Town Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening. Would like to call to order our May monthly council meeting. Thanks for everyone joining us in council chambers tonight as well as those that are viewing us live stream on YouTube. We will move right into our agenda and first up is the agenda adoption. Is there a motion on the floor to adopt the agenda this evening? First or a second? Second. All in favor? Thank you. Motion is carried. At this time, Councilman Thevanin will lead us in our invocation this evening.

Thank you, mayor. Let's pray together. Father, we thank you for this day. Uh God, what a blessing it is to live in this great community. And God, we just uh we thank you for the many blessings that you continually pour out on us. And Lord, we celebrate our youth council tonight and we're excited about what they're doing. God, our future generation looks bright. Uh God, just ask you to be with us during our meeting tonight. Be with those that are attending the board of education meeting this evening. Uh God, just um give us a peaceful discussion uh tonight as we go about the budget. Thank you for pouring out for this community. We just pray it all in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Would everyone please stand for the pledge of allegiance?

I pledge allegiance to the flag. We have a couple special presentations this evening. And first up, we have our Harrisburg Youth Council Capstone Project, which is their 2526 pollinator garden recap. Jared's going to kick us off this evening. This year we have members member recruit. recruiting and grant writing. Oh, there we go. Hello. Uh the structure of Harrisburg Youth Council. So, each student must obtain 100 points to be in good standing. And these points can be earned in a variety of different ways. You can do them by attending meetings that we hold every month. Um community service events such as the parks and recreation events that we hold. Uh participation in the capstone project, which we're going to go further into later on in this presentation, and just general volunteering around town. some of the guest speakers we've had. It was truly a collective effort. Uh, as you can see, I'm not going to go through all the list, but a lot of different departments represented here and as well as a lot of different community members

throughout Harrisburg. Uh, they came throughout our year. So, and with that, I will hand it off to our president, Natila.

Hi. Um, my name is Natila Shithik. I'm a junior at Hbridgeidge High School and this year I I'm really honored to be able to serve as the president of the youth council and the chair of the capstone committee. So Youth Council at its core, it's a primarily serviceled organization. One of our biggest focuses is giving back to our community and helping other community members feel engaged with the work that we do. And so we do this by participating in different community service events throughout the year. So, we started off this year at the YMCA ribbon cutting when the new YMCA over at Harrisburg Park first opened. We had a lot of our youth council members go out and volunteer and help hand out shirts and other goodie bags as well. And then around Valentine's Day, we helped the we went to Terabella Senior Living Home down the street and we helped them make bouquets for Valentine's Day. We got donations from a couple local um florist shops and then we helped them put together all these different bouquets and we really got to test our own florist skills. And I would like to say I think that we did a really really good job. Some of the other events that we volunteer at are a lot of town hosted parks and rec events. So if you've been to Harrisburg Park for any of the events that the town has hosted this year, you've probably seen youth council member or two. This year we went to the Christmas tree lighting where we helped out with both the Santa station and the um craft stations as well. And then earlier in the year around Halloween, we were at trick-or- treat in the park where we were able to help hand out candy and also run several of the games that are there. The Christmas tree line is personally one of my favorite events that the youth council gets to volunteer at. I've been able to volunteer at it for the past four years as a member youth council and it's a really rewarding experience to be able to interact with different members of the community even though it's always freezing cold and my toes always don't numb but it's really good because they're always kids and they are always really happy to make crafts. One of the more recent events that we did was the artwalk in Mark domain. This year at the art walk, we ended up painting setting up a rock painting station for people in the community. And so we got to let kids paint different designs on rocks. And then the plan was that we would take these rocks and put

