Board of Commissioners - Special Meeting

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to this special Darryl County Board of Commissioners meeting this Monday, August the 10th. At this time, I'd like to ask Commissioner Kreef if he would lead us in an invocation.

Lord, Heavenly Father, thank you for this day you've made, God. Thank you for everybody in this room and giving their lives to public service, Lord. Thank you for all of our employees who make these meetings happen, God. Please give us guidance and wisdom and Let us think thoroughly through everything that we do, God. Please be a guidance to us, and not just today, but everything that's going on in the county and the entire United States, God. In the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen.

Amen. Thank you, Commissioner. May we stand for the pledge. We have with us Justin Bateman, a Board of Education board member here this morning. Justin, thank you for being here. I mean, and Kenny as well is here. Kenny, they don't give me two seconds to make sure I, you know, I can't even get it out of my mouth what they tell me.

Bob, at your age, we're trying to watch and make sure everything runs smoothly. County manager.

Good morning, Mr. Chairman, everybody. We call this, this is a special meeting. We call it this morning. When we started, we only had one thing and As we got going during the week, the agenda has enlarged a little bit. The main purpose of this meeting is to deal with some of the limited obligation bond things that we're dealing with and trying to get those in order so we can start our public works project. With that, we'll start with item one on the agenda, and that would be the chairman's remarks.

Thank you, County Manager. As everyone knows, I like to start out with a little humor. Man was driving through the countryside one afternoon, and he saw an old farmer sitting in a rocking chair beside his barn. And, of course, next to him was a dog. And the man, so the man decided, I'm going to stop and talk to this farmer. And so he did. He stopped. He got out. And he said, excuse me, sir. He said, does your dog bite? And, of course, the farmer looked at him and said, no. Well, the man got out of his car, and he walked over to pet the dog, and the dog certainly immediately growled, jumped up, and he bit him on the leg. Well, the man jumped back and yelled, I thought you said your dog didn't bite. The farmer shook his head and said, he ain't my dog. We've got an item on our agenda this morning, item eight, that is I don't know of any more critical thing before us that we have to discuss and talk about and educate the public on. And that's Parks and Rec's tax referendum. I've read so many comments already that the public just don't have a clue. And it's sad. And I'm advocating that you do your homework and you look at the facts concerning this referendum. And if you're just not sure about the facts, We'll have a site on our website. It's called Sales Tax Referendum slash Dare County. Go there and get the facts and not just get the facts from some willy-nilly person out there on Facebook posting inaccuracies about what this tax is about to do. And I'll just give you one example. Twenty-five cents is what the public thinks is the sales tax. It's not 25 cents. It's one quarter of a penny. One quarter of a penny is what this sales tax referendum is asking. So it's asking us to go from 6.75 cents to 7 cents. Um, so, um, just do your homework is all I ask. This is critical, um, to, to, uh, for us to accomplish some, um, wait, Mr. Chairman, wait, let me make sure I understand the arithmetic here. No, I'm sorry.

So, so if a friend and I go to dinner and the bill is a hundred dollars, um, what would be the increase in tax on my $100 dinner?

You do the math.

Am I correct that it would be 25 cents?

Yeah.

I'm seeing a nod from the county manager, an esteemed member of the bar and barrister. I'm looking at the finance director for confirmation. So on my bill of $100 for dinner for my friend and I, I would be required to pay the princely sum of $100.25. Have I got that right?

You got it right.

Okay, just confirming. Thank you, sir.

Pardon? Yeah. Don't forget to tip your way.

Thank you. And by the way, I always get excellent service at Sugar Creek. I love them. Thank you.

