Board of Commissioners - Regular Meeting

Good evening, everybody. Welcome to the May 27th, 2026 Town of Kildover Hills Board of Commissioners meeting. I call our meeting to order. Commissioner Ingram will not be present at tonight's meeting. She's in Carrboro tonight cheering for our Lady Nighthawks soccer team. In their playoff game, we wish Lady Nighthawks good luck and continued success. I invite everyone to please stand and join me in the pledge of allegiance. As we enter a moment of silence, let's pause to reflect on the reason for the holiday for those who have lost their lives in the service of our country. Let's also keep all active duty service men and women, as well as our veterans, in our thoughts at this time. Thank you. Good evening, everybody. Our next item of business this evening is our agenda approval. Do we have an agenda before us? Motion to approve the agenda. Second. We have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? All in favor, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. We have an agenda. Now it's the time we set aside for public comment. This is an opportunity for anyone in the audience to address the board on any topic of their choosing that pertains to the town. We do ask that when you are called upon, approach the podium, speak into the microphone, and identify yourself by name and address. Please keep your comments limited to three minutes if you're speaking as an individual and five minutes if you are speaking on behalf of a group. Would anybody like to speak or comment? I see all... Team members here tonight, so I guess we can move on from there. Nothing to respond to. Next, we have ongoing business. lease of town property old town hall fire station as mentioned in the agenda we will bring this back up for discussion on june 8th all right moving on to new business item one recommendation for bid acceptance for the 2026 2007 street drainage and right-of-way improvement project first street infrastructure improvements

Hi, good evening. Good evening, Mayor Windley, members of the board and town staff. My name is Emily Zeltman, and I am the designer of the West and East First Street infrastructure plans that you have in front of you. This project includes the installation of new sidewalk along the south side of First Street, the replacement of Water Main on the west side, some drainage improvements, and some associated driveway work with it. I'M HERE AND I'M HAPPY TO ADDRESS ANY QUESTIONS YOU MAY HAVE ON THE PROJECT. AS ALWAYS, WE APPRECIATE THE OPPORTUNITY TO WORK WITH THE TOWN OF KILLABLE HILLS.

NEW SPEAKER Well, first of all, I would just like to thank staff for the last page. the foldout because it really broke down all three bids in an itemized way, which was very user friendly to understand. My question really, everything is rather straightforward in here. What's the traditional number of bids we normally get? I saw three, quite a bit of discussion on having a minimum number. Like how many organizations are in this region that can even take on a project of this size? The same names always pop up.

Yeah, so we typically have a standard of three bidders all the time, and they are Hatchell Concrete, Barnhill, and Fred Smith. Every now and then, if the project is like waterline heavy, we'll have an envirotech, which they focus on water improvements, but it's typically the same three bidders.

all right and we have been fortunate um might add to have actual added to that list yeah um there was a time that we had to do more than one round because we didn't get curated well um anybody have any questions regarding this uh bit well did barnhill do the last

Was that your work, remember? No, that was Hatchell.

Yeah, the West Martin project that's done by Hatchell.

Okay. But we've worked with Barnhill before. Yeah.

Yes.

Okay. They came in quite a bit lower. Quite a bit under, yeah.

They did the Wright Brothers sidewalk. One of their more recent projects.

Okay.

Everybody was satisfied with that, I assume? Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yes.

Any more questions regarding this? Well, I'll entertain a motion if someone would like to make one.

Motion to approve recommendation for bid acceptance for 2026-2027 street drainage and right-of-way improvements project for street infrastructure improvements.

I second that motion. Do we have any further discussion? Hearing none, all in favor, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. All right. What's the time frame? I live on First Street, so.

It's going to start September 14th, which is the Monday after Labor Day. And then it's going to end April 16th, I believe, in 2027. But we can forward that information to you for a much more accurate date.

All right. Mm-hmm.

Thank you.

Thank you. We're going to have a reconstruction Halloween this year. Oh, no. That's right.

That's going to be a problem.

Yeah, I hope the Barnhill boys like to trick-or-treat. All right. Moving on. Committee reports. Nothing for me there. I'll just share real quick the Dare Housing Foundation. We met last Thursday and on this Friday morning, we're going to have a logo unveiling breakfast in Mania. So Dare Housing Foundation is on its way. Moving on, Commissioner's agenda.

No agenda.

I have none. All right.

Anything? Nothing for me, sir.

All right. I got a few things moving on to Mayor's agenda. Mary's Paul Park Celebration and Donation Drive. Our annual Mary's Paul's Park Celebration will be held next Thursday, June 4th from 1 to 4 p.m. at Aviation Park. We have an exceptional facility for our four-legged friends, and I know there will be a wonderful sense of community that has been developed for our regular folks. As part of the celebration, We're conducting a supply drive for our local animal shelters, and items can be dropped off here at Town Hall Lobby through June 5th. Oh, and the next one, Splash Pad opening. It's about time that weather come around. And now we have the really important town news. Our Splash Pad at Meekins Park Field is now open for the season. The most popular attraction is ready for kids of all ages, and we express thanks to our buildings and ground staff for the great work they do. I need to personally thank Buildings and Grounds for the splashback because the Windley children are regulars at Meekins Park. So thank you all for maintaining this wonderful resource. I want to give a quick shout out as well to the Kildoa Hills Police Department. I read our news release about the joint effort with Nags Head and that came out today and it seemed like quite the event. situation to deal with. So thank you, AC. Thank you to the entire police department for responding to a unique challenge, working with our neighbors, and for a good outcome for our community. Thank you, sir. All right. Moving on. Town manager's agenda? Town attorney?