them in our pin garden, which you'll get to hear more about later. Um, one of our other big events that we've done this year is our plant day, which was the culmination of our efforts for our capstone project, which was set in a pinary garden. And we have a couple more slides on that in a little bit. So excited for that. One of the last events that we did to close off this year was the scam seminar. Basically, for the scam seminar, we hosted a little um seminar at Harrisburg Library and we invited seniors throughout the community to come in and learn some internet safety tricks. Um I know my grandma is a little bit susceptible to all the telemarketers and ads that she sees on the internet and that was something that a lot of people in youth council really agreed with. So, we decided to set up a scam seminar to help teach uh some of the older generation a little bit more about internet safety. And then lastly, we at all of our youth council meetings, we always have a guest speaker as Mr. Burger mentioned and in this photo we are um talking to one of our guest speakers as she explains how waste water cycles through our community. And this was one of the ways that we learned about our pin about the benefits that our pollinator garden can have within a ecosystem. And now next I'm handing over to Kayla Powell. Hello everyone. My name is Kayla Powell. I'm a 10th grader at Hickory Ridge High School and I currently serve as the vice president for Harrisburg Youth Council. I want to start by thanking all of you for supporting Youth Council. It's a truly amazing program I feel incredibly lucky to have been a part of for the past two years. Youth Council has allowed me to discover that I'm extremely passionate about serving my community and the countless opportunities that Nathila just touched on have fostered the passion of mine and I always make it a point to come out to as many community events as possible. Now getting into our capstone project. At the beginning of every new year in CA in youth council, we start by identifying areas for growth we see within our community. So at our first youth council meeting back in August, us students present our ideas to all of our peers. And from there, we unanimously decided that we wanted to construct a

garden that would bring the community together as well as support our pollinators, some some of which are of a species declining species. One thing about Harrisburg that I greatly admire is that when someone is in need, the community really steps up. If it wasn't for the countless community donations and sponsorships we received to source our plants and garden decor, our capstone project, Grow with Harrisburg, wouldn't have been able to take off like it has. But let's talk more about but let's take a step back before we even verified our location, which is a beautiful farmill park. As a council, we first had to do some research. Throughout the months of September, October, and November, our subcommittees were researching native plant species, mapping out the location of the various plants within the garden itself, as well as figuring out how to establish a pollinator garden in general. We created numerous lists and mockups that we then got the opinion of the council as a whole on to ensure the garden would be the best of its ability. Now, I'm going to hand off to another youth council officer who will get into more detail about our planning process. Thank you. Hello everyone. My name is Vikica Anand. I'm a sophomore at Hickory Ridge High School and I serve as a treasurer for the Harrisburg Youth Council. Now moving on to our second step of our capstone project. This is the bulk of our work and it required a lot of planning and a lot of effort. So first apart from our first sub subcommittees that we had, we organized separate subcommittees and one of the main subcommittees that took part in this step was the material subcommittee. So this subcommittee would source materials from local businesses such as Ponderers, Harrisburg Hardware, and Lowe's. Then we took a lot of these um materials and laid out the groundwork for our plant day, which we were hosting in April. Um these this plant we had plant work days almost every Saturdays in which the youth council would lay out a cardboard around the garden, wet it, and put mulch on top of it to serve as the base for our pollinator garden. Once the groundwork was laid out, we then began acquiring materials for the actual plant day itself, which consisted of gathering gloves, shovels, and the plants that we wanted to plant in our

garden. Moving on to our actual plant day. So, we hosted this on April 18th in which everyone from our community was encouraged to show up and participate in any of the three stations we had set up. The first station was what youth council is and what our capstone project is. So, it was a way to introduce youth council and what exactly we were doing with our plant day to the members of the community that may not be aware of what we were doing. Next was our take-home pots for the community members to take home and plant plants in their own garden. So, not only making this a singular one-time thing, but also making it something that you can personalize and take home and plant in your own garden. And our third station was the actual pollinator garden itself in which volunteers um help people plant the plants in the garden, which made it a full community effort. Next, I'll be handing it off to Amari.

Hello, my name is Amari Young and I'm a junior at Hickory Ridge High School and I currently serve as the conduct officer for Harrisburg Youth Council. So, moving on to to our community feedback from plan day. There were two major reactions. The first one was that community members were very um excited about the biodiversity. This was very important because our capstone project was um originally created um to help our community. And the next major reaction was that we were able to get feedback or offerings from community members um that want to donate um to the council's future endeavors. Um these donations can go towards like future capstone projects or future community service events like the Terrabella event where we had to um source flowers. Um, these are more plant day photos and we had um a very like large uh positive feedback from uh community members. And I remember when we first started creating um our garden in the winter, specifically February where I attended one of the pollinator work days. Um the garden started off with like a lot of dead flowers, dead branches, and I remember we had to take uh like rakes and push everything back into the woods. And then we had to uh like get cardboard, dip it into the pond, put it back, and then we had to dig that back up, put mulch down. Um it was a lot of um hard work that uh led us to create something as beautiful as this uh where we have like our bird pond and uh flowers that are growing. And through this success um this has made um our garden eligible to become a certified wildlife um habitat, which would um earn it national recognition. Um we have also finalized a pollinator garden um handbook which includes a complete plant list and like additional details like maintenance um for the flowers.

