Board of Commissioners - Regular Meeting

sites in North Carolina, one down in Hickory and the other one in Lenoir, which is what we're focused on right now. The Lenoir facility produces tapes primarily for the wire and cable industry. They film foil laminates, go to create large master rolls, and then they're slid into narrow bits for the cable manufacturers that are locally and internationally. We plan to use these funds for some of the projects that Jesse mentioned earlier to grow the business. We do have a site consolidation in the early stages that's currently taking place. We will be shutting down our Oxford, Massachusetts location and relocating those assets to Lenoir, and that's where these job creations are coming from. So we'll be doing two sites into one. We're in the early stages right now with the approval of this grant. This will help us invest in our infrastructure and get the site ready for this incoming equipment. And I appreciate the board reviewing it and looking forward to kind of growing the business here in Caldwell County. So thank you. All right.

Well, thank you for being here this evening. With that, I'll entertain a motion to approve this economic development incentive for Project Pillar.

I'll make a motion, Mr. Chairman.

All right. Any other discussion?

I believe we do need to have the public hearing on that matter still.

We need an open public hearing.

You are right. I'm getting ahead of myself. With that, we'll declare the public hearing open. And we didn't have anyone signed up who wanted to speak during this portion of the public hearing. And so with that, I'll declare the public hearing closed and call for a motion from our commission board.

I'll make a motion, Mr. Chairman.

Go ahead. All right. So we have a motion. Other discussion, go ahead.

I just want to thank you for taking the time and your investment in our county. We greatly appreciate it. Appreciate you guys as well.

Yes sir and just to echo that we often are accused of not trying to do anything good for Caldwell County but this is a good thing and it's going to maintain a long time business in our county and I appreciate the willingness to come here and to improve the facility and maintain those jobs and hire traditionally 35 more I think. I can't remember what the across the board salary is, but it's in the mid 50s.

Yes, sir. The average salary would be just over $55,000.