I have nothing. Thank you.

I think that jersey is a town attorney agenda enough this evening.

It speaks for itself.

What are you going to watch the game?

Say what?

What are you going to watch the game?

We streamed this. I don't want my wife to know. On the record.

All right, we will move on to consent agenda.

Yes, sir. Thank you. The minutes from the May 11th. We have four budget amendments, 10, 11, 12, 13. I won't read what you've already got in your packet. And we also have two of our partnerships, organizational annual reports, the interfaith community outreach and the community care clinic of DARE. And staff recommends approval of the consent agenda as presented in a motion to be in order.

All right. Motion to approve the consent agenda as laid out. I'll second.

All right. Motion and a second. Any discussion? All in favor, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. All right. We have a consent agenda. Thank you. Now moving on, general work session, town managers recommended budget for fiscal year 2026-2027. Okay.

It's okay.

a bunch of pages, a lot of numbers, which equals a lot of hours by a lot of people. And a lot of those people are in the audience today. I'm just so incredibly proud of what they've done here. This budget is just, it's really good. Really good. So, with that, we will go through it. We'll get as deep in the weeds as you like. I will just touch the highlights. We can start with the revenues. As always, our finance director does an amazing job of doing all the different areas that she can research to get this information as far as the revenues that we are trying to project. Projecting our Avalorum rate is fairly easy. We know what rate we get in the election. what the projection for the future, and Angel and her team just do an amazing job. So with that being said, are there any questions that you have concerning any of the revenues that you'd like us to explain differently? I think one of the main things that the mayor has commented on, and you all probably have noticed, is our increased share of shared revenues. That's one of the advantages and pluses of that tax increase. And as you can see, that's very beneficial to us. The opposite of that is losing shared revenues. If there's no particular questions on the revenues, and we certainly always go back.

I got a quick one, and this will maybe be a spitball. Page six, the last small paragraph, it says we have a... $9.9 million above the 35% general fund requirement for, I guess, unrestricted funds. Spitball, if we had to assign a percentage of overall unassigned fund balance, what percentage is up to it? I guess 19 out of 30 is 60-ish percent. Or does that sound about, I mean, I know I'm always curious. I'd like to know how much buffer we have above 35% in the bank. It's just nice to have that peace of mind.

I don't have a, it's around 60. 19.6 million over 35.2.

It's a nice rainy day fun for that. Yeah.

And that's very... You guys are one too far off camera on the record. Yeah.

When you think about our location, where our major revenues come from and what our major concern with the weather, the hurricanes and what that can mean to those occupancy taxes, sales taxes, it's a good place to be.

Very nice.

If there isn't anything else for the revenues, then we can go, if you'd like, some of the highlights um there is um includes an increase in workers comp it includes the necessary training we have includes a new partnership with the bear housing foundation THERE THAT WE ALL ENJOY AND I THINK OUR CITIZENS AND VISITORS ENJOY AS WELL. THERE ARE NO MAJOR CHANGES IN THE ADMIN BUDGET. AND, OF COURSE, NO INCREASES REQUESTED.

NEW SPEAKER NO QUESTION. THIS IS NOT REALLY

admin related but workers compensation the said five percent increased departmentally that's across the whole town that's not specific just to add that you'll see that in admin and then you'll see it in water admin for the general fund and the waterfront and that's not a bad percentage increase

We've actually had decreases the past couple years, so it was not unexpected to have an increase this year.

So if we've had decreases the last two years, I assume there probably have not been any serious claims. Right. Yeah. Right. That's nice to hear. That's the culture of safety and responsible behavior.

Absolutely. Our departments have safety meetings every week. I'm sorry, every month, excuse me. And we take it very seriously. some highlights on 49. We're going to do some lighting replacement in this room. Some work at the bathhouse. Additional work at the bathhouse. It's kind of an ongoing thing. The bathhouse gets a lot of use. We have $125,000 in shoreline reserve, $200,000 in recreation reserve, $75,000 to continue our ADA compliance, $250,000 for Atlantic Street, $20,000 for some upgrades to lighting, $7,000 prospect, $30,000 to replace the exercise stations around the turtle pond, $300,000 to continue to work on the improvements at the hockey rink, going to do two additional buck heads at North Shores and Bird Street accesses. And then I won't continue to read on the rest of them, except for the last one, which I know is something that the board is very interested in. We're going to begin working on the conceptual and design plans for the bomb track. As you recall, we got the grant for the land and water conservation through the state. Once we receive that money, that money will be earmarked for improvements to the bond track. So that is certainly moving forward.

I have a few questions. Replace the lighting in this room. What exactly is the scope of that plan?

We would have a designer that would look at the lighting at Town Hall, upstairs and downstairs. We have significant dim lighting upstairs in the conference room for the panel in that conference room.