So once again, I just ask the public, to really do their due diligence and understand the math on this and what it's going to cost. We have some numbers out there. I think $14 roughly a year for an individual, $22, I believe, Matt, for a family somewhere in that neighborhood. That's a small price to pay to – provide facilities for our children and our adults throughout this county. And this is critical because we're going to be hard-pressed to add new facilities, upgrades to our existing fields and stuff if this tax increase doesn't go through. because we just don't have it in the budget. And that's why we need this quarter since sales tax. So please do your due diligence. That's all I ask. And that's all I have, County Manager.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Item two on the agenda is public comment. Ladies and gentlemen, now's the time. It's been set aside for public comment. If you have public comment this morning and you've not signed up, raise your hand. I'll recognize you. When I do, please come to the podium and state your name. There's a green light on the podium that will tell you when your time begins. You have five minutes. The yellow light will tell you when you have about a minute to go. And when the red light comes on, you need to conclude your remarks. If you're here to speak on the public hearing for the limited obligation bonds, please wait until we get to that item agenda and speak to that item then. With that said, understanding we have no public comment in Buxton, correct? And with that, I have one person signed up here, and that would be Charlie Parker.

Charlie, welcome this morning.

Good morning. Charlie Parker, Kill Level Hills. I wasn't going to say this, but I have to say this. A lot of people don't understand that tax. You explained it to us, sir. I've seen all the charts and my head spins. But you explained it's a quarter on a $100 bill. That's what you have to explain to people. A lot of people are against it because how come we haven't been upgrading all the parks and things for the last 25 years? That's water over the dam. We have to do something. So thank you very much for really explaining it well to me and a whole bunch of people.

My pleasure.

The other reason I came is on August 2nd, a petition was sent to you regarding the flock systems. What is the system? What is the status of your responses to the question in the petition? I know you can't answer, but we'd like to find out if you're going to respond to it.

This is public comment.

Yeah, so that's my comment. My comment is we're waiting for your response. There we are. Thank you.

Any more public comment this morning? Anyone else like to speak at public comment? With that, Mr. Chairman, we'll close the public comment and we'll move to item three on the agenda. This is the series 2026C, limited obligation bond initial resolution, and Matt Matejka has that item.

All right. First, we have the initial resolution. This is doing a number of things. First, it's defining our not-to-exceed amount of $67 million. It defines the projects of the issuance, which are our public works facility renovation, restoration, teardown, new construction, however we want to think of that, our Nags Head EMS construction, and the Manio High School field house. This identifies the collateral as the Public Works Campus. It says that we do not anticipate any tax increases as a result of this issuance, and it states it will hold a public hearing which will happen following your approval of the initial resolution. This is what we would normally do in advance of being on the LGC agenda, which we are planning to be on their September agenda. I'm going to get to your thing in the next part. Okay. Any questions?

Mr. Chairman, we would need a motion to approve that resolution. Okay. Pleasure of the board.

Motion to approve. Okay. There's a motion on the floor by Commissioner Burris to approve to adopt the series 2026C, limited obligation bond initial resolution. It's been seconded by Commissioner Bateman. The floor is open for further discussion. Hearing none, those in favor of that motion signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, like sign. Motion carries unanimous. Thank you, Matt.

Chairman, before we go to item five, which is the approval of the final resolution for those bonds, we have to have a public hearing. So now's the time we will have a public hearing to hear comment on the 2026C limited obligation bonds. If you'd like to speak to that issue, please raise your hand and I'll recognize you. Seeing no hands, I understand there's still no public comment in Buxton. And so with that, we would close the public hearing and move on to item five, which is a series 2026C limited obligation bond approving resolution.

This is the approving resolution. This is a different order than we would typically bring. this to the commissioners at the request of the LGC. This is being that it's for the public works and we had the delay. What they expressed is they wanted to make sure that you were committed to this before they approve it.

They being the LGC.

They being the LGC. Yes. So normally you would have completed documents when you approve the approving resolution. What you have now are draft documents and those were provided to your personal email this weekend and in hard copy. So we'll bring you the actual documents well in advance of the issuance, which is planned for early October. So Rob had asked about our targeted interest rate. We're right now projecting to be just at 4%, hopefully slightly under 4%. The issuance will be a 20-year term. So the approving resolution What it is doing is reinforcing all of the things that were just presented in the initial resolution with the not to exceed. It identifies our underwriter, which is Piper Sandler, who we have used for all of our previous issuances. It empowers Bobby and myself and Skyler to execute all of the documents in relation to the issuance. THAT'S PRIMARILY IT.

AND THE AMOUNT THAT WE'RE TARGETING TO ISSUE WITH THESE BONDS?