$55,000 annual for the average salary there. So those folks need to be applying for jobs if you're interested in going to work. Yes, sir. All right. So with that, anybody else? Yes, thank you for coming to Caldwell, picking us. So I'll call the question. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. So again, thank you, gentlemen, for being here. Next we're going to have a presentation from our county manager, Mr. Shane Fox. He's going to lay out some things about our social services and Board of Health and give us a preliminary discussion before we enter into the public hearing that we're required to have this evening. So, Mr. Fox.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Board of Commissioners. Good evening. prepared a presentation here to kind of go over outline of what we'll be discussing tonight. Start with the proposal and the objective of the proposal. We'll then go a little bit into the current status and structure of DSS and health. And then we'll go back a little bit, talk about the history, along with the pathway, and then the governance options, what options will be before you tonight. And then perhaps some impacts of the change, if adopted. And then, of course, conclusions and any questions you might have. As always, please stop me throughout the presentation with any questions. We'll start with the proposal. The proposal is for the Board of Commissioners to consider transitioning the Department of Social Services and the Health Department from autonomous standalone boards to the direct oversight of you, the Board of Commissioners, led by myself as County Manager. We would do this pursuant to North Continental Statutes 153 a 76 and 77. Our objective is for the structural reorganization is to modernize our human services delivery model by removing the standalone boards and placing the governance directly under you. The Board of Commissioners through me as county manager were able to eliminate operational silos and establish a direct line of public accountability. That's what we're discussing tonight. Throughout this presentation, I want to just discuss, again, the history a little bit with our current status of where we are. Currently, we have a Board of Health and our Board of DSS, of which you appoint a portion of that. The state also appoints, and we go into those details in a little bit, answer any questions you might have. But through your commission appointment and the state commission appointment, we have a Board of Health and Board of DSS that are standalone boards. Currently, both the Department of Social Services and the Health Board are governed by separate boards, and they are appointed through the Board of Commissioners and the state, as I mentioned. This has been the same governance and establishment for these organizations for around 100 years, and I've got a timeline in a few moments that kind of talks through some of the history there. Some of the current responsibilities of the Colwell County Board of Health and the Board of the SS include hiring the social services director and the health director includes evaluating the director's performance, dismissing the director of his or her job performance is unsatisfactory or he or she engages in unacceptable personal conduct, assisting the director and planning the county social services and health department budget and approving the budget prior to recommending the budget to you all. providing general oversight of the county social services and health department and their day-to-day. Your position as board of commissioners and the county manager at this time have no direct oversight of the day-to-day of DSS and health. That is what the DSS board and health board do from a day-to-day perspective. Currently the board of DSS and health are appointed and meet only once a month or every other month in the health board's case. DSS is currently once a month. Budget processes are approved typically through the health board and DSS board, and then again, recommended to you all through myself once a year and at the annual process, the public is welcome to attend those meetings. However, it is very seldomly attended. Again, if you were to just look through the past history, very few public, I believe, have attended either DSS or health. So a lot of tonight is discussion of bringing back some of that accountability and perhaps making the process a little more transparent through this. Our current structure here is a lot of names and departments up there. You'll see you at the top, right below the county citizens, of course. And then it branches off into our two elected officials, our sheriff, which was mentioned earlier tonight, and our register of deeds. And then our health and DSS are kind of up to the side of each one of those. Again, those are not elected positions. Those are positions that you're appointed, but those are two separate legal entities that exist and have existed from the creation of both DSS and health. Everything else below those positions fall within the tree underneath the board of commissioners and myself as county manager. So we're talking autonomous boards and autonomous separations here. The history and some of the pathways and potential governance options that we have are will be discussed in a little bit more detail. Our history starts in 1868. So in North Carolina, you as county commissioners were allowed to be elected and were established in 1868 and 1911. The first health boards were established along with the health departments. 1919, what was considered the county welfare boards at the time were established later change to the DSS boards. And then in 1927, the county manager form of government was established. 1973 was a big year. That was 153A, which we're referencing tonight. That is the modernization of county government. As we know, that is essentially putting the county manager and responsibility and accountability of county operations from a day-to-day perspective. And then if you fast forward to 1996, 23 years later, the state started making some changes in regards to DSS and health. What makes a difference for us was in 2012, with session law 2012-126, it ultimately eliminated the population requirements that existed. So prior to 2012, only counties of 450,000 and larger populations were allowed to consider governance change. Prior to the 90s, there was no real changes that were made across the state. So prior to the mid 90s, every DSS and Health Department in North Carolina, all 100 were governed through separate governance structures like boards like we have here in North Carolina. We'll talk in a few moments the ones that have made changes since 1996, but Wake County was the first to make that change in 1996, some 30 years ago now, with consolidation of the DSS and the health departments into one. Since 2012, there's been about 30 more counties across the state, and again, we'll show a map in just a few moments to talk about some of the differences that we have here. The main pathway to make a governance change and what we're doing here tonight and the ability for us to make this change or discuss this change is through North Carolina General Statutes 153A, as mentioned earlier, which is 76 and 77. But by way of that session law that took place, that allowed for you all to have this discussion tonight. We did have a 30 day notice that was put into our local paper along with our website and posted here then back in june that allows for this public hearing to take place and allows for the options to be potentially considered that we were here discussed tonight. Our options are one of three. So currently we have a separate health and a separate DSS board. We essentially have three options. We'll label them A, B and C for clarity sakes. Option A, the Board of Commissioners. You all can assume the powers and duties of the Board of Health and and or the Board of Social Services, thus becoming the governing body for one or both agencies. If they become the governing body for public health, the Board of Commissioners must appoint a public health advisory committee with the same membership as a traditional board of health. Essentially, if we make the change tonight, the Board of Health