Now I'll let another Hi, my name is Tamay Jala. I'm a sophomore at Hickoridge High School and I'm the secretary of youth council. Over the course of this project, we spent eight months planning, organizing, and bringing the garden to life. Together, we planted 62 individual plants representing 16 native plant species. The installation itself took six work days to complete with youth council members working together to prepare the space for the garden. In addition to the garden, we also distributed over a 100 flowers for families to plant at their home, helping extend the impact of the project beyond the garden itself. To support the project, we received a $500 grant, which is greatly meaningful as it was our first ever Youth Council grant awarded. Looking ahead, the youth council will continue to maintain and care for the garden over the next year. This includes regular watering, weeding, and organizing a summer rotation schedule to make sure the garden continues to thrive. And I'll be handing off to Nadila again. Hi again. Um, so one last thing that we want to talk about. So as you know, this is our end of year presentation for the 2025 226 Harrisburg Youth Council Year. However, this really just means that the 2026 227 Harrisburg Youth Council Year is right on the horizon. Um, so right now applications for the Youth Council are open. You can scan the QR code on the slideshow to learn more, but we're accepting applications from May 1st to May 31st. And the requirements to apply is that you have to be either you have to be a ninth ninth grader, 10th grader, 11th grader or 12th grader and you have to live with you have to be a Harrisburg resident. Um I personally want to say we would love to have anyone in our youth council. We are very excited for this year and what's going to bring us and we would love to have we would love to welcome anyone and everyone into this experience with us. I think it's something that's really worth pursuing. It's made my high school experience a

lot better as a whole and it's a great way for someone to get involved in the community and learn more about the town itself. So if if anyone's interested, you should let them know that they should apply. Um but that's the end of our presentation. So thank you. Any questions?

I I say this every time you guys come to speak, but you all give me so much hope. You guys did such a fantastic job on this project and your presentations tonight. Also wanted to thank um Jared again and Nikki Escu who serve on this committee. So round of applause for all of your efforts. questions. Thank you. It's a tough act to follow, Rob.

Still still harsh. If I make it to 90, it's middle. I'm halfway there. Um, and also a special thank you to to Casey who's back here again. First first day back if you guys haven't said hi to Casey back from Welcome back, Casey.

Um, but you know, Casey did a great job of reorganizing the youth council when she came in. And you know, Jared's done an amazing job with them during the transition and obviously Nicole did an amazing job as a volunteer adviser. I think that's an important thing to point out as well is that, you know, when we look at these kids and they do all of these great things, um, everybody around them that supports them from a staff standpoint, this is a career. We we are fortunate to be serving our public as a career, but these kids are volunteering, Nicole's volunteering, we have so many volunteers in the town, so it's always inspirational to see what they're able to do. and I hope they all go into public service and they come over here as a uh as a paid contributor to serving our community. Speaking of paid contributors to our community, it's my pleasure, mayor and council and community to present the manager's recommended budget for fiscal year 2027. This year, our theme we call going from planning to performance. As you guys know, for several years, we've been setting lots of balls in motion and getting lots of things teed up, lots of projects there. And now we're really at that stage where we're making incremental improvement changes. Really think about efficiency, doing things um again and again in iterations and doing them a little bit better with our benchmarking data and analytics. Just as an overview, the budget process, although we start the public hearing process or the public outreach process of this in January, this really starts for us way back in November. Before we ever get to the January meeting, our staff has hundreds of hours starting in November developing the capital improvement plan, identifying staffing needs and operating items. uh we then move forward into into January where we have that annual planning session and we discuss with the council and the community what are the priorities what are the challenges for the upcoming

