just let it go. Like I mentioned earlier, we're going to have this penetration again. And the money we spent

five years ago, well, in two more years, it's going to start falling apart and we got to invest more money into it. The preventive maintenance of the surface of our roads has got to go a long way and there's methods that we can do. We spoke about it, got a chance to go see something here later on in April um or later on this month uh up in Wilmington to of a process and um it's we've got to take a hard look at it because if not, you know, for every money that for the dollars we don't spend, we're going to spend 10 or $15 at this point now, right? Uh to try to to try to catch up and we're we're falling behind is is the best thing I can say as far as that. Right. So, in summary, before you go to storm water because I I don't want to lose the momentum we have here.

Okay. We'd like for you to go back to McGill and administrator, you go back and and that's key. Okay. Um whether you get it or not, you know what looks bad. Give us a priority list broken down by years. have our fin work with our finance director to find out appropriately what would be appropriated for next year. Okay. What what we could appropriate that amount so that we could look at doing a capital improvement plan truly for our roads, right?

Year one, year two, year three, year four and go out at least for four years so that we know we we know that it'll be adjusted throughout the years. that will help us with benchmarking and I think that would help you too to be focused on what needs to be done including in that are the also the maintenance that need to be done and the quick fixes that we can do like the the ceiling. Okay. Um I think that would be most beneficial to the council.

Do it. So, the next is uh storm water. And um as I told you all last month, these are the three that we're looking at doing this year. Um these are all labor material cost included. Um so, like I said, the total for these numbers is $230,000. Um is there a possibility to uh get it cheaper? There may be. Um this is off of one contractor that's given me numbers. There's multiple contractors around that we've used in the past. Some are cheaper, some are more expensive. So, um, you know, it all depends. We may be able to work with some extra money depending on how this goes with our contractors.

This, excuse me, this this price you're showing us here for catchment 7, is that the remaining amount of money we have as far as work or what? It's catchment 37. 37. I'm sorry. Okay. Let me check. I read that first. I read that that way, please, y'all. Yes. Do we know any of the other roads um that need the reinforced concrete pipe throughout? I mean, you've got one on here with Seat Trail Drive, which was your first one. Do we know other ones that need the concrete? Because I know you're moving from the the metal

to the concrete. Yeah, there's a um it's actually a it's Main Street on on West Main Street um from about 36th Street all the way out to I think it's called Mad Inlet what they call it. Okay.

Um the majority of that is metal pipe, 15inch metal pipe. Um so that's going to have to be redone. Um the state should replace that. Um it's in their rightway. Um but we do look at it and uh we try to maintain as far as servicing and vacuuming, cameraing, stuff like that. But we reach out to um we reach out to NC DOT every so often to let them know the updates on it. So I mean that's something that in my mind needs to go through the state instead of us having to pay for. Um but that's a that's a big area. And yes, there are other areas around town that have metal pipes that will be changed out throughout the years. that particular project, the 36 through that inlet. Where is the pipe at? Is it right under our parking that's been put in?

It is. Great. Okay. I figured it was. It is. It's right off the bike path. So, it's on the the south side of It's on the north side. North. Okay. North, not the ocean side. Okay. Gotcha. Okay. car parking. Your second item, the rightway drainage, is that for everywhere all over town? It's just for a certain area. Um, my goal is over the years is to actually open up all the rightway drainage.

Um, in the non-permitted storm water permitted areas. So, parts of Sea Trail we wouldn't do. That's HOAs, POAS, and things of that nature that have storm water permits. Um, but there's a lot of areas within our jurisdiction that we need to open up. Um, so the 85,000 would be give us a hint on what it would be. Um, so it's um as far as area where the area I mean you just got right this particular area is on um Kings Trail. Kings Trail

in Sea Trail. Um and what it is is that there's a a lot of culberts, pipes underneath your driveways that they've filled in over the years. There's nowhere for the water to go. Um there's no way for the water to get off our road. So, as it sits there, it's infiltrating underneath our asphalt, which is damaging our our roadways. Um, so it's opening up these swells essentially um to let the water flow and and cutting down the edge of the road so the water can get off the road. What about the catchment 37? Where exactly for

catchment 37 is off of um it's at the intersection of Great Oak Circle and Milsloo. Um, it's been on our CIP for many years now. Um, and it it seems as if every time we bring this up, it's it's overpriced. Um, it doesn't necessarily meet like eye eyesight and everything, surface value of what needs to be done as far as it's not flooding so much, but it does capture water. It does uh get into property, private property. um backs up into private property every so often. I've heard a lot from property owners on that one. So, we need to address that.

Is a drainage easement required for that? Uh no. No. No. If we wanted to do it 100% correct, um then maybe I say 100% correct. If if we could help out every single homeowner, then there would have to be a a private easement established. And I don't know if that's the direction that council would really want to go because then every single homeowner would probably want their own private easement. And the proposal is to do a 15in reinforced concrete pipe there to not have flooding on Great Oak. So it's pretty much Yeah. In the right way, we would install catch basin, capture the water and take it down into the ponds that we have on Milslip.

Any other questions on storm water? Those three projects cost 200 estimated 230.

Yes. Right. Beach erosion which is the uh the walkways. Um again these are these are prices off of contractors that we've used. Um so what we uh we had to reach out to it's a company called Ardura which is an engineering firm that we've used for beach walkways in and of itself. um in order to add the 18 street walkway, which we don't have any plans for, it was an extra 15 to I think it's like $15,000 for them to draw up the plans, design them, and everything. Um we have not submitted that payment to them yet. Um because it's it's a decent amount of money. This this 18th Street in and of itself is in fairly good condition. The only issue with this one is that where it steps out into the beach, it's actually in between two dunes. So, as long as we're able to keep those maintain, keep them open, the walkway itself is fine to where next year what we can do is add that on to the list. Um, and I guess what I'm saying is taking 18th Street off for this year and just having 7th and 32nd Street. Um, which would be uh 385,000. Um so anyway, moving forward into next year, having the two or three walkways that we present to you all, which I have a I do have a list of updated um walkways, what we've completed, what we haven't, I can send to you all at this meeting.

Um and then also using the engineering firm and grants to better help us with the pricing and everything. without weren't these three walkways also on the list last year to be done. Um, two of them were Seventh Street. So, the past couple years were Fifth Street, Seventh Street, and 32nd Street. Okay. We essentially rebuilt Fifth Street in-house. Okay. Our crew.

So, we took that off the list. Um, but yes, they two of them were they've been on the list for a couple years now, especially Seventh Street. So the spreadsheet you have is a ranking of all the beach accents. Correct. And how Okay. Because I like I told you I've been told there was one. I think res it would help residents know where there's ranks. Correct. Yeah. Or when they might expect. Yes. Any changes? But these are ones you feel like you've got to outsource totally.

Yes. Okay. um with the work that we still we do in the winter time with storm water, especially maintaining our easements and our um storm water systems, it's just it's a lot for us to take a month or two out of our work to try to rebuild just one of these. How much would it save if y'all did it versus a great deal, I'd assume? Um I mean, really all we would be paying for is the material at that point. You just pop off the board and replace it. It's a lot more in depth than that. You're taking off pylons and resetting pylons and you're redoing all you you're redoing the entire wall. Okay. From start to finish. You mean some have just been popped off. I mean like 28.

Yeah, occasionally. That's just Yeah, those are just minor minor repairs, rotten boards, things like that. But no, it's a lot more in depth than You mentioned grants in here. Um what kind of grants and have we received grants before? And will that preclude us from doing anything with what our parking is on the island? I know that's three questions that I just asked. But first question is the first question was have we received grants before? We have. And what are they?

Um they were um I don't know the exact grants. That was previous administration that had reached out for that. Um but a few years ago I think we did uh eight walkways in a year. Um and we pretty much got I believe at least half of it funded by grants. Um last year we did not receive any grants. That's why we did not do any walkways. They basically I think it was applied for gave the money to other correct communities. They were applied but it was we never received any. So are we applying this year or or when is the when is the time frame to apply to get grants? 24th of April. So we can we can yeah we're going to we're definitely going to try to at least put our name in there and

what is the grant called the grant that you're that's due in like 13 days 10 days 11 days I think it's through KMA it's a coastal and there's any restrictions there I mean we got it before uh don't believe so I don't believe there's any major restrictions but I can do we know why we did not receive it last year. Was there any feedback given? I not that I know of. Again, this was Okay. I didn't We didn't have any part of applying for the grant last year. Are y'all applying for it or is the administration applying for it? We'll be Ken is helping us through it. Okay.

Um but we'll be the ones putting in all the numbers. Okay. When do you find out if you get the grant or not? Great question. I'll have to find that out. I mean, again, I have, like I said, I haven't applied for one, so maybe send us the name of the grant, we'll do some research, too, on that. Okay, that'd be good. Yeah. All right. Beach walkway questions anymore? No. Are you will they if we go through this process and you know, we get a grant, we say we hire a contractor, are they widening them also or just keeping the same width? Keep it in the same width. Okay. If we widen them for any reason, we have to go through CA for a minor permit.