becomes an advisory board with the same membership. The statutes do not require or speak to the creation of social services advisory committee, but a county could choose to appoint one or have the combined health and human services advisory committee. If you were to choose to combine health and human services, that is not the option that we're presenting tonight. Option B is the combination of health and human services. The Board of Commissioners can create a consolidated human services agency governed by an appointed consolidated board. So essentially, health and DSS would become one department. You all would then appoint a board that would be the governing board. That's option B. In this model, General Statutes 153 states that a human services director is appointed to oversee that new consolidated department and ultimately answer to the consolidated board of which you would be a part of that approval. Option C is, again, a consolidated option. However, in the option C, the Board of Commissioners can create, again, this consolidated human services agency, combining health and DSS, but would be governed directly by you all. So in option C, both health and DSS become one department, but ultimately you become the consolidated board in option C. And again, this is through General Statutes 133A. 77 and states that the human services director is appointed by the county manager with advice and consent of the board. You all and shall report to the county manager and may only appoint staff of the agency under the county manager's approval. So for clarity sake tonight, we're essentially presenting option a which again is the creation or the disillusion of the current DSS board and health board, our option A is essentially in the middle of our traditional model, which we have now, and our complete DHS consolidation model that exists, that's out there. Option A, the model that is before you tonight, is the least impactful model. It is essentially taking the health board that exists now and converting that into an advisory board. Same exact makeup, same structure, but they would become an advisory board to you all. On the DSS side, again, we are not required to have an advisory board, but the recommendation would be to keep the same DSS board. the same information that we have there and the same trust that we have within those individuals as an advisory board as well, ultimately making the change that you would become the governing board with advisory boards still intact with the same membership. Across North Carolina, there's a number of options that are out there. The first here is a map that shows our health departments across the state. Those in purple have the Board of County Commissioners as governing boards. You'll see there with Burke and Alexander and Yakin, the closest to us. The next map is our social services governance structure. Health, a lot of times, and the reason you'll see that there's less here, health a lot of times have a consolidation within multiple counties. So you may have an agency that may represent three or four counties. You'll see here over 30 counties represented in the green that show the board of commissioners as the governing board. Again, this potentially shows whether it's the consolidated method with governing boards as the county commissioners of the governing board or whether they're separate. It shows roughly 30 counties here represented in green with the majority in northwestern North Carolina is represented. the third and final map here shows a combination of all that we've looked at here with Caldwell being in the red there in the middle surrounded by green again the green represents the counties that have made the change since 2012 to ultimately change the governance of DSS and health to you all as board of commissioners as the governing board here you'll see that Burke and McDowell Alexander Wilkes Watauga and ASH have made that change since 2012. Some of the potential impacts of the change. Again, our new structure here of our flow chart organization chart would take those two that were at one point autonomous and put them down on the left and right side there. Again, the left and right side has no structure to it. It just puts it in perspective that they would fall within the structure through the citizens the county commissioner the county manager and then so forth as the other departments and both the dss board and health board would become advisory boards you'll see throughout the screen here you look at some of our other departments that have advisory boards our economic development have has our edac board our tax has our board of equalization and review planning have of course board of adjustments and planning board and library has Um, the library board, these are considered appointments and advisory boards, similar to what we would have with our health and DSS. The day to day operations would not change. Both the health and DSS departments would not change the day to day structure of the service delivery methods. None of that is proposed as a part of this recommendation tonight. The oversight would change. The governance would change and provide you all through me to have the direct oversight of that day to day and the operations. And I think most importantly, would put the Board of Commissioners to hear on a monthly basis the updates from DSS and Health. One of the things that we would propose tonight as a change is that either at the end or at the beginning of each meeting, your preference, that we would have a monthly update from DSS and Health that would hopefully provide some accountability and some transparency to you all to be able to provide some back and forth conversations and to the public to be able to have a better understanding of what's happening with DSS and Health. And that's the accountability and transparency piece. And the decision making. The governance change will accelerate, we hope, strategic decision making by removing the middle tier board that exists now. what we would like to answer and perhaps put some things at rest we would potentially question some of the things that have been said that's out there would we lose our deep medical and social work expertise that we have with the current governance no again we would keep the boards exactly as they are now and we have discussed with those boards to keep those intact as they are but they would become advisory boards and again that's what they would do is hopefully advise you all with some of that expertise utilizing the expertise for some of the questions and some of the concerns and some of the issues that they perhaps would have will one department take over the other that's the consolidation piece again bringing those two together we're not proposing that tonight we're not proposing changing anything but keeping dss and health separate just changing the governance of those two and will this hurt staff morale we're optimistic that it's not so we have seen a change i hope with the willingness to look forward the openness and conversation with dss and health i think right now the current structure being autonomous we don't necessarily hear from them we quite often have to receive updates through different methods. By providing this change in governance, it would put them before you all on a monthly basis and hopefully bring some ability for you all and the public to have more of an insight and oversight to what's going on at DSS and Health. So with that, that concludes my presentation. I'll be glad to answer any questions. The overall proposal tonight is a resolution that's before you all that allows for consideration of the governance change of both DSS and health. What that would do is take the current structure with DSS and health boards that are now separate governing entities and turn those into advisory boards. You all, as the Board of Commissioners, would assume responsibility as the governing board for DSS and health and charge me as county manager with overseeing those day-to-day operations, including the hiring and termination or whether the evaluation or whether the day-to-day evaluation of the services intact. So I'd be glad to answer any questions that you might have.