year. We fast forward here to today by between January and at the end of this meeting we will have put in more than 24 hours of open public budget workshops to gather input and direction from y'all. And then finally we take that and we put that into tonight's recommended budget. And that's intended to reflect all of the direction, all of the input we've gotten throughout the process uh from the staff, from the council, from the community. And we use that to say how are we going to meet the needs of the community for the upcoming year. The budgets presented to the council in advance tonight and we will have that public hearing in June where the um community will have the opportunity to comment and ultimately we'll have the opportunity to adopt that budget. The requirements are pretty simple. North Carolina general statutes lays that out. Municipalities are required to prepare these annual budgets and propose a plan for raising and spending money for all the programs, functions, activities, and objectives that we have for the upcoming fiscal year. Unlike Washington, we do have to present balanced budgets to y'all um where our revenues and expenses are equal. We cannot run deficits in local government. And our fiscal year runs from July 1 through June 30th of the following year. The budget officer, in your case, the town manager is responsible for preparing, presenting, and then ultimately oversight of the budget to ensure the intent of the town council is followed throughout the budget year. We use a process of fund accounting where we really track money as it comes in and make sure it's spent on those proper things. So, we really have three big categories that we can spend or that we collect on that we can spend on. The general fund, those are our taxes. Everything, property, sales, tax, revenue go into that fund. We can then spend it on those core service items. Public safety, streets, environmental services, engineering, general administration, parks and recreation. All of the general government things are

funded by our base sales and property taxes. We then have enterprise funds which operate just like private utilities. So these are public enterprises that are operated by the town. They are financed through the charges to customers which may or may not be residents of the town. And we do not use any tax revenues for those operations. Those are funded purely by the customers that benefit from those enterprises. Water department, sewer fund, the uh storm water fund, those are all enterprises funded wholly by the customers that they serve. And then the final um category that we have are restricted funds. Those can be restricted by us internally or they can be restricted externally. The externally restricted are things like grant project funds. If we get a grant from somebody for a project, we can't go and use that money on anything other than what they've restricted it to. POW bill funding. We also have um internal restrictions, capital reserve fund. So everything that we don't spend from the year before, anything that's under spent, which we try to push our staff to make sure that we do not exceed our budgets, that will roll into the capital reserve fund. And that is forever restricted to capital expenses that can never then go back into into operations. And we use that to fund things like roads and new fire stations and things that last long term. Capital expenses, equipment, buildings, anything more than $10,000 falls into that capital purchase. That helps us um track those large expenses so that we can plan and prioritize and prepare for those big future expenses. When we build something, you know, large like a a new building, fire station 2 is a good example of this. We generally are not going to be able to afford that with one year's worth of property taxes. We will save that up for multiple years and then expend it in an outy year. So, it's important that we have that 10-year capital improvement plan in conjunction with our financial models that project those future revenues and future

expenses. Those tools allow the town to really understand what are the long-term outcomes for the budget. And we're not just looking at it in a vacuum and saying what can we afford this year. We're looking to say what can we afford every year for the next 10 years and make sure that we're balancing the budgets all of those years. That continues to be a guide for for this budget and for all our future financial decisions. Core priorities and objectives, you know, with the current and future needs of the town obviously are always the most important and they establish they're established in the budget and we make sure that we meet those. Prioritizing public safety, transportation, and parks and recreation. Making sure that we have top-notch services across the town has been a motto of ours, and we continue to to abide by that. Maintaining those healthy reserve funds so that if opportunities do come up, we're able to capitalize them when those opportunities show. The next one we we show here is just really those efficient methods for operating. Always looking to reinvent. Just because we have a, you know, an award-winning program in our town doesn't mean that we stop there. We, you know, if we're in third place, we want to be in second next year and ultimately first at some point. So, we're constantly looking to be more efficient and operate our departments while continuing to deliver those high quality services. Always searching for the cost-saving methods and also new revenue generation, trying to make sure that we don't always just rely on those property tax revenues. Ultimately, all that kind of boils into ensuring the town is prepared to weather whatever unknowns come up. Inflation, labor and material shortages or other economic fluctuations. the the cost of oil and gas right now is one of those things that um I think other towns that don't prepare as well are having some difficulties right now, but these are things that we kind of build in as contingencies and we're able to weather those storms. And that allows us just strategically to be able to plan for that long-term success of the town. Everything that we do, all these