Okay. And homeowners as well getting permission depending on how much we widen them. All right. The next one is the U community center fence. Um last time we had talked um you all wanted some pictures of what the fence would look like. Double panel um wooden fence. So, both contractors that we had reached out to for the pricing on this um gave us some pictures for y'all to for y'all to look at. That way, at least you have an idea of what behind the community center would potentially look like. I wasn't sure the chain link part what that goes with about

that might be showing that that was for the the gate at the front. So, the gate will be chain and the rest. Can the that gate not be the wood? I I don't believe it could be wood. I mean, we can ask, but that's just they're that's generally that's what they do as far as gates go. My thing is you're going to be able to see everything because you're entering from the like straight on. So, to me, you're putting this beautiful fence around to hide everything and then you're going to have it all seen from the front. I think it may have to do with weight as well because that does not weigh nearly as much as what a wooden Yeah. gate would be. Isn't there like a screening or something that can go through the chain? There is. That would mask it. Not going to look as nice as wood, but at least you wouldn't be able to see through. Correct.

Yeah, that'd be good. A screen. Remind us how much I was looking back. I couldn't find it. How much it was when you gave this to us. I know we're looking at what was one was just over 17,000 and the other one was uh no warranty that we know of and the other one was right at 28 to 30,000 with a with a thank you 15year warranty I believe it is so craftsmanship warranty and things of that nature. So rotting so anything that happens throughout that time frame they come back and replace it. Oh, wait. That one's the paving one minute.

And historically, I don't think that that would last much longer than 15 probably. Are we looking at any type of camera out here to observe our equipment? Because we're putting a lot of equipment out here. Will there be any security? Um, as far as I know, other than the other than the gate and fence itself, unless Chief has any Mr. Claimer, I know you had proposed four and we thank Sunset Vision for their donation of one of the cameras. Um, I think you gave us a quote for four and then they're giving us a camera. So then maybe we have three that we're paying for. Could at least

There were several in the police department's proposal to bring up the rest of uh what we have with our current vendor up to Verata. Um, it's possible that our IT provider that manages the cameras in this building, and I think that's what the fire chief was going to look at too, was using that IT vendor. Um, I can work with him and see if he can get us a quote for something there at the community center. Wonderful. I think the majority of I like that. Do you all see Oh, yeah. the value in putting a security camera out there. I just don't

Yeah. I mean, the majority of the material that would be be placed there is similar to what you see in our parking lot here, which while that is under a camera, it's not it's not behind a fence. So, the difference here is it you'd have to breach the fence to get to what's back there. Yeah. But I agree a camera's probably a good idea. And that and looking I'm not seeing in last time's presentation or this one the cost um the costs were for the paving the fence costs. What are the fence costs? The 17,000 was for one contractor. I do remember that. Um and like I said, the other one was right around 28 to 30,000 um for the second contractor.

That one had come with the warranty. Thank What is the second access point? You have a photo photo wide gate I think on the back of the property. That where it's at.

Yes, it is. Uh so once you come in off of uh station trail, you'll access the fenced in area by the uh chain link fence gate. Okay. And then pretty much what you would do is go straight back to a double wooden gate for our department to get out and um sidearm the ditches and maintain the easements. I think it's a very inexpensive method of cleaning up the fact that we have all the stuff in our parking lot and we're also for looking to find a real place for you long term. This is something that will for next few years, right? Curious through.

So, Miss Bachelor, the prices uh for one contractor was 7 right at 18,7,794,000. Um, and then the other contractor was 32,400 for basically the same thing. Basically the same thing, but with the comfort of a warranty. 15. The 32,000 has a 10year warranty. 15. 15. I think she said 15. You said believe it was a 15 warranty. But yes, it does come with that warranty. Um, no, it was a 10-year warranty. I'm sorry. 10. Okay. I thought that's what you said.

What does it warranty? I mean, I would think the fence ain't really an issue, but the gate might be more. Uh the gate the gate would be um any anything coming off the tracks or the motor brakes, anything like that. Um they would replace or obviously fix anything that's uh wrong with that. There's a um termite warranty inside of that that the wood starts to get eaten out. They replace that. They'll replace the whole section of it. Um throughout time if they don't set a set a pole and the concrete doesn't sit up the right way, if it starts to lean, they'll come back. they'll replace it, things like that without any charge to us.

Is the $17,000 quote, does that include a mechanical gate or is that a manual gate? So, this is a manual gate um with the We don't have the power out there right now to make it a um This is a picture here with that. That's just a picture of the gate. We can disregard the motor. No, I'm sorry. This isn't I'm sorry. Excuse me. This is all powered. If I'm not mistaken, I don't think the $17,000 is, which might be the difference in the coal. I'm seeing Yes. So, a roll gate. Yes. That's a 15. Yeah. Roll gate for the um the cheaper price. Yes. Now, his his thing was we the expense would come up if we needed to have a remote gate,

so to speak. The power gate. Yes. So, both are for a roll gate. Both quotes are for a roll gate. Yes. I'm sorry. Okay. So, no power. No. No power. Okay.

If you think of a wood roll gate, it's too heavy to roll. I mean, I would think that. Um, but again, we can reach out for the look. Yeah, we can reach out. Make it consistent. Because to me, a look of this kind of gate, a chain link fence, looks more like it would be in an industrial area, not in a neighborhood, right? I mean, you're you've got a h a property right across that's going to be Yeah, there's a few houses right there. Yeah. Okay.

All right. Uh the gazebo and streetscape street lights. Um most of these prices it's the same slides that we had last time. Um the difference is that we did add the um the solar options that I had um mentioned to you all last time. Um, so we had some prices. Uh, there's some pictures that we have taken um to show you the difference of lighting around town that we already have in certain subdivisions. Um, we did not find any nautical themed heads, so to speak. Well, thank you for looking.

Yes, sir. So, the solar options um so this first this first slide right here is actually down by the boat ramp currently. That's one that we installed last year in February. Um along with another one on the island um by the gazebo. Um we haven't had any issues with it at all. 365 days a year it's it's lit. Um this one stays bright all night long. the one at the gazebo, we dim it down after one o'clock in the morning and then around five o'clock in the morning, we kind of bring it back up. So, we have that ability to lower the luminires. Um, but it comes with a bunch of different heads on it. Um, as you see right here, we have the essential look right now, but there's, like I said, there's a few different options you can choose from. um more decorative instead of the generic light bed.

Yeah, we do have prices. Have you run any numbers um on the cost the advantage to doing solar over the long term or is that something? It's it's going to be we we actually talked with the when we had our meeting and everything before they sent over the prices, you know, that was a question we asked was how long would it take for us to see any kind of and he the gentleman said, you know, it's it's going to take a few years before you see any kind of as far as the top of the price paying for it right now and seeing reaping the benefits so to speak later on. I wonder what a few years is that a few as in two or three or is that at least five or seven? He said at least at least five years.

Yeah. From when we pay for it to when we might be seeing any kind of and the warranty on it to last did I see seven to 10 years. So it's an 8year warranty

with the head and um the pole and everything, but it's a the lifespan of the batteries that are installed um is 10 to 12 years. Um and what we've learned from this particular company is that um they're continuousing continuously um testing their products. Um so even by that time it could be the next time we replace the the battery it might be 15 to 20 years later after that after we replace the battery. So um as long as we're keeping these poles maintained um I believe the you know the 8year warranty um it'll surpass that that warranty as far as um chipping and cracking and anything of that nature.

What's the warranty on the other lights? The the Bronzic Electric lights the So, theirs is uh pretty much it's if it gets hit, if it cracks, if it breaks for any reason, they come out. It's a paid in warranty. Yeah. So, it's included. It is. You said that would which is the slide, excuse me, that we see now. Oh, that is at the boat ramp. Yes, ma'am. Is that look anywhere else where you're looking to replace these? Is that that look? I mean, I'm trying to find the gazebo. The only other one is at the gazebo that we have

cuz we kind of I I think we would want a consistent look. Correct. Um rather than cuz that that is very different looking than the lamp shades. And it's not a lampshade, but I'm using the words out there. Very I mean, are we just talking streetscape here? Is that all we're talking about? Well, I would assume you guys want the gazebo and streetscape, right? Well, the same. Yeah. Yeah. That's all we're talking about. But that's all you're talking because you've got a picture here of a the streetscape. So, that's why I was um Yeah. I mean, to me, the decorative light looks the best of the options you've given us. It's nowhere near what's out there right now. I hate we can't just replace the bulbs in there. I mean, right to me, I don't know if we've explored

any other options to get that where those could just work. That would be the best scenario, but I don't know if there's other problems with them or not. I know, but but there again, Brunswick Electric was supposed to cover those forever and they're not. So, but it sounds like they're going to replace. So, like for example, if we were to pick the decorative light, will they replace that for free? That one? the if we replace you said some would be replaced if they're messed up. If they're if they're out if they're out they replace them for free. If they're not out it's $100 per pole, right? So it's $900 that we would be spending right now for to replace the poles that aren't out

and you can get the entirety of Streetscape and the gazebo done for $900 essentially. Right. Right. But it would be like warrantied and covered with them to replace everything. And it's also the lowest um power rate of a month, too. It's $14 a month to pay for electric on those. The double heads are $28. Now, what about the solar option you gave? What's the cost of that to buy those? Um so, right off the bat, it's um $79,458. $79,000. Like I said, that's and that's where that's where that's that's just for streetscape. Um,

you just added some zeros. Yeah. So, we're over 100,000 for this solar, correct? Yeah. So, again, this is the the long-term effect is what it is. Um, you know, if if any reason we have obviously hurricanes, right? We get that a lot. Flooding. All right. So, the lights that are on grid now, they'll go out whereas these aren't. So there's emergency vehicles, um pedestrians walking that can still see. Um so that's kind of their their take on it. Um and what's happened um in all the areas that they have these products and it's not just this company, it's other solar companies around that, you know, their their products working when others aren't when

So the solar company the so the solar option in five years it'll pay for itself, right? Correct. Yeah. And then it's a safetier it's a safer option when we have I mean we live on the coast. It's just a matter of time before we have a hurricane and and you're saying that with the solar option regardless of what's going on it's going to be powered. We won't be able to see at night time unless it's blown away. Well, it's rated for over 180 mile per hour wind. So we won't be here either. As our police chief, what would you recommend um for for safety? because safety is priceless.