So come up with a design where you're at the table and you're meeting. You can see that a little better.

So the administrative, not upstairs of the administrative room, not this conference room, meeting room.

Sorry. Yep. I kind of liked it in the lighting over there. I did, too, when I was your age. Yeah, that makes sense.

I understand. $300,000 for the Aviation Park hockey rink improvements. I know there's been a lot of dialogue with different groups that use that space. Have they been consulted at all for whatever the plan is, or is this just a budget item and we haven't really made those decisions yet?

It's a budget item. We are working with them. at the point in time that we're getting ready to start presenting something to the board, those people will be invited to join in the conversation. Our goal is for that area to have the most use by the most people, for it not to be limited to any one group. And I think with what our folks have done so far, I think everybody's going to be happy. As happy as you can get everybody.

of diverse groups of people utilize that space. And, you know, some are very outspoken. And so, but we would, that's a big, big dollar amount. So I want to make sure that every stakeholder has a chance to.

But as we've all seen in everything that we've done, that we think we've got the right number, it's always more. but the board and the users will be very involved.

Prospect Bathhouse is a relatively new building. Is it just repairs to existing issues just from a lot of foot traffic and exposure?

When you get over a certain amount, it becomes a capital outlay, and that's why it's considered an outlay. It may be less. It may be more.

Yeah.

It does... Any public use building takes a lot of damage. Some of it's just general nature and some of it's just abuse.

And the two figures under debt service for Public Works Complex and the fire station, are those numbers for the universal every single year? Are there any fluctuations?

There's a fluctuation. And I've seen the information. Okay. Okay. FOR THIS BUDGET YEAR. AND BOTH OF THOSE INTEREST RATES ARE INCREDIBLY GOOD FOR DETENTION. BOTH OF THEM.

the 80,000 for the bulkheads at more shores and third street, we be able to review a little bit of that, maybe get some PR out in front of it, perhaps what we plan to do there.

Um, we certainly can. We can, um, you know, we can, can put out some information on it. It's, it's both situations like those are like the one that we just currently did. Um, We're losing our land. That's all. It's eroding.

Oh, I've been to them.

Yeah, exactly. It's coming back. I think in a couple of weeks at the most, people will see that the one at Arch Street is very nice. It has a grander plan. It's going to have steps.

Good. Because that was my thought. Like the one in Hayman has a bulkhead, but it's backfilled on the sound side. So it's not much of a step at all. But if we had a step, then nothing changes.

You kind of got to do it in stages. Oh, yeah.

No, I can't do it all at once. Then you have the neighbor's bulkheads to consider. I'm sure they appreciate us.

They do. The two adjacent property owners who we did because of their rights were notified, and they were very happy. But because of their bulkhead, our property was eroding.

Undermining theirs. Yeah, exactly.

Thank you. How does the recreational facilities capital reserve, how does that work? I mean, is that earmarked for what we decide? Yes, sir.

Okay. Yes, that goes into a recreational, just like the street reserve. Right. We have to come back to the board in order to spend that money. Okay. Take it out of the reserve and put it into a percentage care account.

Okay.

But all of that is created by the board.

Do we use that and have that last year?

We did. We do it. Yes, sir.

We did. I mean, last year we used all of it last year. Do you know?

No, it continues to build. To grow, okay. It continues to grow, just like the street reserve. We typically do use the street reserve every year because all of that's so expensive.

So do you know roughly what the balance is on that?

I don't have that number, but... The reserve fund had grown fairly large. We got grants from Eakins Field and then

Yeah, it'd be just interesting to know because I think that's one thing that we're always interested in talking about as commissioners, you know, that, that area of expenditure where it's kind of broad.

I mean, a future potential expenditure. Okay. But we've seen that desire from the board that you want to be looking in the near future. Okay.

And that's how you budget that?

Yes. Okay. And then you as the board approve it. Yeah. And your committee will see a lot of that in the special use committee. Okay, great. So they'll actually see it before it comes to the board, but then it will come to the board for a vote.

Okay, great.

debbie one more thing before we move on do we have a tentative timeline for the conclusion of the arch trees project after the volcano i think we've got um i'm going to say a couple of weeks okay and i know that's probably standard construction yo yeah yeah yeah a few weeks we're done yeah yeah but um but i think we're looking at maybe the steps next week okay i was just there an hour ago they have like the wood

Not cut yet, but for the steps. Okay. So next week is probably the end. Okay.

And then the next step after that would be trimming some of the trees back a little bit and landscaping.

Perfect.

Irrigation is going in, mulch. It's going to be very nice.

Good. Perfect. Thank you. You're welcome. That's all. I promise. No worries.

Please. Any questions, ask now. It's a great time. Absolutely. Tax and Finance Department. quite reasonable. Property and liability insurance estimated at 20%, and I think you all can identify with that with what you're paying in your own homes insurance. And it also includes the actuary study for other post-employee benefits valuations required by GASB 75 and a contribution to the OVC irrevocable trust. Again, things that were required

I HAVE A HEALTH INSURANCE QUESTION. LAST YEAR, THAT LONG-TERM STATE PLAN THAT WE HAD BEEN A PART OF DISSOLVED. WE KIND OF WENT OUT AND GOT OUR OWN PLAN. HAS THERE BEEN ANY DISCUSSION OF ANY OTHER STATE ENTITIES or any shopping around or any collaborative discussion of municipalities trying to get together?