YEAH, SO THE NOT TO EXCEED IS $67 MILLION. IT'S PROBABLE THAT OUR PAR VALUE WILL BE IN THE $64 MILLION RANGE. AND HOW MUCH

that we've seen on social media, public comment, questions, probing on the 64 million, not 25 cents, on the issuance of the bonds. How many have you received at your office?

Nothing in my office.

Nothing in your office? Yeah. Okay. I couldn't resist. I'm sorry.

With that, Mr. Chairman, we would need a motion to approve the limited obligation bond APPROVING RESOLUTION.

MOTION TO APPROVE. OKAY.

THERE'S A MOTION ON THE FLOOR BY COMMISSIONER BALANCE TO ADOPT THE SERIES 2026C LIMITED OBLIGATION APPROVING RESOLUTION. IS THERE A SECOND?

SECOND.

SECONDED BY COMMISSIONER BURRUS. THE FLOOR IS OPEN FOR FURTHER DISCUSSION. HEARING NONE, THOSE IN FAVOR OF THAT MOTION, PLEASE SIGNIFY BY SAYING AYE. AYE. OPPOSED, LIKE SIGNED. MOTION CARRIES UNANIMOUS. THANK YOU. I'M SORRY.

Chairman, that brings us to item six on the agenda. This is the Coastal Family Collaborative Restoring Child Care Access on Hatteras Island through their nonprofit model. We talked about this at the last meeting. From that meeting, we said, let's go down and meet with the members of that group and talk to them and go through their financial plan, go through their business model. Commissioner Balance, Commissioner Ross, Matt and I went down there last week and met with that group. We had a really good meeting. We went through their documentation in some detail. What came from that, I'm going to give you the executive summary, and if you have questions, we'll go deeper. And members of the collaborative are here. If you go deeper than what I know or what Mary Ellen and Rob know or Matt, then we can get them up here, too. But the long and the short of it is we went through it, and the model that they're proposing for the most part, is a workable model. If things go as planned, then they can make this work. What they need is they need some money to get started. They aren't going to have full attendance on day one. They're not going to have every teacher hired on day one. They've got some time and some things they've got to do to get ahead of time. However, if we give them the help I'm gonna ask you about in just a second, then if other things go as they planned, their model will work. They can make this financially viable over time, and this can be something that works. It's a nonprofit, so there's no profit motive in this, which reduces costs. Chuck Lysette was with us. There's some grant opportunities and things there that provide them funding as well. And so from that, what we decided or what we discussed with them and among ourselves was to recommend to you all that we cover the first year's rent. We just pay the rent, get that off of their plate where they can focus on the other things. The rent is about $2,600 a month. That comes to something like $3,100. What we said is why don't we give them a not to exceed $35,000. That would give us a little bit of money there to help them with something else that we don't know about in that first year, but basically it would get their rent off the table. And so the request or the recommendation from those of us that went down there and met with them was that you all approve $35,000 to go to this collaborative. We'll do it under some kind of agreement that Matt and I will come up with and pay that in increments over time and make sure we can cover those expenses for them. And then we would ask them to, like, come in at the six-month mark and tell us how they're doing, how's it working. is anything different than what we thought about and all that and keep us sort of informed as we go forward. That's the recommendation of our group. I don't know whether there's more that Commissioner Ballance or Commissioner Ross would like to add to that, but that's where we are and that is the request.

CHAIR BAILET. Yeah, thank you, Bob. And that sums it up, I think, pretty accurately. Guys, what we were probing was How confident were we on the revenue model that the ladies here, thank you for coming. I know it's a long drive, but we appreciate you being here. A junior member of the board there on the lap of mom. We're going to have to check age laws in the state of North Carolina. But I became more confident after discussing with you all the a basis and origination of the revenue model. The fact that there is already on hand, I don't recall if it was grant or donations, funding to cover the 20, there's approximately $23,000 that you'll be doing sort of repairs, preparation work of the facility, and you have the funds to do that. Yeah, please, come on up, yeah.