All right. Anybody have any questions? I think it was a great presentation, sir. You answered all my questions. So with that, we will declare the public hearing open for the consideration of the resolution and the consolidation of governance. And we've got several people that have signed up to speak during this portion. And so we appreciate your interest in all of that. And so the first one on our list again is Faith Knapp.

Good evening. I am Faith Naff, and I'm a resident of Granite Falls, North Carolina. Gentlemen, I stand before you this evening to voice my opposition to the folding of control over the departments of health and social services into the responsibilities of this board. Would doing so be simpler? Perhaps. Would it be cheaper? Also, perhaps. But there are some things that are worth the extra effort and cost they carry. One of those things is the preservation of the dilution of power within government. Checks and balances are a fundamental core of the American experiment. Our founders understood this 250 years ago when they fought against the rule of a monarch. And then, with the chance to consolidate power for themselves clearly within their reach, they had the wisdom to go in a different direction. Commissioners of Caldwell County, that choice now sits before you. I've been to all the budget meetings this year. I've heard you speak about how, thanks to your strong conservative leadership, the county's books are balanced, our debts are paid, and our rainy day fund is safe. These are commendable accomplishments. But if true, they also prove that we're not in a position where we need to find these kind of places to cut. We can afford to keep the boards of these two departments. America has been a shining example of government of the people and by the people for 250 years now. That spirit of diluted power of checks and balances ripples all the way through the halls of the Capitol in Washington to local government chambers throughout the nation. It should be felt in this one too. Commissioners, I implore you on this noteworthy anniversary year to please uphold the spirit of and to please uphold that spirit and reject this consolidation of power. Now, that's the end of the comments I wrote down. But since I've got a couple extra minutes left, Mr. Fox's comment about the The board meetings that are not often attended by the public made me think of something. Like I said earlier, I've been to every single meeting this year. I've been to some of the workshops as well. And at the beginning of this year, these meetings were not heavily attended. There was two, three people in here. We've packed the house now two months in a row. Show of hands, anybody want to start going to the other board meetings?

There you go.

Thank you. Diane Blanton.

Good evening. What I would like to know is what makes you think that you seven county commissioners can run Department of Social Services and the Health Department better than the state of North Carolina? I've looked at all this. I've heard all the arguments, all the presentations. So I want to know why. Y'all wanna undertake this and take it away from the state. You actually think that you can run it better than the state? That's my question to you. Donnie Potter, I hear that you will be here resigning in January. Okay, I've also heard a rumor, I don't know if it's true, and I know you probably won't say yay or nay. That's your right. but I also heard that you have applied for a cushiony jaw with social services. I don't know if that's true.

That is absolutely not true. You can put that on the record.

Glad don't hear it. Glad don't hear it.

She asked me a question. I asked a question.

Well, I'm glad to hear that. Don't go back on your word.

You ain't got to worry about that.

I hope not. Because a lot of you have not done a lot for this county, I feel, that you could do. But that's on y'all's head. But like I say, I'm not for it. But you'll see how it works out. You'll probably pass it anyway, no matter what anybody says. But anyway, that's all I got to say, and I'm through bitching. Thank you.

Thank you. Can I address one thing with you? I will say this to your question, Ms. Blanton. We're not taking the place of the state of North Carolina. They still are going to fund DSS. So they're still there. They're going to govern it just like they have always governed it. The biggest difference for this board is to actually have some say-so in that. And as a taxpayer, I would hope that folks realize that we're responsible for that. And right now, we don't have the ability to be responsible for it. So that's what's brought a lot of this on. But the state of North Carolina is still going to be funding and a part of DSS. Their guidance and governance and all the things that run through DSS currently are still going to be going on. All right. Yes, ma'am. So Tom Blanton.

Good evening. Good evening. My concern is I think y'all have got enough to worry about already trying to run this county. This county has a lot of needs still. We need more good restaurants. We need more diverse industry. We need support for our small businesses. And you don't need to be taking on extra responsibilities. Now, what we need is concentration on competence. We need competent people, not political people, running and having the final say-so in running these departments. So in the words of somebody from a long time ago I heard, leave it like a dang R. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you.