That was actually through the lead, not through the stage. And I don't foresee that coming back around. That kind of took the legs out from under a lot of us. And I think we're all happy where we are.

I can say in my capacity on the personnel board, tourism board, another side gig, that they're fighting the same thing with about the same percentage. And we got to look at charts showing every municipality in the area, and it's the same thing.

And again, some of it has to do with your claims, some of it has to do with the market, the number that you have on your insurance. We are requesting a new position in this department. This position was recommended and alluded to in the manpower study.

I want to thank Caleb. He was probably at the right place at the wrong time when I happened to just be in the hallway. And right after reading this, I kind of corner him and trap him and ask, like, you know, hey, we've never – MIS has never asked for a second person before. How come you need one now? You're kind of just getting started. No, but he did a very nice job answering my questions, helping me better understand the issue and understand the importance of making sure that we invest and train and have all the right people and resources in place to keep us safe from online threats.

There's a lot of bad people out there trying to do that.

AC and Du Bois got a bunch of them just the other day. So we thank you for answering my question. This was the only personnel request in the whole budget that I recall. All right. Thank you, sir.

And also with the finance department, is there anything? as well. We know about fuel prices, but it has fueling tanks have served as well, and we're also able to have our local EMS use those as well, so they didn't have to put in fueling tanks at the new fire station. And that's charged back to them, so all that's working out very well.

I just have a, it's not really a budget question, just a guess I'm curious question is where do we get this tremendously good deal on reduced price gasoline? Who's the wholesaler that we buy it from at this discounted rate?

We don't pay the tax that you pay at the pump.

So you can buy from anybody at It's still market rate, just no surcharges that we see. I didn't know if it was anybody, some special govdeals.com gas seller that we had to work with or something along those lines.

We'll find it. That's a good price. If we're ready to move on to planning... Continue to do what they do so well. A lot of budget highlights. Staying very busy. And then we got the beach nourishment. Looking at picking that in gear again soon.

survey goods out there this weekend. We're out on the beach. The ones that come in real close, they're doing their last annual monitoring before they do it on the design here next summer.

We've got information to help them put the bids together as to what each of the towns that's going in on this one need.

When would ours be starting? Like, when would it actually start?

We're in 2027. The last one, we ended up being the first town, but that is up to the contractor, so we'll have to see how the contractor wants to stage it.

Okay.

Last time we were first, Duck was last.

Yeah.

The time before that, they went to Duck, and then came to us, and then went

in spring right now at Nags Head, or if it will be late fall, I don't know. We'll know more probably towards December of this year.

There was one of the years that we were actually supposed to be last, but we wound up being first.

They started with Duck because they were using Barrow Area B, and then they were gonna use B to do Southern Shores, but such a small portion of Southern Shores, because that's where Southern Shores did the whole thing, so they went from Duck to us and then went backwards. So it was a change that was midstream.

This is a totally non-budgetary comment, but the last time they were around, I got the opportunity to tour the dredge. And if you guys get a chance to do that, go. It is fascinating. It's really neat. and it's you know we need to see that the county town spends a lot of money on this and uh but to um kind of get that tour learn about how that whole operation works was really neat something yeah i don't know about me to wear stiltoe shoes very often so that was one of those few opportunities but it was really cool and i would encourage anybody to do it i might have to change my jacket yeah that's good

Okay, police department's next. Let's touch on some of the highlights from 2076. We do have the mandatory funding for law enforcement separation allowance for retired police officers. We continue to maintain the certifications and career development, looking at replacing five police vehicles. and yeah you go ahead i just i don't know i feel like i ask this question every year are we going to keep getting the tahoe's or are we going to go back to ford's or whatever the state unless unless we know they're women and then they've done that i was going to say do they come with a warranty yeah we've been pretty fortunate over the last few years and then then these vehicles they either go and up deals and sold or they're cycled through the other departments. Replacements for these five. And the town does pretty well with up deals with vehicles. It's surprising. And our mechanics are awesome. They let us know whether it's good to keep and put them in a department or it's it's better for the town to get rid of them as far as the cost.

We all deal with that in our personal vehicles. There just comes a time when it's like... Lost leader.

GM's had a hard time with those. They look good.

What percentage of this cost per vehicle is for the internal computer and equipment versus the vehicle itself? I would imagine just the outfit and the wrap, it is almost... What did you get from state contractors?

it is then. So obviously your police and fire departments are going to be more expensive because they have to have more on the lights and so forth and so forth. But basically what we finance is the vehicle itself. And those financing packages, as you recall, are done as a group with all of our general fund vehicles and equipment. So Angel and her team, they go out, they get the best quote based on that larger number as opposed to just like when you and I go and finance a vehicle, we just got that one vehicle, and you're not going to get the rate that she's able to get with a large package.

AC, on average, how many miles do we put on a police vehicle per year?

Oh, I didn't do that. I didn't want to hire that.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Take them home.

Yeah. Thank you.