Sure. With storms, I mean, you know, we're we're subject to a power failure. We have a power failure now. We don't have any lights. It's on the island and it's dark over there. Yes. At night time, um I think an option that would allow us to continue to have light is going to be the most safe. And if we can accomplish that with solar, yeah, it's an upfront cost, but we're going to see the return on investment over the couple of years. Similar to a few years ago, we changed out all the lights in our town owned buildings to LED. It's a costly venture up front, but it ended up paying dividends in the long run. I know we laughed when we heard the amount, but but if we want to be strategic and we want to position ourselves for savings,

um this is a way that you do it. It also gives a more consistent look. If if that's important to you all, I don't know if it's important a consistent look throughout town um for it to be the same. For me, it's important to have a consistent look, but it may not be important to you all. What's the maintenance on these? It's very little because I'm putting solar panels on my security cameras in my house, right? And I've been warned by manufacturer that they have to be regularly clean because they dust or bird residue will block out part of the you of their ability. And it's not like we have birds on the shore. What better place to roost is on the top of a solar pan,

right? Yeah, I understand that. Um, so these uh these solar panels aren't flat. They are at an angle. Um, so so are mine. Okay. So I don't know how often I have those at my house, too. I built my house six years ago. I've never had to clean them. So hopefully, you know, with with the pitch for your house, but what he's what you're talking about is this is open. We don't have the the pitch the the roof. Yeah. Mine would be off. It's being put on the side of the house. Yeah. On the side of the house. So, um, as far as maintenance goes, it's it's minimal. Okay.

Um, and don't get me wrong, I I know it's a big price. And like I said, that was only for streetscape, so I I understand the questions and everything. Um, and it it will take years to kind of reap the benefits, so to speak. Um, five years, you said five years. That's what we were That's what we were told. Yeah. So, um, and it's a safety issue because as the chief said, it's dark out there and if we can help our first responders in any way, I think that's that's key. I don't live on the island, but if I lived over there, I sure would want you all to be able to see to get to me.

So, this is a picture right here of what streetscape would look like with all the lights working um where we have where we would have heads right now. Um, again, I mean, not to this is the gazebo parking lot. Um, right now, if you go over to the gazebo, you can barely see anything. Um, yeah, we need some lighting there because Right. Yeah.

Um, so the other thing was um moving away from the solar panels for right now was the um the lighting option. And I know you all mentioned that you guys don't want the typical or didn't want to see the typical street lights that are on like Main Street. Um, which again, you know, we have different options. Brunswick Electric provides different options as far as poles. Um, again, that's you're looking at um these poles right here, the standup poles,

black, a little bit more decorative. Um, but as you get into decorative poles, you're losing the the lighting aspect of it. You're losing the safety side of it. So, kind of kind of pick and choose what what would you like? Would you have it aesthetically pleasing or or safety oriented? So, like the decorative one, this one right here, that one in your picture. Um, is that globe glass? What What is that? I believe that one's glass. Okay. They're not plastic. So, not plexiglass. Well, I didn't get up there and hit it, but somebody might want to target practice with

Well, we might want to check and see. I mean, to me, that one's the most attractive one. Um, but Okay. But there's no way the lights that are there to you can to get bulbs in them to work. We've exhausted that resource. The bulbs are it's just they're not supplied by Bronzo Electric. They're they're out from Brunswick Electric as far as providing them. I guess they said they're um not being produced anymore. Something along those lines. Um another thing that we encountered was when we u we had an issue at the gazebo with a part hanging down for months.

Um the bolt had rusted out from all the sea air and everything. um getting those off and replacing them. Who's to say that it goes back in and will it fit the right way? Can we find the bolts for it in general? So, we haven't exhausted looking for it other than Brunswick Electric saying they're not providing them. Yeah, I mean, no, we haven't only because you're looking at using fire department for to get up there and actually change out the bulbs. We don't have a machine that's able to get up there and change the bulbs. Can't use a ladder. Not going to work. Um, an extension ladder. We tried it. I couldn't reach.

Um, we don't have a bucket truck. We have a basket to hang banners, but it does not get high enough up. So, are we going to use the fire department every single time that we need to change out a bulb? Okay, man. If we went with the solar lights, uh, will they be the same height as what we have out there now? Yeah, we can actually change the heights how we want to. I mean, they can they can stay the same height. We can get 30 foot poles. We can get 20 foot poles. Okay. And then what is the anchoring system as far as how it's in the ground? It's 5T in the ground, concrete encased. Okay. With a ground rod. Yeah. So, you need some direction on which way we're going to go. I mean, yeah. I mean,

so that you know what to put in the budget. Yeah. So, it's whatever head you guys would like um for the the solar option, which like I said, I I was just bringing that up so you guys at least know there's Well, I I first started off talking about aesthetics. Yeah.

But when you're talking about safety, I have to put my thoughts of something looking nicer. I have to put that aside. what is safer? What is a long-term investment for the town or our taxpayers to have? Um, so for for me, I I don't know where you all are on this, but I like the solar better. I know it's cost more right now, but the return and for the safety and for the continuity of the lookout there, I agree on looking and putting the solar in there, but I would like to know one of the things we're going to have to be careful of is how high this budget goes. Mhm.

So, we should know what it's going to cost for that and what it's going to cost to remain the same for another year or two because when it comes down to looking at the bottom line of all the numbers, we may say, "Let's take the nice stuff off this year and throw throw it on for another year." We can't get it all done. You know, much as I'd like to understand, I think we should look at it both ways. I agree with that. Um I I prefer the decorative light for the aesthetic of it. It's a much better look. Yeah. I mean, of the options given, obviously, I like the ones out there, but if they can't be use utilized for various reasons, it is what it is. And they the way they are, you know. Mhm.

They're they're old looking, which suits, you know, the beach area. But anyway, um my my concern with the decorative light is is that glass or not? I'd like to know if it's glass or not, or is it, you know, what what's this what type of glass? What kind of winds and stuff would it get? or obviously if somebody shoots it, that's a whole another issue. But um I don't love the look of the solar, but I understand the I'm concerned about the 100,000 plus investment this in this year's budget because we are as y'all know looking at not what you want to hear when I'm like we could pave a lot of roads with $100,000. I thought it was 80,000. That's for streetscape only.

Okay. So what total? Um I believe it was 20 28,000 28,400 or 343 for the um gazebo. Okay. So you're looking at over $100,000. Okay. Around 110, right? What would be the timeline if we did the solar to install?

Yeah. Is that what you're saying? Um, so say July, we were able to order them. I think last time we got them in three months. So you're looking at September by by Thanksgiving, Christmas, they would all be installed. If we if we spent this $100,000, what's what's the timeline to get them all installed? what you ordered in July in December. Christmas December. Is that That's like every day that you're out there working on. We could we could probably get three done a day at least. You all can install them though. Don't have to hire install the other two.

Yeah. What's What's the method of of uh you I guess you have to dig a footer is what you said up and all that. Okay. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. We just dig a hole 5T deep. Mhm. Um we used post hole diggers the last time we did them. Um, and then set the pole inside of it with our backo, strap back to it, sit it down, um, put it in concrete, let it sit for a day, and then we put the head on the following day with the assistance of article so that we have a true cost analysis. Would you do a little homework on truly I mean, well, you gave us an estimate, but it would be better for us to have a true

cost analysis of what it what our return on our investment would be. Um because we certainly don't want to go by we think it's five years and then five year. We just need to know we need to know true numbers and also the true numbers of the true cost because if you're have I figured that was an installed price. So if you're having to install them as well and do all that. We need all y'all's labor and materials and all that factored into this cost as well. Okay. And it also might not hurt if you got a price on maybe renting a some sort of a lift or something too. So we're not tying the fire department up all the time as well. Gota question.

No, but thank you for all the Thank you. Just real quick. This head we're looking at right here, this this bulb we're looking at lens right here, that is not the solar powered light. That's not a a Okay. I just want to make sure is not. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, we're going we're going to have a five minutes just cancel. We'll come right back. I took my father.

All right, we'll be continuing. Next up is our building and inspections. Mr. Carrie White, go ahead, sir. Thank you, Mayor Council. Uh, I guess I'm here to find out if I need to uh pull my truck back and uh so uh if there's any questions or uh anything concerning uh the request, if I need to answer any more questions or whatever. My understanding, as I recollect, the truck will be purchased from funds within the building and inspection department.