decisions that we make go through this filter of our vision, mission, values, and goals. We look at every one of these and we we we look at our vision. We say, "Okay, Harrisburg is going to will be a distinctive family focused community where memories are made and our mission is that together we enhance our quality of life by collaborating, planning, and investing to create our community of choice. Anything that that we present from our departments to this board have already gone through that civ to say, does this meet who we want to be and how we want to do it." So, by the time we get to you guys, we've already worked that out. When we look back at what did we do this year, well, in 2026, here are the winds that that we established moving into 2027. On the transportation front, Highway 49 and the Caldwell Road extension, part of the $25 million worth of federal grants that we were able to secure, we moved those forward to the next stage of design for both of them. We also established a pavement management program making sure that we're you know just doing the roads um that need to be done when they be need to be done in the way they need to be done. Our public works department did a great job of presenting that pavement management program to you all. design sidewalk additions for Oakley and Woodside as well as completing the Robera and 49 congestion improvement studies which ultimately have turned into a um project to design the uh the improvement there at Robera and 49 so we can get more vehicles around that intersection. We also will have completed by the end of the fiscal year the Cambridge Drive construction project connecting Town Center to our eastern neighborhoods. Communications addition of branded gateway signs on Rocky River Road. We all have seen the newest one there. It looks amazing. As well as the implementation of quick fix

Harrisburg which recently won NC3C award was a top three for innovative websites. So another award for the town on that and that's going amazing. Parks and Recreation opened the YMCA. That only took us 25 years, but we did get the YMCA opened in Harrisburg Park, and now we have access to two new basketball courts for our youth athletics programs. We also replaced two of our existing natural grass fields with the largest contiguous artificial turf field complex in Cabaris County. Just opened that a few weeks ago. In addition to that, we're full steam ahead on the 4th of July celebration for our 250th anniversary of the independence of our nation. So stay tuned for all the great things we have coming there. We upgraded the Harrisburg Park playground equipment and we're able to replace the baseball softball netting system at Stallings Park. In the public safety, added more um UTVs and carts for a rapid off-road response and event management. As we expand our events and we expand our greenways, we're patrolling and providing public safety to places that we're not used to providing public safety. It's not just all of the um common places of streets and and public facilities. Now we're we're u we're offered a little bit more. So added all of those um carts and UTVs as well have continued to train and recruit for fire department personnel through our internal Harrisburg Fire Academy. Replace special operations trailers and we also were awarded the North Carolina Department of Labor Gold Safety Award for our fire department this year, the first time in the history of the town. Human resources wouldn't be outdone. They were just as busy this year. um making Harrisburg the first in Cabaris County to achieve the hearts safe workplace designation. Awarded the 2026 North Carolina League of Municipalities Risk Control Safety Grant and Harrisburg was also named the healthiest employer in North Carolina amongst all employees public or private for our category. Huge accomplishments

and our team is doing a great a great job in 2026. finance and customer service submitted the first ever annual comprehensive financial report to GFAO's certificate of achievement for excellence in financial reporting program. Brian made sure that uh he put plenty of words in there for me to to to stomp over, but we've been working towards this for a while. This this is an important um goal of ours and we've submitted that for that for the first time. continued to refine the um town-owned solid waste cart rollout procedures and maintenance now that we own and operate our own carts. And we streamlined the utility account setup process for our new residents. The economic development department doubled in size this year from one to two employees, adding uh Stephanie to Ryan as the economic development manager. And we also launched the building and site database. So on the website and you can look at every available property that we have access to on our uh database there on the website. We completed the Duke Energy site readiness program for Morhead West. Um so now we have hundreds of acres over there that uh we have a ton of data on that we can market out for larger industrial commercial users in that area. The planning and zoning department, they were able to continue to work towards our tree preservation ordinance which we think will wrap up this year. finished the first half of the UDO updates. We all got together in our meeting. We're able to um identify what needs to be changed and now by the end of this year, we're thinking September, October, we plan to have the actual UDO ready to be adopted end of the year. No pressure for our staff. Um we also began the one Harrisburg comprehensive plan. So you guys know we've been out in the public. We almost 16 hours of our staff going out into the neighborhoods into the HOAs out there getting feedback and we've had record community engagement which