Animal control divisions next. These two individuals do an amazing job. All of them. Two legged owners in shape. Next cap, the fire department. Yeah. Yeah. Looking at replacing an SUV and a forcible entry door prop.

Only question I have is demonstration. This may not be the right time and place for that. I just noticed on the bar graph, the expenditures actual versus budget, it seemed that we came in quite under, which is great.

We have a fire truck we're still waiting on, and that's going to be factored into your budgeted every year until we get it.

How long does it take for firetruck after you order it to show up?

A long time.

It's been a long time.

Really? Really.

Because we were expecting it this spring, it's A day. I mean, I'm expecting, I thought it had been in May, but the last pictures I saw were March.

So all three years we had this big purple spot at the top. This is the truck that we bought that has it.

That money's there waiting for them. It's the same thing that we go through with garbage trucks. And it's one of the reasons why we're doing street projects the way we do them now. You just voted on the street project for your next budget. Because if we wait for your next budget, look how much longer it's going to take. And I think the bids that we get are better because it gives them a larger window, just like you saw with beach nourishment. to get the contractor a larger window to get this and her things together. It's everything. The industry just hasn't recovered totally from COVID.

Yeah. We built a fire station a lot faster than we can get a fire truck built. That's kind of wild. Where's the factory where they're made?

And that truck comes to you, that engine comes to you, all done? You don't have to do anything to it after that?

We got to do some final.

Order one now.

Wow.

Get the next one.

There must just not be very many operations that can manufacture these trucks.

It's like garbage trucks. It's just a time issue. Frank will see that he gets here. He has to go to Ohio. Have faith.

Yeah, but you don't have to drive all the way back. Oh, yeah.

Do you have a Christian party? Is it an engine boat?

Our ocean rescue. And I'm sure you've been out, seen our lifeguards out there. Looking good. Had some rough beach already.

It never gets to the board, but I assume we have pretty good success finding housing for all of our seasonal lifeguards.

All right. We are not aware of the issues. Yeah, I've never heard a thing, so...

Considering all the discussion around housing locally, that's one success story.

But as the chief said, a lot of them are local, and a lot of the ones that aren't local have been coming for years, and I'm sure they already have that base. So we can go to our streets edition. On page 93... There is $100,000 for the mowing and edging and sweeping of the US 158, $50,000 for street maintenance and repair, and $10,000 for sidewalks. The capital outlay includes $613,100 for the West 5th Street sidewalk right-of-way improvements, which includes $280,000 in power bill that's allocated for the project.

I have a question for the board about the $100,400 mowing, edging, and sweeping of US 158. That's for four cleanings a season. I believe that's right.

Steve? yeah it's a breakout there's actually three separate contracts that are issued there's one that's mowing and the mowing contractor's been coming for seven or eight years they come from down by kinston i think and there's 16 passes and it's 44 800 is what's budgeted for those 16 passes um it's about 2400 a pass to mow it. They come every two weeks. And then we have two passes where they'd spray herbicide on the sidewalk edges where the grass grows over and fills the cracks. And then they come with a stick edger machine and they edge the sidewalk. So one of those in May and then one again before Labor Day. And then there's four passes at $38,600 for the curb and gutter sweeping. So they come with an aero truck, the crash truck to divert one lane. It's a rolling lane closure. And then there's a sweeper truck. There's a pickup truck with a dump trailer with shovelers that are scooping big piles of sand and cutting the Bermuda grass out of the cracks in the curb and gutter. And so there's four passes for that kind of Labor Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, whatever. Easter, Memorial Day, and then one kind of in the end of June is what we've been scheduling those for. And you're just under $10,000 a pass for that. That's a two-night operation.

Do we just have one, or do we just have a pass done? Starting tonight?

Tonight and tomorrow night.

Okay. So how are these services coordinated with the work DOT does to maintain the road?

Um, the mowing, we go every two weeks. So we don't, when we first tried, we didn't have as many passes. And so we were trying to figure out when DOT comes. Um, I don't know that they've got a real tight schedule. They're mowing, you know, one contractor is doing three counties. So they're over in Gates County and, it's just hard to tell. So the current program we're on, we mow every two weeks and we don't really pay attention to, to when they mow. And frankly, I think they've kind of started skipping us just because it doesn't need their, they come with a big flail mower, the big tractors, and they cut taller. What, what our contractors using is a zero turn, you know, uh, uh, ride on regular rotary lawnmowers. So that we're on our own. The sweeping passes, DOT is supposed to have three passes a year. We have the same contractor that DOT has. And so we do coordinate that. We're not going to schedule on top of one of their passes. We're going to have a month between.

The reason I bring this up is Commissioner McEvoy, I believe you and I, we were on the board when we first decided to start doing this. I can always tell the day after. The day after, it looks pretty sharp. Three days later, you never knew. It all blends back in again. It's a hefty price tag. We've tried it. We've seen how effective it can be. I was curious if you about maybe reinvesting this $100,000. Some other of our recreation fund, sidewalk fund, shoreline access fund, pausing it and seeing, is it really worth the $100,000 a year that we're spending on this? Or is it kind of a short-term band-aid that we get a couple of nice days and we're looking good and it all blends back together? A lot of our property owners maintain their lots themselves, others don't. But I'd just like to open it for discussion of potentially maybe reallocating these funds to other um this 100 000 can be broken up amongst other funds that we do have some big projects planned for to help bolster that up or we can i mean if see if you feel like this has been an effective good investment these last few years we can keep it running you can scale it back and do partial uh what are the board's thoughts

Well, I definitely can't monitor it close enough to make an opinion about it, but I am pleased with how the town does look, so I do fear taking it away would step us back some. I mean, that's a natural concern. I don't know enough to... to pass other than that, things do look pretty good. Um, Steve, do you feel like it's effective?