Yes, sir. That's the only place only the money the only building and inspection money received can only be spent for building and inspections. That's correct. Yes, sir. So, I don't I personally don't see any reason to to not get the truck because you're going to end up turning the other truck over to to the planning department transferred over to the planning department. I also have no issue with Carrie you purchasing that and you know thank you for always looking at your dollars and having them spot on and everything. I think I'm in support of it. I didn't know that there was an issue. Um well no I you know

we gave you the thumbs up the last time to go for it. Okay. I just just wanted to make sure we were everything was still uh still good. Good. Thank you for asking. Okay. there's any other questions or anything, just let me know. Thank you. All right. Okay. Thank you'all. Thank you. Next up, we events.

Good morning, everyone. I apologize for my lateness and getting you my proposal. I was waiting for a couple of dollar figures until um after 5:00 on Friday. So, this is the my most updated numbers. Um I think we can skip the first page of my presentation. That's just goes back to what we had discussed as far as where the money comes uh goes in the budget between the accommodations tax and the general fund and uh go to sunset at sunset. Um I did make some adjustments here. Um under transportation I reduced the number of buses to two in order to bring the number down. At the same time on Saturday I did see that uh another company was able to provide school buses. So I reached out to them first thing this morning to try to get a better number um if they could do school buses. They cannot do school buses, but if they do the two executive buses, which are the 27 passenger buses, they can beat this number by about $1,000. So, I would be able to sharpen that a little bit more as well. Um, the additional thing that we changed was the uh lights for overnight security. I spoke with Matt and he felt that if we did three lights um versus four, five lights, we would be able to light the park well enough. and we wouldn't need to um pay for those additional lights. The other thing that I brought down was the t-shirts. I had put the t-shirts in at 2500. I've left $1,000 in there. Um and that is based on if we were if we did sell all of the t-shirt inventory that we have in stock now. Um I would need to purchase some additional t-shirts for staff um and volunteers to wear at the event. Um, the company that we've purchased from in the past uh does not have something like

a QR code where people could go online and purchase their own t-shirt if they liked it. That'd be something more like a cafe press, which we could do, but the t-shirt cost into each t-shirt uh per cost it would increase substantially. So, we'd have to sell them for more between 15 and $20 rather than the 12 that we sell them for. And then we brought I brought the advertising down just to $800 um just to reduce that. Um I took out the money that um for the radio spots because we decided that that wasn't something that we wanted to do and I just left the money in for the one ad in the beacon. And um I adjusted the parking attendance as well based on the lots that we'll be able to use and the lots that we would be staffing as opposed to um just putting the uh sandwich boards. So, it brought the total cost down to 16,650 and I think I can bring it down to 15,650 with the adjustment of going with the other transportation company.

Right. Thank you for that.

The next page is the holiday lighting. Um I've gone back to the lighting company um to see what their um with the changes that we had discussed um and the price of 48.44 includes the cost of lighting the gazebo the sprays on the gazebo and also lighting the tree itself and including the star on the tree. So that would be the same star that we had last year um and the lights. So they're all the C they're the C9 lights. So they're a little bit larger, but it is the warm white light. And then that would so that would they would provide just the lighting. And then I would purchase the ornaments separately and then um public works and I would hang the ornaments on the tree.

Which tree are we talking about? The tree that went up like this.

The the tree of lights we would get rid of. And we had discussed last time that we would have um we would try to have a real tree this year. Um, so we're looking at something about somewhere between 15 and 18 feet. Um, depending on on on the tree that we actually get. Um, a couple things that we will need is we will need to build a stand for the tree because we'll have to build something with some sort of a water source to be able to keep that tree alive um, between Thanksgiving and New Year's, which is when we traditionally take it down. So, uh, I went and met with public works and they felt that the $250 would give them the money to purchase the materials for that. And that would also give us money to purchase materials uh to build a more substantial box stand for the tree that goes under the gazebo itself. And I also adjusted the parking attendance on this. Um the we didn't we had very few parking attendants last year because we were planning on having a much smaller event and then we had a lot more people. So I've left the number of attendance pretty much the same on this one as opposed to um as opposed to the other ones. And I took the advertising off completely and we'll just do all of that online. The other thing I had on here was for the deer. Um, we had talked about putting the deer down in the grove area next to the veterans memorial. Those are things that we can purchase ourselves and um, we're going to purchase um, it would be six sets of the deer and then we will put them kind of down in that area. So, they'll be lit up and then during the day they'll just be the um, the grape vine, a natural colored grape vine with a bow on them. So, they'll be good either way. And public works will be able to handle um all of the power and getting those staged and set up. We

won't need to hire anybody to do that. Did you look at the holiday lighting, the lighting on the gazebo, public works doing that with lights?

We did discuss it. um public works. If we're talking about public works, doing the TR building the stand for the tree, getting the tree erected, putting the lights on the gazebo, and us building the sprays that we would put on the um I would need to put in more money for materials to make those sprays. And then also putting up the lights and then purchasing all of these lights. Um, I don't think that we're going to see a substantial money savings because uh, Matt felt that it would be about two days of labor to get all of this done for his staff and with the things that they're that they need to do at this time, he just didn't feel like they would be able to do

okay to do that. So, the holiday light to me, the holiday lighting is what you describe is just putting the lights around gazebo. It's already I mean the the things are already up there to just click it on. Correct. But I I I understand what you're saying. What he's saying is that if we were it's not just that also includes lighting the tree and that's going to take some effort and we would also have to purchase all of those lights. Um I'm not sure we want to do that. I'm not confident in that having a live tree is going to help our squirrel problem. and will the squirrels attack the lights in the tree and then will we need to be replacing the lighting and

and that could very easily be a problem and we're not uh and my other concern would be all of the light strings we are not no one is a lighting person who works in public works and I'd be afraid that if we were trying to hook everything together so we would have one lighting with timers that we could have an issue there as well whereas if we put that on the lighting company that's their problem to solve and we would have that they would take care of all of those issues for us. But to me, just hanging the lights around the gazebo where the clips are already there. Do you have a breakdown in your proposal of how much that costs from the lighting company?

I do. Um, it is $1,500. Um, so I would have to look into the price of purchasing the exact same lights that they had. That includes So the other costs are more. So that part's not costly, right? It's the tree itself. The lighting of the tree is 20 I think it's 2,800 for for that or 2,300 for the tree, 1,000 for the sprays, 1,500 for the lights on the gazebo.

What was the last year when we added the squirrel some of the trees? What did they charge us per strand plus the service call, I guess, to come out and replace that? Do you remember what that was? The first time that they came out, they provided they replaced everything for free. Um, when they came out the second time, they had to replace um a number of spring strings and it was $500. I definitely worry that a tree is going to be an issue, but um but the tree the tree that was like this that just went straight up with the lights, the one we rented.

Um that tree. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Okay. Sorry. Yeah, that tree. Um, I know I looked online like on Amazon and you could buy those trees pretty inexpensively for a couple hundred dollar compared to what we you're just not getting the LED power. You're not getting the light power that you are getting there with those the bulbs that you're getting from an Amazon tree. It's not going to be as bright or brilliant as you know it's because it's not a commercial. Well, I had some friends buy one off of Amazon that they used on their boat and it actually looked good for the price point of what? So, just throwing that out there. Okay.

Yeah. I mean, I think ideally if to get what we want um which would be a nice looking traditional Christmas tree to be in the park. I I think it would need to be one of the ones that are the concentric circles that stack on top of each other. That's an actual commercial tree. And maybe that's something I can see if they someone's selling those on Gov deals. That might be a place that people have something like that. I might be able to find something. Um they're just very expensive to purchase to purchase those. Um

Okay. So the the price did was reduced um you know we brought it down from what it was last year and of course I will be looking for sponsors to to hand for um all of these things. I have a couple people that um have reached out and I'll reach back out to them to get um to help with any sponsorships. Is the plan to sell the fire pits that were purchased?

Um the plan wasn't to sell them. I thought we would just use them as decoration and have them we would light them at the event and just have the fire pits lit just as little heat sources. It was cold last year, so I think that it wouldn't be bad to have them. We have covers for them to so people can't get right up on top of them, but I think it would be nice to have them. Yes. Um I think it was I included the price of the firewood in with the the food. So I think it was $100 that I spent on firewood last year. And if we're just doing a little bit of firewood, I'm sure I can get somebody to bring some from home and we can we can get some firewood that way. Um I didn't make any changes on the green festival. Um price uh remained the same. What I did was I removed the cost of the birdhouses, but I did put a little bit more money towards music. Um, this year I was having um some issues with um having getting someone that would be able to perform at that um that $500 price point and I uh ended up needing to take the money that we were going to spend on the birdhouses and put it towards the music. Um and that way kept the price the same, but the committee felt that it was more important to have the music than it was to have um than to have the birdhouses that we would give away. And I adjusted the parking attendance here as well.