Next is Jessica Tomlin.

Hi. So I am a daughter of a DSS, a past Caldwell County DSS employee. I'm a former health department employee. I have great respect for the county DSS staff and the county DSS staff. In the presentation, there was many mentions of public accountability. And in my experience, there is accountability already. There is a board. There is already a commissioner on the Board of Health, and the budget is already improved. So this, to my knowledge, wasn't something that the citizens are clamoring for. This seems to be rushed through, and I urge you not to proceed through.

All right. Roger Patterson.

Good evening. Good evening. I'm Roger Patterson. I am a Caldwell County native. Uh, first I'd like to say that I am in support of the concerns of our Hispanic brothers who spoke earlier. And I wish at least one of you would look into it. Seems concerning to me. But on this topic, I'm in opposition of the dissolving of these two boards that you're doing. And after that excellent presentation, it even made it clear to me that this appears to be sort of a power grab. county commissioners are now gonna be able to appoint all those positions. So, I mean, I always thought, I studied political science, and I thought conservatives were for the deconsolidation of power, but it looks to me like, you know, the nation, the federal government, the state government, and the county government are now, becoming more authoritarian. They're getting more of the powers consolidated into a small group of people. So, uh, like I said, when I heard how the commissioners are going to be able to point all these positions, that made me even more concerned about what's consolidating this into a small group. Like Mr. Blanton said, I think you got enough to deal with now. The boards of these two boards should be composed and led by mental health and medical professionals. Not others uh i mean i mean that makes sense to me so um that's basically i know this is just what you have to do i know the decision has already been made so um thank you for giving me an opportunity to present my concerns thank you thank you mr

Mr. Huntley.

Forgive me for being a little bit angry about children. That takes my, I just can't stand to know that these children are in a detention center. One that I would think might as well be a Russian. or a Nazi. That's just not what we should do. Now, I'll get back to this part. I was a waste, fraud, and abuse auditor. Been doing it for 50 years. The plan is a scheme for you all to control it. And we don't trust you all. If you want to put Donnie Potter on a DSS public health job where he got in a fight with you. Now, Mr. Attorney, if he gets into another fight in that job and he already has a public perception of that, what's the court going to look like when you all get sued? It ain't going to go well, is it? That's it. Don't answer. That's fine.

Because you know it's the truth. This is a public comment period, and I'm

Fine. You can answer at any point in time. But I don't want this wild man who gets in fights controlling our DSS, our public health, and it's a public record of what he's done. And I hear rumors about him in other places. There are rumors. I don't know. I do know. Was it you we got in a fight with?

No, sir. Who was it? It's OK. You can blame me. It's all right. I know. I didn't know who.

I get blamed for everything else. Anyway, the other thing is, yes, MAGA is trying to take control of our governments, all the way to the local counties. I am looking now to see whether your attorney has conflicts of interest. He is the attorney for the county. He's the attorney for the school board. He's the attorney for the town. And he's the speaker of the house. There is no way he can avoid conflicts of interest in all of those positions. So tell your boss, I'm sending a request to the DHC to the State Board to investigate my question. Is this a conflict of interest? And should they be giving you all advice at all? Because it's quite clear that he will run into conflicts. And I have no idea how to resolve it if he handles it the same way the USAG handles it. He'll ignore it. And that's my fear. All of you all will ignore the law and do whatever the hell is in your interest. That's what I'm seeing at the federal level. I'm seeing that in Congress. And now I'm seeing it here. It's a shame. And you do not deserve that job. I don't care if it's $20,000. You're going to go from $195,000 to what when this comes in because you're in charge of it. Thank you, sir. Your time is up. OK. Appreciate it.

Thank you.

Mr. Senth you sir yes sir I would I could go back to some of those slides Mr. Fox, I got to say that you impressed me. You ought to get on that TV show where they talk about this deal or that deal, and you could do the bit at the end where they tell you, this deal is not expected to be any law in the country. I've never seen a presentation go faster than that. It's almost as if it didn't matter. Mr. Fox, every time he turned to the screen, I don't know if you folks notice it, I'm disabled. I got a common disability, I can't hear. And then I got another common disability, I got older. Between the two of them, I have a hard time. But I think you all noticed that when Mr. Fox was pointing, looking at the screen, it was easier to hear. I may have the worst seat in the house over here.