And you are? My name is Heather Jeanette. I am one of the founding advisory council members of Coastal Family Collaborative. Good morning. Speak up, Heather. Speak up. Speak up. You know, I married a musician, and I still cannot use a microphone. He picks on me all the time. So, we already have received a grant from the North Carolina Rural Center in the amount of $50,000. That money is typically dispersed over two years, but they are aware of kind of the scope and urgency of this. So, we do have approximately $23,000 that we've identified in kind of off-the-ground startup costs. We kind of anticipate using about half of that for that, and then the other half, as County Manager was mentioning, you know, we don't have funds to pay the teachers for their first couple weeks, so we plan on using that to kind of float the first couple weeks of salaries, those sort of things, until the tuition money is coming in on a regular basis.

Perfect.

Thank you. Let me ask Heather a question while you're up here, Heather. We've heard from the county manager and the group that's met with you, but I want to make sure you're comfortable with the arrangement of the $35,000 paying the rent for that first year. You're on board with that?

We are. I think if we had an ask, we would maybe say, can we revisit this at year two? And if things are floating and things are working financially, but we know we're still not going to have enough to float year two's rent, you know, is there an option on the table to renew for a year. A lot of the long-term strategy that we're working for, organizations that help purchase or build properties, they're going to want to see two years of financials, of the business running. So we do have a question, I guess, about that second year. If things are going well, but we do need a bit more support, is that an option?

Thank you. Then I'll ask the committee that met with you, was that a topic of your discussion during your meeting?

Yeah, we talked about all kinds of stuff. From our perspective, the idea is one of the goals is to help daycare, this daycare, get started. And we understand that, and we want to do that. And in terms of that year two, then certainly, anybody can come in at year two and talk and we'll gladly talk to them. But our goal is not to be in the daycare business and our goal is not to be in, you know, giving subsidies to daycares forever. We understand getting off the ground, we understand the need for capital to make things work, and we're prepared to provide that capital, but we don't want to be the long-term fallback position if everything doesn't go right, if something changes, that we don't want to be the safety net forever for daycare is our goal. So our goal is to help get started. One of our goals coming from this is to set We don't think this is the last daycare that's going to come to you all, and we want to set some guidelines along the lines of what they've proposed so that we can sort of treat everybody the same. And we would set up those guidelines for whoever the next one is, but the idea that we would always be in the daycare business, we're trying not to get into that situation. I think I said that right, didn't I, Commissioner Bowles, Commissioner Ross? Yes.

Thank you. Thank you, Helen.

Thank you.

See, again, guys, what we were able to determine, and again, I'll look at Matt on this one. Kind of check me. It struck us as we went through all the assumptions in the business plan that as in many businesses, there's an early cash flow challenge. But once that is met, the ongoing sustainability and health of the business is not in jeopardy. So that's what gave me confidence to say, yeah, this looks like something we can and ought to do for daycare and head or asylum, which we've all known to be a very big issue. So that gave me some comfort in coming forward to recommend and support the idea.

This has been going on for quite a while. Aaron Trant came to us almost when I first got on the board when that little Sprouts closed. And they have looked at doing this so many different ways. They have explored doing it as a profit. We've had for-profit daycares come in that we've shown them the facilities to see if they would be willing to come in and help us get this stuff off the ground. And these ladies have worked tirelessly with multiple organizations. And this nonprofit model that they've created, the nonprofit, they've got it in place. They've built their board. They've got their, you know, they're doing their bylaws. They're doing everything right. And it gives me, for Rob to look at it and say, hey, I think this is a viable thing. I think that that to me gives me confidence in being able to help them get this off the ground. It definitely is something that is needed. And I applaud their efforts at getting it to where they have, because they meet monthly, sometimes bimonthly, to try to get this going. And they've got grants that they're getting ready to start working on. They've got the community support. I get calls and text messages from people across the community that I know are going to help support them get this off the ground as well. So I would make that I would make that motion to support this with the covering their rent for the first year with an update at six months.

Yeah. The last thing I'll add is the intangible. We had a chance for maybe an hour and a half or so that we were at the table having lunch and talking with the folks at the table. I was looking around the table, looking each one in the eye, listening to what they said. I see Pastor Amanda back there as well. And I was quite comfortable with the level of commitment, purpose, and dedication they were bringing to this. So it gave me a sense of these folks really are committed to and serious about making this work for their community. And I found that to be very, very valuable as well. So thank you, ladies.