What's the the $400 the $400 increase in signage and banners? $80 last year. Correct. Um we do need to have um because we're getting sponsorships for this, we need to we will have to redo the banner each year. Change the slides. Sorry, I'm sorry. There we go. So, Amy, on the banner, I know you've got the Greenway banner. Um, can you can you just have it where it's something that can peel on and off? Kind of like your egg was so that our sponsors for Greenwave, we wouldn't have to buy a banner each time. We would just buy the part, you know, print out what's on there, put it on there.

I could, but based on the number of I have one, two, three, I think I have six sponsors and I have four banners. So, I'd need to buy 24 of those little stickers. So, and they're about $20 a piece. So, it's pretty much the same price because there's so many stickers that would need to go on it. So, is the sponsorship covering the cost of the banners in a way? I mean,

how much what are your sponsorship levels for that? the sponsorships um that I've gotten for both the um grocery bag, the reusable bags and for the uh plants, I included the cost of the um I included the cost of banners for each one of their tents um where we're giving them away into the cost of the sponsorship. But if we are and we had discussed that we wanted to make sure that anyone who offered parking was included as a sponsor on the banners that those would be so that's three of them for that again. Um, jazz in the park. The only thing I adjusted on this was the um, parking attendance.

Before we get too far ahead, let's I I want to be sure that we have Are you clear on the direction from slide number four with the holiday market? I'm sorry, holiday lights and the holiday market. Was there any anything that uh council wanted to see changed in this other than what was presented? I'm good with you. I guess the deer thing that six set of deer you said it's going to 15 deer running around in the park.

So it's going to be over by the veterans not I mean because that's pretty lit up itself. Is that where you said it looked? Well, it's there our the veterans area is lit up but not the other not the area in between. And I know that one of the comments that um that we had discussed last time was that there was nothing in the rest of the park. So it looked lame. So uh well it was offkilter with the light. Three different sets of light. There was the warm lights, the cool lights, and then there was the colorful light, you know, and then there was the other We did the lights. Yep. So, yep. The and the cool lights, those were along the fence line, and that was um Sunset Vision handle has done that in the past.

Um and that's something that I can talk about. I can also see if the, you know, to continue doing it. Do we want would you like me to look into the purchasing lights that for them to use that would match the lights that we have in the park so that it's a more um uniform look? And then the red and green lights were just simply the up lights that we had changed red and green to for Christmas. But I can also leave those warm white so that way it would all be white. And that's that's an easy swap for in one set of deer, right? It's just one set of deer. It's it would be we'd have little groupings. is six sets. We'd have different groupings of deer in different areas throughout the park that would be lit up. So, these are like the Lowe's type of deers.

They're between Correct. They're between three and six feet tall, but we don't have to keep them as a group either, so I could spread them out. I can also purchase less. I just wanted to give you an idea. Yeah. Well, to me, they've got those have to be wired with cords, so they're going to be all over the place. People are walking. Um, and then you also have got the squirrel issue. So to me, we've had the deer in the past and they haven't been a problem. Where are those squirrels? Those deer are gone. Okay. They were there and they were I think that they have been disposed of. They We've had them for a long time and I don't know where they were.

So, do we want the deer or not? I think is what she needs direction on. Right. If you're going to do deer at all, why don't you cut it at least three sets and pull this price down to$7,000? Sure. Three max. I mean, if not, we're gonna be run over with deer like we are in the rest of this town. We trying to get more deer. Yeah. And I don't know that the deer are like, you know, do I mean I'm happy to Is there something else you'd like me to look at that I could put in that area? I'm happy to look for something else. I just We're going to do Christmas. We might want to look at some other option in because there's all kind of stuff instead. Yeah. Yeah. You know, but I have no problem with like three, you know, like I said, the biggest thing $7,000 to me ought to be the max on it. So, okay.

You know, and if we get sponsorship and we get some money built up, then we can look in the future. I mean, that was the whole deal about starting this thing or that was

what I took off starting this thing is it was something we were going to build on to see how it went about. We had a great first year with it. But again, it's just like everything else. We got to deal with the weather. We don't know how cold it's going to be. If it's going to be raining, I don't want to see the town putting a lot of money into something, especially if there's no sponsorship. You know, I think there will be some sponsorships, but but it's something we can build on. And as far as bringing some other people in town, maybe some churches or something that wants to have idea. I think that's what we need to f or that's just my opinion, but I think that's what we need to focus on is getting some people involved that will help with this thing where will not cost our taxpayers a lot, but it's all about bringing our town together.

Absolutely. I've got, you know, and I've got some performers already booked for it. So, I think that we'll have it we'll have a different program as well. Um, I just I want to make sure that the decor that I'm talking about is is what you're looking for. So, if I I felt like the deer was good because it's holiday, it's winter, it's not Christmas. And most of the events like this that I've seen in other town, I've been to a couple of different ones. Some of them huge, some of them not so huge. But the people that come use those with especially ones with the kids. Use the different aspects of it as photo ops for Christmas. Sure. So, you know, if it's all the same, then just take a picture of this and over here and we've done with it. But if you have an ornament or you have

whatever a toy soldier here, this here, this here. It gives them different options to keep them there and have them walking around and enjoying our beautiful park. Yeah. Yeah. I like the options other than deer myself. Like I know when you go down to Conway or other towns like that they have even if we had one of those and each year we expand you know and Sure. Those were the things that we I had last time that and we said we didn't like those toy soldiers or the replace the deer with the manora because s had a season.

I mean it is a season for that and I you said something about you didn't want it to be Christmas. Well, it is Christmas and so I'm that that's fine for the for the Jewish people and we need to have something for the Christian people as well. Um I just thank you for saying that because you mentioned that we're wanting to get out of Christmas. No, I'm not wanting to get out of Christmas. It is Christmas. That is what we're celebrating. Yep. Absolutely. I just was, you know, thinking that it I was just thinking that we wanted it to be a more holiday thing rather than having, you know, a Santa Claus um statue that was lit up. So that's why I went with a deer. But I'm again having a Christmas tree automatically turns it into

It does. Did you um on our other presentation, didn't you have some soldiers or something? I do have those present or something. It was some other thing, but we took those off. Right. So, but I can also if we decide that we want to say we want to keep it under $7,000, but I don't know what I don't, you know, they have such large things at Lowe's that there's certainly things that I could buy a few different options. Maybe it's not the deer, but knowing that that money's in there for build us a $7,000 budget and then we get Exactly. That's a good plan to get sounds like a good plan. And to do the $7,000, we are going to have to take off the deer or whatever.

Whatever. We we just we're just going to say it's $7,000 and we'll figure it out as far as what we got to buy these things that's going to go with it. But that'll keep us in pretty much in order cuz the six is what brought it up to the virtually. That's right. So the deer I will bring those down. Deer needs to go away. Get us to the 7,000. Okay. Mhm. We're good with green wave before we move on. And this is doing it in the spring or the fall. Green wave. No, I'm sorry. Not green wave. Wrong one. I'm sorry. Green wave. Never mind. I know. Sorry. I'm on the jazz. Yeah. Um, wrong sheet. The green wave. It's

Yeah, that's what he was just asking about. Yeah, we all good. We all good with that. And the plants are donations and they're donated. Anything like that would be a donation. Sounds good. Okay, that's great. Thank you. Jazz in the Park. I think um we had a better attendance when we did it in the spring. So I think the plan going forward would be to do it in the spring each year and we have enough in the fall. We don't need to add another event, I don't think. And there's no option of a lower band price. I mean I know you were looking into because that's several bands, right?

It's just two bands, but they all come as one package. The two bands are they play separately. They play together. They bring the sound system and the sound person. So it's all yes they are they do split into two groups at other locations but here it's a package deal where we get the whole shebang for for the one price but um for the ERC educational workshops um we had talked about the four workshops um here you had asked me to remove the honoraria um so I brought that down to zero so that you could see that I left in the information about the promotional materials such as flyers or things that we'd need, possible workshop supplies. So, I budgeted $275 per workshop. If we don't need it, we won't use it. Um, if we don't need supplies, I know um we're working with the uh Brunswick uh the BCC um they have a turf grass um department. So, um I know that the committee is working with the turf grass department to get them to come down here and do a seminar and bring in the golf pro from Oyster Bay to be able to talk about turf grass. Um so, that's something that won't cost us any money. So, we won't we wouldn't spend that. We are going to speak with some um have somebody come and talk about propagation with grasses um coastline grasses. In that case, what we'll need to do is purchase two grasses that she could break up and um some of the small plastic containers that we would repot in um for once we break up the that. So,

are those numbers correct on there, Amy? Yes, it's 275* 4 um gets you to the total. So, 275 per workshop times four workshops is 1,100 for the year, right? But then the total for the year then you've got the 200 and the 275. That's this and this. This 2005 per Okay. Yes. The total for the year to me I was looking for the total of this. The total for the whole program of four workshops is $1,100

and then you got 200. So what Miss Bachelor is saying is the total for each year should be um 1300 not 1100. No if you're doing 275* 4 what number do you get for that 275* 4100 then you've got a workshop supplies that's that's this and this is what she's come up with this. She was just showing this as a total that was including this and this. Is that not correct? That's correct. Yes. You don't have you're not doing a rolling. She's not doing a rolling tab. She was just showing what and then broke it down. I understand it now. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. It was different. So, it was 275 per event or perop four.