So I apologize for not being able to hear every single thing.

I wrote some notes. I believe it was Manager Fox who said a 30-day notice of a public hearing would be required. I saw that on another public hearing. I followed your presentation. At the end, you asked, are there any questions? And then Mr. Church, Chairman Church asked, did there be any questions? And there was silence, and Mr. LeBrow smiled. And then Chairman Church explained that there had been several, quite a bit of conversations. I don't remember the exact quote over this subject. And I thought, gee, I didn't hear anything about this. Ms. Brown didn't send out the agenda until a few days ago, at which time it was accompanied by this proclamation of how you're going to do this and what you're going to do. It was already written in detail. It's almost as if you went to a court and you had a trial and they handed out your sentence before you got to present your defense. I first heard about this takeover on Caldwell Voices on the 17th of the month. Somebody sent out a notice out there and it had the county seal and public hearing and so on. And I scrambled to find out what was going on because I've signed up to read county commission agendas. By the way, I don't get any agendas for the Board of Health or the Board of Social Services. If I can sign up for them, please do. I get City of Lenore agendas, emergency notices, and even get water main break notices.

Lots of them.

Your clerk used to email me notices of special meetings that weren't even that special. Often just extras. But this public meeting notice was supposed to be delivered to me 30 days ago. Never arrived, much less with the resolution intended.

Thank you, sir. Your time is up.

I'm sorry? Thank you. Your time's up. Oh, give me a break. I only have a half a page to go. OK, go ahead.

I stayed up to 4 o'clock in the morning writing this. I wouldn't want to deprive you of that. Yes, sir.

But this public meeting notice was supposed to be, I've yet to meet a citizen that got one in the email. So I think this public meeting is out of order, should be postponed for 30 days, now that we've seen your agenda, intent, and draft ordinance, so the public can try and figure out why this commission suddenly finds itself qualified to take control of and manage these two public service agencies. Essentially, you're applying for another job. As such, the public should have your updated resumes that we might decide if any, much less all of you, have the appropriate knowledge, education, qualifications, and work experience requisite to the job you're applying for. After listening to the chair respond to Manager Fox in the YouTube presentation I mentioned earlier, I checked his resume, a community college certificate in firefighting, and here he is looking to control and direct our county's health department and the Department of Social Services. Is there a master's degree among you? A PhD? So much as a decade of experience in either field among you? An election does not confer education, intelligence, or experience on the winner he did not possess the day before. We elect folks to represent our interests via public policy decisions, not to supplant the institutional knowledge and experience, nor the professionals in place to provide health and social services. They are the experts in their field that we expect to rely upon as we do now. A hundred and some years, I believe, 101 years?

Was that what it was?

101 years we've been doing it this way? And so if it ain't broke, and I haven't heard anybody speak to what's broken. Are we having rampant theft? Are we having fist fights at the Department of Health? I got to take a shot at you with that one, folks. You know, what's wrong over there? What is it we're trying to fix? Simply stated, is it trying to save money? I had a citizen right to me. As far as I can tell, the main purpose is to get employees in those departments off the State Personnel Act so it's easier to fire people. I don't know if that's your intent in all or part. I have no idea what your intent is. You didn't spell it out. We deserve to hear the details of why you're doing this. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

All right, Mr. Senth was the last one that signed up. So I'll declare the public hearing closed. And I ask what the pleasure of the board is this evening in adopting this resolution, as has been presented. If I hear a motion, then we'll open it up for discussion. How's that?

Mr. Chairman, I'll make a motion that we go as presented tonight. All right. By our county manager.