Okay, there's a motion on the floor by Commissioner Balanch to appropriate not to exceed $35,000 to Coastal Family Collaborative Child Care on Hatteras Island through a nonprofit model. Is there a second? Yes, second. Seconded by Commissioner Ross. The floor is open for further discussion. County Manager?

Given that the amount of money is a little bit greater than the rent, I'm gathering we have the authority to use some of those excess funds for other expenses other than rent. I just didn't want to get in some issue about what we could and couldn't spend it on. Yes. Yes.

So that's included. So you're willing to amend the motion. The second's willing to accept the amendment. Okay. All right. With that being said, any other questions?

My only concern moving forward is what a slippery slope this is. I mean, you've got 300 nonprofits roughly in Derrick County, and so far in my tenure here, we've only appropriated money to two that I know of, both on Hatteras Island. I mean, at some point, how do we value one nonprofit over another, I guess, is what I'm asking today.

I think you value that in the in the work that the nonprofit has done to get the support to serve a need in our community.

And they've done that. And other nonprofits don't service needs in our community?

No, but the ones that have come before us, we have tried in every way to help.

I got an idea, Bobby. Can maybe the same group that met with these folks to help them out, also get together and do some guidelines on how we can, yeah.

Please. What we would do is we would take this model and say if there are other nonprofit daycares that meet these criteria that are starting afresh, I don't know, I'll go along. are nonprofits, they're starting afresh, they have a business plan that works, and all those things that we've been through over the last months with this group, if they could meet that criteria, then we would come back to you and say, these people meet the criteria, are in the same stead as the people that we just funded, and therefore they're requesting similar funding. Would you all do that? And you'd have to make a decision, but yes, we can do that. That's good. For the daycare industry, yep.

Good point made, Commissioner. Thank you. Anyone else? Okay. Hearing none, those in favor of that motion signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, like, sign? Motion carries unanimously. Good luck to you, ladies.

We wish you the best. If you all would get in touch with Matt, and we'll figure out how to get you paid on what schedule, those kind of things.

Okay.

Item seven on the agenda, Mr. Chairman, is the Derry County Water 2026 CIP CPO amendment. And Matt has that as well. Wherever. You can do it from your seat if you'd like.

This is just an amendment of the water CIP. The Hatteras project, which was part of the 27 CIP, is an extended project, had money's budget in the 26 CIP. And so this is really just resetting the timeline for that and then redirecting $600,000 for an HVAC replacement that was not part of the CIP. So this is just an amendment moving funds within their CIP.

Any questions on that? Is there a... Motion to adopt the capital project ordinance for the approval of the FY26 water CIP. So moved. Okay. There's a motion by Commissioner Burris. Is there a second? Second. Second by Commissioner Kreef. Any further discussion? Hearing none, those in favor of that motion, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, like so. Motion carries unanimously. Thank you, Matt.

Mr. Chairman, item eight on the agenda is the parks and rec tax referendum. We've already had some discussion about that this morning. But at our last meeting, you all had some discussion and some really valuable input on part of the marketing plan that was going on, the information plan that Dorothy and her team are putting together. In your packet, there was a Dare County sales tax referendum outreach plan. I don't know how many of you could get into your e-mails over the weekend or how, but Skyler just passed out a sheet. I wanted you all to see this. This is sort of the budget and the plan that they've come up with. The total cost is right at $20,000. I could have approved this without bringing it to you all. But because you all were interested and had comments last time, I wanted to at least let you see it. And if you had comments or ideas or thoughts, just share them with us so that we could include those as well. This is a pretty broad reach marketing effort that they put on. It will take the information that we talked about at the last meeting, either on rack cards or handouts or however it's outlined in this thing, and then get those out and disseminated publicly through several different means from, you know, passing them out to direct mail to whatever to get that information out to the public. And so that's what this is. Yeah, take a look at it. If you have any questions or ideas, then share them. If you don't, then somebody make a motion to approve, and we'll move on in this direction. These dollars would come out of the contingency, much as the dollars for the daycare we just did will as well. I'll make the motion to approve it.