And I did the same thing for the tree board with two planned workshops. Um and again, that is a placeholder. The workshops have not been planned yet. However, um if we that would be money that we would spend if necessary, but we would not spend it if the if the workshops didn't require that. Okay.

The uplighting I went back um and we I'm meeting him this afternoon down at the down there. Um right now each tree is four lights. So, this quote is showing us doing four trees in the park. So, I went back and looked at where we would need additional lights to complete the whole park. Um, one thing in speaking with him is that I know we want to do some lighting to the right of the gazebo. his uh recommendation and the recommendation from public works is that we don't go into the area that dips down on the side of the park that borders on the inter coastal because of storm surge. It would so we would keep it up in the elevated portion, right? Um, and uh, there were three trees that are on that side. And then I think we would, if we did these four trees that are marked off, then did two more trees closer to the street, then that would be a total of nine more trees that would need to be done in the park. So the total cost for doing nine trees would be the 20,43954. I don't know who the appropriate representative or person would be, but we do need to have some input from some type of expert on the bird and the wildlife that that's going closer to the inter coastal. Um I don't know if we've I don't know who to contact, but I I would like for us to have some input on that because that's a factor in, you know, we didn't have lights out there before and now we're talking about putting lights closer to the inter coastal. Are there concerns with wildlife?

Um generally where it's close to the generally it's not close to the inter coastal because everything almost all of them are on this side of the walkways so it actually keeps it a pretty good distance from there but I'm certainly happy to try to find the right person just to say these lighting is not going to be something that's going to disturb the wildlife that's in the inner coastal and maybe in our um public forum section if we have any experts in the off a audience maybe they can weigh in or at least lead you in the right direction. I do think we need to look at that before we go putting out more lighting because we don't want to we don't want to continue with light pollution. No. Um so absolutely

that was mentioned last time as well. And um where the where the picnic table is on the like if you're looking straight at the gazebo to the right like the walkway are there any lights there at all? Right. Th those are I found. So I've I did my own survey of the park and looked myself of where based on events we have, things that go on in the park, the concerts, there's some trees that just aren't going to work. People sit too close to them there. It's too much. That's not a good spot for it. So there's three trees over there that are above. They're not on the lower area. And that we could do some uplighting to kind of light that side of the park as well. But is where the picnic table is, the covered area, are there any lights there at night? No. Okay. Nope. I'm sure.

Um the lights are power there at all. There is power. Um there's only lights in the gazebo. Cuz to me, if there was even a light there, that may give you enough light on that side to have something lit. I I'm just throwing out suggestions. Um that wouldn't be, you know, right, pricey. And the additional of lighting trees will be an ongoing overhead cost for that too that we need to consider because I mean electricity is not going to be free out there. No, it's not. Obviously, it's free. But um and I didn't mean that to be I mean I'm just we need to figure that into this too because that's going to be an ongoing overhead cost each budget. Absolutely. that will increase the town's cost

and the with the nine trees that are left to upate, we could certainly break it up. So, we would do four trees this year and five trees next year. Um, we could do it all at the same time. We're not going to see a cost savings whether we do nine trees now or four one year, five the next. It's there won't it's going to be the price will not change with, you know, even if we do more at once. So the 9,000 price tag is for four trees, correct? Thank you.

And if we decide to go ahead, I can have the designer come and meet with you um when we're down there and we can actually select the trees that we would want to do this year. Um, and then we can also look at the trees that we'd want to do in following years and be able to mark it out so we have a path forward if it's something that we wanted to continue with.

What's the direction of council here? I just I want to be sure that we're able to prepare a budget good numbers look at for next week. First thing they want somebody to tell them if if it's good to go in there or not. I think. Yes, we need to know that first. So, put it in there. Put put the numbers in there um for the increase. What is it? Three trees, three additional lighting. It I can either do it for the four trees or for nine trees. Well, let's do it both ways, but we really need to have some experts weigh in. Um we don't need to create more problems for ourselves, right? We can we can reduce the amount once we find out.

Or should we go with the forree option? what should be going with not with the nine. Yeah. Go with the four budget four just to let them see after you get the report and that's something we can take out if it's not going to work. Yeah. Okay. That okay with you, Mike, to leave it in there. The four the 9,000 for now. Yeah. And we can always change around.

And the town calendars, um I have the budget of um left it at 1500. I went back to the company that produces the calendars to see if they could have again the QR code. That's not a place where they could do that, but if we did it on something like a Shutterfly, a Snapfish where I could put the calendar together there, people could purchase it. But when you do it that way, it will just be the calendars would be more expensive. So, I would be looking at over $20 a calendar if I was purchasing them. um having them printed by a printing company, they they'll be less expensive just to print the 250 and

Yeah. But but we are having to then have staff sell them, write the receipts, do all that where if they did it the other way, it wouldn't have to be done. Correct. And if we makes it more expensive to the town, right? If we did it normally, we're at sunset at sunset and that's where we sell the majority of them from the town tent. So that's where the majority are sold. could you share with us about sales tax and the things that you sell?

Um the sales tax, uh we back the we include the sales tax in the sales price and then because of the way that we sell it, it's broken down on our square and also broken down. So we have the uh paper receipts to compare and then um in the past Terra would back it out and she would um pay the sales tax on that number. But she also no I know that there's a threshold to amount the amount of product that you can sell before you actually have to pay the sales tax it with the municipality. I think it I can't remember the exact dollar. Do you know what that Yeah, I'd have

I would think we would want to pay sales tax. No, it it's it's some Tara knew that there's some sort of listing if you if you sold less than a certain dollar number in product, then it I would have to go back and ask Tara exactly what it was, but we did take out the sales tax on we did include sales tax in this price. We weren't adding it on at the end. Did we have any calendars left from 2026? No.

Okay, good. concerts. I've left the budget the same. Um the $50,000 is what we usually work with um each year. In your on the left side, it shows in 2026 we had 16 concerts. Yes. And then the proposal is for 14 concerts with the same amount of money. So, did everybody go up? H Why is it more?

We haven't bud we so it's kind of a strange budget because with it starting over on July 1st, we have half of one year's concert schedule and half of the next year's concert schedule both on there. The numbers the 16 concerts normally it's 15 or 14. It depends based on how many weeks are it nor traditionally starts the Wednesday after Memorial Day and ends the Wednesday before Labor Day. We can still do 15 and just go an additional week or start a week earlier. That's certainly um you know up to the council if we want to do the 15 concerts like we normally do, then that's what

What are y'all's thoughts on having one in the fall? You know, we we we have so many in the summer. They're great, but we're beating down in sweat. It would be so great to have one that's in the fall. Um I I don't know what the appropriate month would be, but um it would be a way we have so many people come to these. They're so wellliked. Mayor, I know you negotiate with the the bands on on a price.

Even this this money that's here is not that ain't right. That ain't right. I mean, because I know what the I know what the councils have put. this is your limit that we'll pay per per group. Now, we've our negotiations or the negotiations that I done this year was trying to stay well under that to get all those concerts in that valued money, but these don't this this money doesn't add up right for it, but but I know what the number is. So, yeah, I mean, but but yeah, I mean, what is that? It was 4,000 was the max. 4,000,000. We've always stayed under that. I mean, we've worked there's been a couple that in the past that we've had to pay that, but other than that, we've been able to stay under this year significantly. I mean, when I reached out to them,

you know, for the trying to get this stuff going, a lot of them was, you know, they were understanding it because I mean, it's it's good. I mean, it's but it's a good event. I mean, they get a lot of exposure from it. Our concert series has become one of the best ones around. Absolutely. I mean, it's got that name. There's a lot of these other towns, the people are coming in here for them because they just feel like they get a different level of talent. Absolutely. and getting stuff that they don't see with out at these places. So, I would love to see them in the spring and the fall for our taxpayers so that and it's not 110 degrees out there whenever you go. So, you I think we'd have more people even you want to add one more to it. Is that what you're saying?

Well, when you do the math, if it the mayor says when he contract, excuse me, negotiates, it's about $4,000. So, $4,000 for 16 concerts equals $64,000. If you do 14, which is what um Miss Goodrich has in her proposal, is $56,000. 15 is what she's got to. It's all by according to the days because we never do it till after Memorial Day and it's always done basically at Labor Day and then we have those two, you know, we we put in this year again for just two makeup dates in case because last year, unfortunately, we had a lot of rain outs. Before that, we haven't had a lot of rain outs, so we haven't had that used those days.

Well, it would be good to have one or two for the fall to give back to our taxpayers. As I was saying, it's absolutely I mean I think that we should September September October. That'd be right if we wanted to do that. Do I mean I don't know that we would we could call it something else. This is this is another thing we might need to think about. The 1st of October of course is our sunset on Sundays, right? So they have music and they have good music. So I mean that's something that our citizens do. Yes. And if there is there not another one the following week something for some reason I'm want to think there was another event that there is Jazz we had jazz in the next week we did so the week after sunset at sunset is push-ups for Parkinson's

and they got their deal they've already booked an event and they have like chocolate chip I think already booked big that's good and then on that basically just leads us to September right and so then we and in the spring we have bands for strawberry and wine in April and Pausibility does Bandfest in June and we have Jazz in the Park in May. Would y'all support an additional concert in September to give to our taxpayers and to to make it 15 concerts? Yeah. Well, you've got to include

What's your thoughts? I mean, we got over here. We just need to make sure we're giving her direction. I'm not uh positive we should we need to put one in September just to have one in September. If there was an event that was available that's something uh if we're going to sp $4,000 this is an opportunity to do that. So I I won't consensus is if you want to do it fine. I'm not totally in favor. That's all. Well, we also have the option, and I've given Amy, we have the option of some local bands that don't charge as well. I mean, they're not the they're not the broad bands that, you know, tour everywhere, but they're local bands that we could support to have come and some don't charge. They they do take up for for philanthropy.