Yes, sir. So we have a motion on the floor, and I'll open it up for discussion. If anybody has any comments you'd like to say. I'm going to get the blame for it, so I'll just go ahead and comment. There's a general feeling and consensus among our residency that their taxes are too high. And they want somebody who's in charge of their taxes and where their taxes are being spent. And we do adopt the budget for the DSS and Board of Health, but that's about as far as it goes. And we as commissioners would like to have a little more say-so in that process. It's not a power grab. Mr. Patterson, who happens to be running for commissioner, is talking about a power grab. The boards are all gonna still stay intact, sir. They're currently appointed. Yeah, it's okay. They're currently appointed by the county, those members on the Board of Health, and I serve on the Board of Health too. And to Mr. Simph, you're right, I don't have any qualifications. But that's the reason we have doctors and dentists and pharmacists and opticians and engineers all on the Board of Health. And they're still going to be serving in their advisory capacity. They're still going to be a major part of everything that goes on. And so we just want to have our say so in that, too, as commissioners. And that's where the connect is for us in trying to govern this. And you hold us accountable anyway. If something goes wrong, the commissioners are blamed. It's not, I dare say anybody here could tell us who's on the DSS board, who's on the Board of Health. But if you had a problem, you're going to come and blame the Colwell County commissioners this board for it. We constantly hear that and we understand that not everything goes perfect in the world that we're in, and we're just trying to be a part of the solution. And since you hold us accountable for it, we want we're trying to get in more of a direct role for that. So that's where we're at. That's where I'm at anyway. And I appreciate your interest in that. I don't foresee anything changing, anything getting any differently run or operated at the health department or the DSS board. So. I'm sorry? Yes, ma'am. I got both mine on. To have more of a say-so in the departments and what's going on.

Mr. Church, you're on the board for the Department of Health. That's right.

That's right. I'm on the board for the Department of Health.

So is that not the say-so that you guys would have?

No.

No, it's not.

So anyway, I'm not going to debate it with you. We're going to get blamed for it, and it's all that's going on. I think we've got a motion on the floor. We've got a question and motion on the floor, so I'll call the question. All in favor of adopting this resolution, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion carries. So thank you for your interest here today. All right, so next is our consent agenda. Mr. Shane Fox, our county manager.

Mr. Chair, board of commissioners, we have a number of items for consideration on the consent agenda tonight. We will start with our first five, our budget revision, our health department rollover unspent community care money. That's a $35,184 amount. That is a rollover from last year to the current year. There is no impact on the budget, no match required. We have another budget revision to accept a $28,000 grant from Duke Energy. This grant would be used for item number seven, which is to fund a site development trial for the Foothills Regional Airport. Again, this Duke Energy grant is $28,000. It does not require any local money or match. Number eight is our strap grant, our stream restoration grant through Soil and Water. We have an extra $740,000 that has been applied to a total of $2.2 million in stream restoration. Again, there's no county or local match required for that, but that does bring that total to a record $2.2 million for stream restoration within Caldwell County. Number nine is application only. This is to apply. for a grant the utility account grant an amount of seven hundred thousand dollars this would be used towards if received towards our airport sewer project number nine or ten is also an application to allow for an arc grant similar to our evergreen arc grant we've received in the past this would be for our lower cedar valley project or the bollock property again just application for approval there If received, it would be a $688,500 amount. Number 11 is the acceptance of a $200,000 grant that is for our drug court program. Again, no match, no local money. That's $200,000 over two years to help fund our drug court program. Number 12 is a resolution for four vehicles to be surplused. These vehicles all have reached either the mileage or to the point of not being repairable, and they would require those to be conveyed as surplus property from the county. There's four vehicles total there listed. Number 13 is North Carolina Cardinal Memorandum. This is our annual agreement with our library. This is part of the single shared online catalog resources that we are a part of across the state of North Carolina. This is an annual agreement and this is for 26-27. Number 14 is the appointment to the board of health. This is for the dentist position for three years. This is for the advisory board of health. Same with number 16. This is for the DSS board. Number 14 is Jessica Tomlin for the dentist. Number 16 is Beth Henshaw to replace Chapel Davis who had ended her second term. Number 15 is ETJ members for the town of Granite Falls and planning board members for the ETJ for Granite Falls. Those members for the Board of Adjustments and the ETJ is Jeremy Scott Reed, or Mike Norris, I'm sorry, and for the Board of Adjustments or planning board is Jeremy Scott Reed. Those both are ETJ members. And then item 17 would be approval of regular and closed session minutes from the June 22nd, 2026 Board of Commissioners meeting. And with that, I'll gladly entertain any questions you might have.

All right, so I'll go ahead and make a motion that we adopt to this evening's consent agenda as has been presented. Are there any questions for the county manager? Hearing none, I'll call the question. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? And that motion carries. And we have scheduled a closed session pursuant North Carolina General Statute 143-318.11 . And what's the pleasure of the board in entering into a closed session?

Mr. Chairman, I make a motion that we go into closed session.

All right. All in favor say aye. Aye. And that motion carries. So we are in closed session.