Do you feel like, I mean, um, yeah, the big thing when we started the Boeing is the string trimming, trimming around, you know, that's the other thing when the DOT passes came, it was the big flail mowers. And so they couldn't get real tight to stuff. Um, when precision mowing comes, You know, there's three guys on the ride-on mower and usually three or four string trimmer guys. And so they're tripping along the gutters and they're tripping around all the signs. And that really made a difference, I think, in the appearance of what the standard DOT path where they kind of sweep around the objects.

So you're happy with the vendor, for the most part, the company we're using. And as a citizen, you're feeling like they're doing a good job as well. You feel like it's improved, the look of the town.

Yeah, they show up where they're supposed to, and they put in a hard day's work. You can see bags of trash that they're getting.

Okay, okay.

Yeah, no complaints.

Okay. Steve, do you feel that this extra service has helped stormwater drainage in some spots in town? Keeping the road and all that open and clean, has there been any meaningful impact with that?

I don't have a strong opinion that that's the case. I mean, if you wanted to analyze it, does the frequent cuts stimulate the grass? Do you have a little better coverage that keeps sand from moving around? Maybe. I mean, I would think that that would be a strong motivation. All right.

If I may, this item is simply in the budget because it was put in by the board a few years ago. This was not something that came from staff.

Yeah.

So our answers to your questions are based on that fact. We simply need to know the desire of the board.

Yeah, because I've thought about this and I remember the before and kind of the after. And just as riding up and down the road and observing, I haven't seen to me a very large, meaningful overall change. But at the same time, I'm not getting out and walking around and studying it. I'm just... Yeah.

I would fear an overall change if we stopped. If we just said, all right, enough. Let's see what DOT does. And then, as Steve said, sometimes they skip us. DOT might not show up. So in our peak season, our roads could be looking terrible because we just don't know.

Well, I think the reason DOT isn't showing up is because we are doing it.

Right. But on what frequency?

Well, as the mayor had asked me before when we were talking about this... If we had received complaints, this was not complaint driven. This was started. This was in a desire to have a more manicured bypass, which is very difficult because there's no irrigation. The park service area, they do an excellent job of keeping that space through it. We were spending out there practically every day picking up trash. It stays mowed. You've got your area through our business district that our business owners, I think, for the most part, do an outstanding job. And as the mayor said, there are some advantages to this, and it does have that appearance of looking nice. But it's simply a matter of whether it's something the board wants to continue or not. The staff just doesn't have a strong feeling about it.

Every two weeks. Every two weeks.

My thought was the Park Service maintains the heirs, Publix and Southern Banks and a lot of our businesses, a lot of businesses go above and beyond to maintain the heirs. So it was always certain spots. We never, when the decision was made to go this route, it was zero complaint from the public about how the road looked. This was just kind of a wish list that the board wanted. We tried it for a few years. There are perks, but looking at kind of, we've already mentioned briefly, like plans that we have for the bomb track and things like that. Would it be more diligent to take this kind of wish money and reinvest it in that? This is one of the few items in this budget that we do have a little liberty with to potentially shrink, reallocate. We have a little insight here.

Yeah, the one thing I've noticed is sidewalks on the bypass, there are some spots that could use addressing, like if we were spot fixed, some locations on the sidewalks on the bypass. where if you're biking or walking or whatever everybody's doing on the sidewalk these days, it's a little wonky out of place. It could be potential for an accident. Maybe money could be used for that to fix that. Well, that's expensive, I know, but spot fixing the sidewalks a little bit.

And we do have funds for that. We do already. We just recently implemented some work on the Bright Brothers Path.

Okay, I saw that. Yeah, so we have that spot over there.

We've got a light. So that's already out there. Okay. Yeah, I mean, obviously, you can take money from here to there. It's just, oof, yeah, I don't know. I hate to take something. That's the problem. We don't know.

We don't know how to do it. The nice thing about this, if we decided to pause, in a few years, we can just bring it back. It is kind of like an experiment. And by putting the money into the Recreation Fund or Shoreline Access Fund, we know it's going to get used in a meaningful, positive way.

Yeah. If we make this decision and we rely on PRT, can we get them on board to cut more?

We can make them aware that's the board's decision, we can make DOT aware that we're no longer going to be doing the supplemental mowing and request that they put us back in the rotation.

Right. My fear whenever doing this is like, I like this, but I would love for that. Like one of them be sort of earmarked for something like that. We know of, you know, other than putting it in a fun and like, Oh, we forget about it. You know what I'm saying? Like to me, it's like,

yes but all right what are we going to do what are we going to do with it you know well if we put say i mean i was spitballing 50 000 the recreation fund 25 and sidewalks 25 shoreline access we've already discussed you know we've got the 75 000 in the budget for the engineering and the planning for the um Bob track upgrades. We could potentially earmark a significant portion of this fund for future investment in that project, which is the reserve reserves. Correct.