Okay, there's a motion on the floor to approve the referendum outreach plan that was presented to us. Is there a second?

I'll second it.

And it's been seconded by Commissioner Ballance. I'm going to open the floor for further discussion.

Chairman, with your permission, Dorothy, did you have anything else to add to that? I think it's covered.

Okay. I only have one question. Are there other sources out there that, could reach the number of residents that we're trying to reach. Does anybody else know of any other resources out there? How about independent advertising? Yeah, that's where I'm going with this.

I don't know what that means. Print?

Are you speaking of print?

marketing company other than within ourselves to do social media blitzes, stuff like that, videos?

We do have some of that included in this. Okay. Going through a company that gets it on TV with current TV producing it, and then we also have some digital advertising.

Which one is that, Dorothy?

The video on the local TV is at the bottom of the first page, and then the digital advertising is at the top of the second page. And we also included some radio advertising, and then social media as well, doing some clips like we talked about. So I think we could certainly have beefed this up. We were trying to keep it reasonable, but I do think it's a good plan. So there is some of that included. The postcards that we're speaking of, that's three-fourths almost of the $20,000. Direct mail is expensive.

Okay. That televised commercial campaign is only reaching 1,000 households?

And that's because of the way people, you know, we could spend more money and keep it up longer, but that's on, like, YouTube TV and some of those. People are watching television so different than they used to. What does it mean when you say, sorry?

platforms and so forth. You've got HBO, Disney+, Hulu, Peacock, CNN, MSN, NBC. I'm confused a little bit by, is it YouTube TV or is it all of these networks, Food Network, History, AMC?

It's both. So when you click on your smart TV on YouTube TV, then some of the advertising you get will include this. skip YouTube TV and click on HBO Max, because that's what you want to watch tonight, then the advertising that shows up there will have this in it as well. Or if you click on AMC Plus instead of YouTube TV or Spectrum TV, then... ESPN, Paramount, Fox News, CNN, NBC. Right, all of those.

This is for $1,000? God, why don't we do about 10 of them? And I'm confused, honestly. I don't know, Justin. You're making motions with your hand. I don't know what that means.

There's only a total of about 1,400 impressions, and there's some other networks out there for similar costs or even lesser costs that'll reach anywhere from 20,000 to 75,000 impressions. So that's a considerable larger amount than what this vibe.

You're talking about this handout here? Yeah.

That's where I'm going with this. I think even though I'm happy to approve this, I think we ought to look at the possibility of using another source that can reach much more have quite multiple impressions out there. That's all I ask is to look into it.

Bob, I've got a question. Can I ask Justin a question? Sure. Justin, come on up here. So, I just this is a crazy thought. You know, at Sugar Creek we have geofencing. Could we use geofencing for this?

Absolutely. You can geofence with that. Now, let me start by saying I'm here on behalf of myself, not Dare County Schools, not Dare County Parks and Rec. I'm here on behalf of myself and my marketing background.

Let me tell you what geofencing does. You pull up in your car out here at the Nags Head Jeanette's Pier, and it comes up a Sugar Creek ad because you're close to Sugar Creek. Why couldn't we do that with just a positive ad of what we're trying to get out?

So that's geotargeting. Geofencing is fencing a specific area. And with this type of advertising, it is by zip code. It's not by, like, we geofence the Outlet Mall because they're close to your restaurant. We geofence Nags Head as a whole. With what you have in front of you, you can make it to where that ad is only played in Dare County.

Right.

Yeah.

But the digital ads that are separate from this that are on the next page, that's where you can target more specifically.

We need to use all this.

Yeah.

All of it.

And we can spend as much as you all. We were trying to stay modest. We can do more of this if we have more funds. We were just trying to keep it.

I think we need to look at some additional... sources and see what it would cost to reach out to Justin's firm and see what it would cost us additionally.

And it is. There are some numbers on here.

Right. I mean, the impressions is what sold me. I mean, it's double and triple and quadruple what the television commercial campaign would be.

And there's another layer to that, Mr. Chairman. We can target specific demographics of individuals, people.

Yeah. I'm going to propose, I mean, right now I feel like I'm well up to my chest in the weeds here, and I'm not a marketing, digital, impressions, geofencing, geotargeting expert by any means. But it sounds like there's some ideas here that are worth looking at, and...