Yes. So, they we would pay them and then they pay the philanthropy. So, it varies. Some just take up as you're there. It varies, I guess. And then we also would have to pay for a sound system because that's not we don't have a sound system installed. So a lot of times if they're going to go to a place where they're just going to play and take a you know take a collection to give to philanthropy then that's usually where they can plug into an existing sound system. So we would have to have a sound person a sound system and that's about $800 but definitely much less than if you're paying and some do have sound systems but less minuscule. and Dave's Outpost. I don't know if you were there, but they had those turtle boxes out around and the sound was great throughout the park. It was really good.

We could do Sunset Beach band showcase or something, you know, put some kind of trendy name on it. Get our local bands involved. I'm sure they would appreciate it. Um, it gives them exposure and it um, you know, gives something back to the taxpayers. But it tendedly for the 23rd of September because right now we're showing two makeup days and you all know just like I know we're going to have a concert or two going to get rained out. Sure. And our whole deal was that was us paying half up front. We want to make sure we at least got our taxpayers money back have another opportunity. It may rain bunch times and we may not but but um use that 23rd as as that possible date and do a showcase of sunset or something. Absolutely. Super.

Okay. after that. I mean, we're virtually in October then and that's going to be our sunset on sunset. Yes. And did we finalize sunset at sunset? I don't think we did. Did we? We That was the first one we did, but did we finalize it? Well, I guess I had some question because she talked about Yeah, she talked about changing some of that and getting it down to around 15. And on the transportation, I mean, is that definitely something we feel we need is transportation for that? I do. I feel it's important and pe it's used. I mean we like I said the parking lot last year CES Methodist was threearters full. So there is a number of people who do use it.

You remember at the last meeting we had asked for those numbers to see you were going to get with the transportation company. What did they say? what kind of numbers I did and and I did reduce it cuz it was at um it was um at 6,200 and I brought it down now to 4590 and I think I can get it down even further if I switch to a different company that will do the two buses. So rather than three buses we'd go to two um and in the p last year we brought it from two parking lots to one. I think the council needs to weigh in on that with the numbers. So go back to the company, find out what the numbers are when, you know, the way that we asked it last time was per hour, find out how many people were being transported so that we can look at what we really need.

They they didn't have those statistics where the bus driver wasn't writing down how many people he was transporting each time. I just have I just know that if we're going to provide the transportation, I think it's important that we provide it for the entirety of the event and not say, "Oh, only from 11 to 1." because then I we'll have people who will miss the shuttle and then need to be shuttled back and then we're going to have I I I think that I if we if we want to do it I think we should do it for the whole time and I think I can get it to a lower price here. However, if we don't or we can not do it at all but I would say either let's do it and do it for the whole time or or just eliminate it. If that lot was three quarter full for the entire event, it's definitely necessary. There's nowhere to park those kind of cars. This is such a popular event that if we don't have an offsite parking location, they're going to be parking on top of each other and it's not what we want.

Well, at least we've reduced the cost. Amy's reduced it by about half. So, that's good. And I'll be able to pull it down a little bit more. So, that's good. And it's two buses rather than four. Exactly. You're starting at 11. Is that what you said? No, I'm saying I think we need to do it. It's 9:30 to 4:30. So, it's a half an hour before the start of the event and a half an hour at the end of the event. And that way we could that gives people ample time to be able to get there and wrap it up at the end because we don't want anybody to miss the bus and then be stuck. Okay. for the signage and banners. Are we moving? Are we moving on contracts? Are y'all missing? We've got $1,900. What exactly is included in that?

So, with the signage and banners, we have to do print new signage, new banners every year. And we also um it that money is we also do banners for each tent that um a sponsor has. So included in the price of the sponsorship is a tent um on site and each one of them is given a banner and that um to acknowledge that they're whatever level of sponsorship and a banner. They get this their spot. Okay. And a banner and a banner. So they bring their own tents and things like that. You're in theory making proceeds off of that though. Correct. So it's included.

I'm just show I just show it here because there's not a direct line for me to put in the sponsorships. Okay. Because it's not, you know, directly that 1900 you're getting back. Is that what you're saying? Yeah. I mean indirectly it we between sponsorships and the um and the vendor fees we collect close to close to $12,000 between vendor fees and and sponsorships. So, so the six this 15,500 you're estimating roughly you're saying you're going to make back 12,000 in that too. Yes. Okay. Okay.

Okay. I can think of. And then one slide that I didn't have in here last time was just to put in the parking slide. And that just wanted to show you um going forward we're only we'll be providing this parking for locations that offer us parking. So if you are offering a portion of your lot to us, we will have an attendant there to help control the parking in your lot. So that way people are park not parking where you don't want them to park and we're only putting people where you do want them to park. Um

Amy, let me ask a question please. Um did they provide parking at everything or is it select? This is these people provided parking for every event. Okay.

Um so for the concerts um there's I based it on 15 concerts times $315 per concert which would get us to $4725. And for the markets it's 375. Um, and there's 25 of those and that's 7,500 in parking. So that's last year we had we're spending close to 19,000 and this brings us down to about 12,000. So we're going to see $7,000 worth of savings in parking year-over-year. And do we still feel we need to provide that versus the sandwich boards that have been discussed?

We are using the sandwich boards for locations that do not provide us any parking. Um it's not it was we don't want I don't think and that we we discussed having people having attendance present at places where um having attendance present at places that offer us a portion of their parking lot so we control it right Breeze for example when you're pulling off of Shoreline Drive you have to go into the back park the overflow parking lot

we don't think we can accomplish that with sign. Same with Bill Seafood. He doesn't want people parking up by the business. He can park in to the back side. So places that say absolutely not. You can't park here for any events. Sandwich board. So we're going to eliminate th that those personnel, if you will, that we're manning those locations with the sandwich board sign. The other ones where it's you can park here but not there. It's difficult to accomplish that with a sign. So Dave is going to allow parking at all the events.

He allows parking in um in his side lot at every event. He has a lot next to the dirt lot. And then also um he let me know that at the concerts once they close um which is prior at 5:00 once he's able to close the store and his employees are able to leave that I would be able to use his lot this year to let people park. Yeah. That's very nice. Very nice. Yes. Now, what about Oak and Palm boat ramp? Where's the parking for that?

So, Oak and Palm I feel like is a special case because the parking for Oak and Palm is so close to the park that I feel like especially for the concerts, we need to have somebody there just as a good neighbor to not let people park in their parking lot and walk over to the concert and then they won't have any place for their for their patrons to park. So, they don't allow I didn't think they allow parking. That's why I was asking.

No, they don't. um they they do help us in, you know, in different ways. They are going to be a partner with us as far as providing special takeout options for people to be able to walk in, purchase, and bring over to the park. So, you they definitely want to be a good partner with us, but because of where um because of where they are in their proximity, I think that those spots that they have in their lot, they we need to make sure that those aren't being taken up by people. Well, they also use the town parking spots for their business as well, you know. Absolutely. They definitely because it's great to see that it's crowded. Yeah. You know,

absolutely. Um I just want to make sure that you know I know PE they'll have difficulty parking their guests during these during concerts especially. Um so I want to make sure that the the small bit that they have is safe. Only concern is offering it to them if they're not offering us parking and we're not doing that for other businesses. So yes, but I I do feel like the proximity changes things because it's literally attached to the parking that's the public parking, but Oaken Plum doesn't provide any. Correct. None. And the boat ramp, it's signed. Unless you have a trailer, you can't park there, right?

I think we' accomplish that with a sandwich board. That's what we're trying to do is if there's none, then we do the sandwich board. I understand being good neighbors, but the ownus the onus still falls on the property owner if someone parks illegally. Our parking attendants don't have any teeth. It's it's a good gesture, but yeah, I mean in that location I would put a sign plus on the banner. It has four sponsors. I'm not re I'm not counting for I've got Dave's Island Breeze and Bills. Who's who's Mavericks provides it um occasionally for for specific events. So we included them in on the sign because they do provide it occasionally. When do they provide it?

Um they provide it for Memorial Day, for 911, for Veterans Day. So they do they do it twice and yet they get the same exposure everybody else does. We had had a discussion and it was do we so we included it. Who who had a discussion? We we did. Okay. Right. Because we even though they don't allow us to use parking at the same volume, if you will, as the other vendors, they do allow us to use it. So, not including them when they are donating something to the town, we didn't feel was right. How many spaces did they donate? They they'll donate their whole lot. Okay. So, for the veterans things is what they do.