They're in those reserve accounts are specifically for that item, the recreation shoreline. and those are streets and those expense they have to come back to the board to be taken out of the reserve account put into an expenditure account i can't spend for the reserve so that those are always going to be approved by the board commissioners okay just like you did with the evening of the streets so just taking this hundred thousand and putting it in the reserve account for recreational the reserve about and then and then trying to work with that money that we have yeah

It sits in that account until we decide we don't want to spend it. But it's got to be for those purposes. We know short on access is always people enjoy that. Sidewalks, you know, it's a good investment.

Yeah. The only thing that I could think of that would come off of that would be the trimming. The DOT does not do trimming around the signs or anything like that, right? No. Yeah. So that would be a.

What about reducing it by half and just doing that for now?

Then you're looking at variables in the cost. These are contracts based on a certain amount of passages, a certain amount of time.

But are we already committed to the contract alone?

We're committed through the end of the fiscal year. Oh, okay.

Maybe we could change it to full instead of two weeks.

They haven't gone up.

So if we come back.

If you come back, it's going to be more. Always. There's no question. But that's how long you've been doing it since 2017. Do the numbers as to what you've spent.

Well, that's the one kind of little The only item I really had when I was reading this that we didn't consider, the feeling I get is stay the course. What do you guys think?

I'm worried about trimming and edging. Those are two big things that aren't going to be part of DOT if we stop this. Now, I'm not saying we can't reduce this number. Maybe see if we can do the four weeks instead of two.

I kind of feel like the contracts would...

I mean, if the contract would reduce the cutting by half and the contract would be reduced by half and we took half to put something else, that would make sense. But you're saying it's not necessarily going to be quoted that way. We don't know. I don't know.

If I was a contractor, I would look at the price much differently. You start picking and choosing what parts you want. Right.

Although if they want any business, I get it. I get it.

Yeah.

i have no idea it could be what kind of group that what kind of uh and we have to we could yeah and they don't have a lot of competition this company this this vendor they're the dot contractor oh okay they used to have our region they they've been outfitted in our region but they still have dot contracts so they know the safety an hour well would you prefer to cut it in half or cut it completely it's right

They're going to walk.

We came to your house and we mowed every two weeks and we got it under control. Yeah. One price. We come every four weeks and we're cutting the hayfield. Then it's going to be a different price. Yeah. I can see a 50% reduction. Now they don't touch. It's not going to cut as smooth. It's going to be. Right.

So I'm not saying what their cost is going to be, but what do you think is better to cut in half or just cut it completely?

I think if you cut it in half, you just do the five DOT passes or once a month, I think, is there, whatever that window is. Okay. May through October.

Okay. That's pretty telling.

Once every month or six weeks. And it's just a little different. And it is truly, when it started, it was aesthetics. It was aesthetics. what the board wanted, a different look. There's some people that see the tall bahia seeds or we get certain wildflowers at a time of year that's knee-high out there moving in the wind, and that's attractive. Other people like it clear. What do you want the corridor to look like?

I guess the last question I would have is if cost was not a factor, if they were going to literally do the same for 50%, would you recommend doing it or not?

It's all your decision on aesthetics. Do you want it to look good every two weeks, or do you want it to look cut every four weeks, or do you want a DOT pass maybe every four to six weeks?

There's nothing else that's garnered here other than aesthetics, and the aesthetics on the bypass are to the eye of the beholder.

Yes.

You're going 55%. Supposed to be going 50 or 45. They've been going 55, 60 miles an hour. They've been driving for 13 hours. They've got 2.5 kids in the back seats. I don't think they're going to notice whether the signs can trip.

Now I'm getting more information. This is good. I'm glad we talked this out because I know you don't want to give your opinion per se, but I do want to hear your opinion.

Does this contract involve...

brothers memorial land the government landed or not i would imagine they do all that themselves i see them out there contractor starts at 8th street and goes up to henry's and and back down this is the whole town they don't stop uh they mow in front of everybody now if somebody mowed that morning they'll turn the blades off and um skip skip paragraph they were just done. Otherwise, they're wrong.

But they don't deduct. There's no deduction because they don't know that area.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I agree with you now. After hearing that one. Yeah. We could always go back, I guess.

The nice thing is we could, if it turns out that we're not happy after a year of not having it, we can put it back in and make it.

At a higher rate. Potentially at a higher rate.

So we've got $100,000. But Mayor, you were suggesting $50,000 for recreation and then $25,000 for sidewalks and $25,000 for shorelines.

Correct. And thinking about what we just spent for First Street, Fifth Street's in the budget, sidewalk fund, because I'll use a little extra money as well.

If the board's in concurrence, we'll have those changes ready for you at the next meeting when you have your public hearing. Public hearing will be on this budget. We will have that information ready for you if you're ready to adopt the budget.

That's agreeable to me.

So the POW bill is our next task. I think everyone understands how that works. Obviously, those funds are used to do some capital and some maintenance and repair for streets.