You're going where I was going to go. I was going to suggest that you approve this so we can get going. Then I'll have Dorothy and her team talk with Justin and whoever else out there in the world that can expand our reach. We'll come back to you with numbers if we want to go further. The whole point in giving you this was to generate exactly the conversation that we just had to make sure that we saturate the market so that our people will know what we're trying to do and can make an informed decision. So, yeah, any way we can do that's a good way.

Okay. Then I got something else I got to say first. So, excuse me. You. I think this is really, really important for our county. It's really, really, really important. And I'm going to tell you why. At least twice, sometimes three times a week, sometimes four times a week, I get a call from a mom or a dad. And it always starts off with about their son or their daughter who is going to take some bad, bad decisions. And they're asking, you know, what can I do to help them? Can they get him in a treatment center? Can they get him into the recovery corps? Whatever it is, they want someone to talk to. And I feel grateful that they reach out to me. I'm blessed for that. And the conversation always comes up. You know, when he was 9, 10 years old, he was such a really good ballplayer. But he got out of it. And so this should be marketed as, hey, listen, we've got all these things that you can do from six years old clearing up to your 20. And even for older adults, young adults, we need to keep these folks busy all the time. I don't care what it is, ballet, pickleball, baseball, football, soccer, whatever it is, keep them on the field to keep them out of the trouble zones. If they hang around with winners at a young age and continue to do that, they're going to become winners as young adults and later on as seniors in life. They're not going to make those bad decisions. So we need to look at this as being a healthy lifestyle decision that's made for Bobby County. Everybody here in the county needs to understand this is a, we're investing in the future with 25 cent on $100. I mean, come on, y'all. It's simple. I mean, it's just, Rob did the math. And half of the stuff is not even taxable that we're doing. And 70% of it is going to be paid for by our visitors from other areas that come here.

That's the big thing.

So anyway, I know I'm preaching to the choir, but we got to, I'm just hoping that this thing can pass so these individuals in the future can have something else to do than get in trouble. All right. Do we have a motion on this proposal?

Well, I'm going to make a motion. I already did make a motion to approve it. Is there a second?

I second it, I think.

Okay. Further discussion? Hearing none, those in favor of the motion, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, like, sign. Motion carries unanimously.

Chairman, that brings us to Item 9 on the agenda. This is an amendment to the 2026 Board of Commission meeting schedule. I'll turn that over to you.

It was so close to the holiday and we had it two days. There's a lot of people on vacation and so forth, so I'm proposing rather than the date that we had that we do it the first Monday and that's September the 1st. That's prior to the holiday, so that way we don't get in the middle of people's vacation and people out of. Right. So we move from September 9 to September 1. Yes, September 9 to September 1. Fair enough. That's my proposal, and I'd make a motion that we change that date to September 1.

I'll second.

Seconded by Commissioner Balance. Any further discussion? Hearing none, those in favor of the motion signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, like signed. Motion carries unanimously. Thank you, board, for agreeing to do that. One last item I would like to yield to the vice chair at this time.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This past weekend on Saturday, there was a drowning that happened on Shockford Banks down in Carteret County. The victim was a very, very good and close friend of mine. He was the EMS director for Nash County. He and I started our careers about the same time We were actually roommates for a good period of time and worked in Stoner Creek Fire and Rescue in Rocky Mount and also in Halifax County EMS. I left Halifax to come down here. He left Halifax EMS not long after that and went to Nash County EMS where he was the operations supervisor for many years and later promoted to director. He has... had a long career in EMS, not only as an operations supervisor and a director, but he was also an instructor across the state. And even some of our EMTs and paramedics here in Dare County were under his tutelage. He has been well known across the state and has done remarkable jobs, not only in Nash County, but very well known across the state, like I said. And I wish for us all to have a moment of silence for Nash County EMS Director Dale Griffin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Vice Chair. Any further business from the board? Hearing none, then I need a motion to adjourn until September the 1st. So approved. Motion by Vice Chair, seconded by Commissioner Kreef. All in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, like so. Motion carries unanimously. Thank you all.