Yes. What's our take on Oaken Palm? The we have attendance, not have attendance, have they're just an outlier compared to the other businesses is all I'm saying. I understand the proximity. I I went to Oaken Palm and I talked to them and I showed them a a rendition of what that sign might look like and I have not heard back from anyone there. There was uh the people I talked to weren't in the position to really give any kind of answers but I left information with them asking for a call back and no one has called me back. Um I think if we put signs at at their entrances and you see how it goes. I mean, if we start getting a lot of complaints from Oaken Palm that people are parking there, but my experience has been when you put the sign out there that says, "Hey, if you park here, there's the phone number for the towing company where you can pick your car up when you come back."

That's pretty stern. Yes. Um, and Amy has found a vendor that is willing to to help us with that. And I, for one, if I was out of town and I was parking somewhere and that sign said, "Hey, we're welcome to park here and when you do, your car will be gone." Um, I'd really think hard about whether or not I want to park there. I say we I say we give it a shot. I mean, it's going to save our our taxpayers money by not having those attendants out there. And if we have to come back and say, "Hey, we were wrong." It's it's, you know, then we'll eat it. But I I think the signs will do their job. Okay.

And the boat ramp is it's already signed that it's if you don't have a trailer, you don't park there. And we put out one of our signs in addition to what the boat ramp has there already. And um we are able to ticket there so the police can can come down and address those. We wouldn't be able to address them at Oak Mall. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Moving on. Next we have public comments on any of the department head updates if anybody would like to come up. I have a wait and before you go I have a question. Yes sir.

On the last when I looked at the meet last time we had a meeting and discussed or over video we discussed the uh community center and the rental for community center. Has anybody come back to you as to which direction we're going regarding the three or four nonprofits that contribute benefits back to Sunset Beach like Sunset Vision and the Veterans Association, things like that? We haven't had any further discussion um past the council meeting last week.

Okay. We also didn't have anything on here for um admin, but if I could touch on something real quick before we get to the public comments. I don't have any changes to what was presented. Um but there is money remaining in this year's budget that would cover the partition that we talked about out here uh coming from building inspection side uh as well as the money that we were looking to budget for the public certification. we pay those in this year's budget and it would just lower the carryover amount. So, it's kind of same same. Do we want to pay for it now with what's already been appropriated and not budget going into this next fiscal year?

I think that out there needs to be done as soon as possible. The partition part and we know our clerk's been approved for the class. Correct. Does the finance director need a budget amendment to approve these? The money for building improvements is already there with there's $250,000 that was budgeted for improvements to this building. Um that money for the door would come out of there. It wasn't budgeted. My understanding with ear marked for 100,000 for this 150 for that. And the money for the clerk certification is already in the line item for training and education. So, we wouldn't need a budget amendment at all.

What about the carpet? Is the carpet flooring here or something? I know that was that something that's going to happen, too. So, that's um I've got one quote. I've got two more coming this week. I'm required to have three. Um and we're likely going to be able to do every square inch of flooring and still stay and still have some carryover left in that budget. So, this would be at the May or June council meeting for you to bring this to us. The flooring? Yes. It's already budgeted. It's already Yeah, it's already budgeted. Okay. And it was budgeted for improvements to this building. So, when do you think you'll have it done?

I don't know the timeline. I like I said, I'll have the last two quotes this week. Um, and then just working with that vendor to find out how long it's going to take to get materials and actually do the work. is every office is going to have stuff that has to be moved and um carpet or OVP is going to be placed around that. So I guess it depends on how quick they can work. Hopefully before hopefully before the end of the fiscal year. Would you let them work on the weekends to do that?

We'd have to have somebody here with them. So, that would be the only we'd have to probably pay some overtime to have somebody here to to be with them. I know we do have uh our public works employees that work on the weekend, some part-time staff, but as we get into warmer months, what they're doing is emptying trash, making sure bathrooms are cleaned, so we can't really pull them from that duties. Okay. So, but we could discuss weekend options and see if there's a way be less intrusive for our staff.

Okay. public comments. Anybody like like comment? Come right here. You will. Yes, ma'am. That mic is on an hour. Yes, ma'am.

Candace Steven, 611 Lakeakes Shore Drive. Um, I wanted to first make a comment about the suggestion that maybe the town pay for paving all those roads. I personally when I purchased my property purchased on a townmaintained town paved road. It made a difference to me. I also looked at a property on a private road in town. I I I paid more for my property. So, you know, if you're thinking about paving all those roads and not charging those people and the homes on those roads, you're increasing the value of their property at no cost to them, but at a cost to all the rest of the taxpayers. And that doesn't seem right. I also have on that private road where I didn't buy. I know a lot of people and they complain all the time that they are Sunset Beach taxpayers and they get nothing for their roads. So, I think it's a big issue and I hope you think about that a little more um in in the fairness to the people that already went ahead and did their own paving. It it it's I think it's a big issue and I would think really hard. Um the other was uh about lighting in the park. I think the environmental resource committee is really interested in looking at that impact on on uh shorebirds and uh migrating birds. Uh we've just had a lot of flux in the committee lately, but that's something that we're planning to look at and come back to council with a recommendation.

Thank you.

Anyone else? Good afternoon. Uh Pete Larkin, 453 Lakeshore Drive. I wasn't going to speak today, otherwise out of respect, I would have called her shirt on. So, sorry guys. Um Miss Sean just kind of stole some thunder for the paving situation. U I think we're all well aware that the um environment uh the silt that gets transported into our canals and waterways is the overwhelming reason why we want to have streets paved. Um uh in addition to the dust nuisance to the people that live there, but that's their nuisance and that's what existed when they bought their properties or has evolved over time. Um, our town Department of Public Works has worked hard to come up with solutions for the excessive silt going into our waterways and canals and they've come up with an option which has worked very well. Uh, the 57 stone slate option uh and that keeps the dust down uh as a sidebar, but it more importantly keeps uh reduces the amount of silt that goes into the waterways. Uh even our paved roads, silt goes into the waterways. Sand and silt comes from people's yards, gets in the street and it runs into the waterways. So it doesn't resolve that problem completely. Um I had the honor of serving as chair on our resiliency committee um several years ago now and there's grants available for things such as saffle baffles which are uh engineered solutions for uh containing and keeping silt and runoff from contaminating our waterways and canals. Um that is something that I believe we should be looking towards to gain

grants. Uh, and there's a new resiliency program that's coming out that could potentially offer grants for things like that. So, I think we need to stay on top of that. I think the our environmental resource committee, which has several subcommittees, um, you know, needs to be involved in that and and maybe give us give us some uh, counseling as to how they work, uh, their efficiency and what they cost. Uh, because we no longer have our resiliency committee. Uh I be I know that um John Frell has approached at least informally uh several members of council about us becoming more active in that uh potential program that could be coming out. Um something very beneficial. Resiliency is not just a um uh not just a word. It's it's very important particularly for barrier island towns. Um that's it. Thank you.

Thank you. Yeah. Can staff look into grants for that? options for that. Absolutely. Thank you.

I'm Mickey Smith, uh 123 Forest Walk, uh Sunset Beach. I'm also representing the Sea Trail Master Association. I'm the president there. Uh first thing I want to say is, uh Matt and Vicki were here today. We started last year thing where um the roads were being paved. I mean, um, uh, the, uh, excuse me, the holes, potholes, and everything for being filled and, um, Matt and Vicki have just done one excellent job on that. Um, I mean, I just wanted to make sure that you all knew that. Second thing I want to say is, uh, we're not in the, uh, the we don't want to fill all our holes. I mean, that's great and keep them whole, keep them filled. But the problem is in uh last year on April 2nd, 2025, I wrote a letter, sent it to every councilman and to the mayor. And uh in that letter, we talked about uh the paving of Clubhouse Road. I want to read something. During the town council meeting on December 10th, 2024, 2024, there were discussions about installing pavers near Daves to expand parking for the Sunset Beachtown Park. In that same meeting, it was stated that the paving of Clubhouse Road would be considered upon completion of the Calabash River Bridge. Since the bridge closure in September 2023, Clubhouse Road has endured excessive traffic resulting in significant deterioration in numerous hazardous potholes. There has been nothing done. We set meetings up. Seatrail Master Association did with the town. The people in this room were not in those meetings. We met. We were told every possible thing you could be told from it will be started immediately from it will be started three to five years from now. It

will cost $900,000. It will cost $3 million. So I would go back to our Sea Trail Master Association board meetings and report what I was told and um nothing has happened. I understand about um work being done and roads being messed up and all that, but you know what? Where I live is right across Georgetown Road. There's all of that property being built there all the way down to the thistle. There's property being built everywhere. So, if we want to wait for construction to stop, we're wasting our time because construction is not going to stop. I think we all know that. I think that we talked today about uh I think it was called McGee a capital improvement uh thing for one, two, three, four years. What I just want to say is I really encourage the council to I know you're going to look at that and see what needs to be done first. The seat trail put up with a lot two years of that bridge being down in Calabash. There was a lot of trucks and a lot of traffic that went through there and our roads were eating up. Uh, we need your help. That's the only thing I'm asking.

Thank you. Thank you. There's nothing else for council. Do I have a motion to adjurnn? I'll make a motion to adjourn the meeting. Do I have a second? I'll second now. Any discussion? All in favor? Ah,