Debbie, I have one more question. Can I just get a quick synopsis of what we have planned for West Fifth Street with the sidewalk and right-of-way improvements?

Right now, you've got a short section of sidewalk in front of the bank. It will be picking up that sidewalk on the, it would be the south side of 5th Street and continuing west to the Bay Drive multi-use path. I mean, to that intersection at Bay Drive. And then there is asbestos cement water main on the north edge of the street, which will get replaced and upgraded. I'm not exactly sure until the final survey is done if that water main, the existing main is very close to under the edge of pavement. There may be room to keep that water main on the north side, five feet away, further from the edge of pavement, but it may be that it needs to come to the south side. We won't know that until we get the detailed survey. We go out and survey all the properties, all the existing improvements. And then Emily will start working about best fit for the corridor. There's existing storm drainage there. There'll need to be some modifications to make the sidewalk work at all those intersections. But it's not, it shouldn't be a major storm drain. It's not new construction.

The sidewalk. water main, but the road itself specifically looks okay.

By the time you do the water main and do all those crosswalks, it'll at least get a mill and fill. Great.

Thank you. How many residential trash trucks do we currently have in our fleet?

I want to say seven.

Seven. What's the normal lifespan of a trash truck?

I think about every six years. A lot of moving parts. Yeah. Doing a lot of hard work.

Yeah. It's a big dollar item. That's why I'm surprised.

And they're built in the Midwest. You were going to visit one of the places.

Is the timeline better than a police fire truck?

It has gotten better. It's gotten better. At one time, it wasn't.

I think I remember in the past we talked about ordering in advance for fear of the increased price, but also delays.

Something about where the different parts were made and issues. That has gotten better. And I will do a shout out for Solid Waste and all of the public services departments. They did an amazing job with the vault trash pickup this year. It was probably one of the heaviest we've had in a long time. And a lot of teamwork that got that done.

Yeah, they do a good job.

So with that, that's your general fund budget this morning.

All right.

Any other questions on that or if you're ready to go to the water fund?

Onward and upward. Onward and upward.

We're continuing to go by our water system master plan, which involves a 4% increase to cover the cost of water line systems and improvements. Water tap fees are adopted for the same plan, and it includes the $18,750 replacement. The general fund admin, you see the same things here. The workers pay off the whole lot. There is insurance rate. There is a cost allocation to the general fund, which reflects a formula that includes the cost of actual services provided. And basically what this is, it's the work, and I'll use the finance department for example, the work the finance department does for the waterfall. This is another more curiosity than budget question is what all is entailed in a tank wash and how often does it have to be done?

It doesn't sound like you're power washing your house.

That's how good you want your tank to look. How long you want it to last. We're on about every two year rotation. The tanks have been painted relatively recently. It's the underside that we call the belly of the tank. It's in the shade and the condensation when it's hot. It's constantly moist. You'll get that mold and mildew and So it just extends the life of the paint and the look of the tower to keep it washed. So about every two years, each tank...

Exterior.

Exterior, yeah.

I think I saw him do it last time.

It's just similar to power washing the house. Yes. Way up the ladder.

A lot more safety rooms. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They've got a little buggy on pulleys, electric motors that they tie off the ropes and they hoist themselves up and guy on the ground tending the power washers. Day, day and a half, they're done. I guess it sounds like there's a lot of water pressure right there.

Sounds like a good business. Yeah. If you don't find heights, then good. Yeah, if you don't want to do heights, they'll pay you to do heights, right?

Okay, our water systems, we started page 122. We do have the water line improvement that Steve alluded to, the West 5th Street included. That was a large chunk of that contract System building replacement and maintenance yard improvements. Hydrant and valve replacements. And then just miscellaneous water line improvements that we've had from time to time. A pickup truck and a replace a smart cart ground radar.

3.4 million for the systems building replacement and maintenance yard improvements.

Is that...

just the building or how much computer systems and internal equipment is involved in that price? Pretty hefty number.

It's building and site work and utilities.

So it's like a police car. You're buying the equipment and the vehicle all together.

Yes. And we modeled it after the current fleet maintenance building. It's similar size. Their parts room is our brass room. We've got a lot of high value, the meters and setters and the brass parts. And then bays for the truck, the backhoe, the compressor, the vac trailer, the service truck, mini excavator. They've got a lot of equipment that currently sits outside. And they're basically operating out of a 1978 old bottom of the treatment building. That project's out to bid now. We'll be coming to the board in July, I believe, with a recommendation. Hopefully we get good bids. We've been working with Oakley Collier, who did the plans for the fire station. They're the architect, and they've done a great job. It's been a smooth, smooth process.

We've been doing that since 1999. As of October the 1st, KDHWF LLC handles the affluent. And it just shows the revenues and expenditures of operating companies. We will have the budget ordinance ready for you if you're ready to adopt the budget that evening. The only change from what you've got in front of you will be the $100,000 and how that's

all right any more anybody else have any comments or questions with regard to the budget no no all right now moving on is our second opportunity for public comments Seeing no takers, nothing to respond to, and I'll entertain a motion to adjourn.

Motion to adjourn, Mr. Mayor.

Second. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion? All in favor, please indicate by saying aye. Aye. You are adjourned.