ultimately resulted in the completion of our community survey with glowing results um getting top-notch feedback on public safety, on quality of life and ultimately just being a great place to live. We're really proud of those efforts and we look forward to implementing that as we move forward. Now 2027, what's in this year's budget? So the same same things we went through from a department standpoint on our public safety. We're continuing to vest in safety and quality by replacing the self-contained breathing apparatus replacements. We also have new five gas. That's not five new gas. It measures five gas um monitors and extrication tools. This is really just to give our our frontline employees the best equipment to get in and do their job. They're out there, you know, trying to get people out of very dangerous situations. And having the right equipment to help them do that, to keep them safe as they're keeping our residents safe is a is a top priority of ours. Continuing the training and certifications to ma maintain our swiftwater rescue team as a state asset designation. Not only are we able to serve our residents here, we're able to deploy out and help our neighbors in their time of need. And that's an important thing for us. Continuing to um increase our traffic enforcement programming and refining our crime prevention approach with the Harrisburg Deputy Division. On the transportation side of things, continue that safety and moal improvements on the 49 and Caldwell as we continue to extend Caldwell up from 49 to 29. installing art, signage and landscaping in the existing roundabouts in Stallings Road and the design as I'd mentioned earlier of the Roberta and Highway 49 traffic mitigation which you can see in the bottom picture there of creating an access road to bypass the intersection to go from the intersection of Main

Street and 49 behind Publix to Veterans Extension. Parks and Recreation will be expanding uh parking at Sings Park. You guys have seen the earth work happen out there as we convert the old retention basin into additional parking. We now have to go and finish that um off now that we've done the earth work to make the expanded parking there for everybody that's visiting Solings Park. completing the design of the historic mill site, continuing to expand our our very robust townwide greenway system, and also the uh after much conversation at one of our budget meetings, complete the design of Main Street, Park, and Streetscape and bring that back to council so that we can decide on a final project there. and human resource will be in charge once we adopt this budget of implementing a new retiree medical benefit and establishing our mentorship and succession planning program. Our planning department finalizing those UDO updates that I saw Councilman Fall uh peak up at me at when I mentioned and adopt and implement the one Harrisburg comprehensive plan. Communications is going to do a brand refresh, get back into it. It's been a few years since we've really got into our brand. We love our brand. We love our logo. We love our colors. Uh but we need we need we do need to rebrush refresh the brand and also um just create some some additional uh brands that we can use in other capacities. So engaging the citizens academy is something that has become very important to us. And then as you guys saw earlier, our youth academy is something we'll continue and we'll expand on and looking to get a charter soon. The economic development department will be expanding into workforce development and entrepreneurship support. And finally to our variables and challenges. Every year our budget presents us with certain challenges.

This year no different. Strong residential growth is a double-edged sword. Um that results in expanded service needs especially in public safety parks and infrastructure. These are areas where we have very high standards. And as we continue to have greater strains on that, we need to make sure that we're expanding those services in a way that do not deteriorate the facilities or the services that we provide. We also have a lot of uncertainty around state legislative um issues. The property tax levy limits and revenue caps. As you saw earlier in the presentation, this is our main revenue source for the three things we just talked about, public safety, parks, and infrastructure. So that could significantly impact our learn long-term local revenue and we're keeping our eye closely on that. We'll also move in with a little bit more of a renewed focus on our economic development in order to offset some of those challenges. So supporting our local business and diversifying our tax base as the ultimate solution to that so that we lower our reliance on property taxes by adding more industrial and commercial development. almost a million dollars in unavoidable costs in this year's budget as you outline them here. The largest of which water purchases and sewer treatment cost. Those are passed along from the city of Concord where we purchase water and the water and sewer authority of Caparis County where we pay for water treatment, wastewater treatment. That's $336,000 in costs that will be increased and we'll have to pass along to our customers. Deputy compensation, that is not something that we can control or the board can control. That comes from the county. That'll be about 175,000. The national crisis that is healthcare cost increases is almost 240,000 for our employees alone. This is not an increase in any type of service or or um health care, new health care for or new healthcare insurance for our employees. This is the same thing that we've done and it's just $240,000 more as we've

seen healthc care reach into the double digits multiple years in a row on increases really nationwide. We also have smaller impacts, street lighting increases, um, statemandated pension increases. All of this really adding up to about a million dollars that a year that we have to find uh, efficiencies to work those out in the budget to stay with the same tax rate. Speaking of tax rate and tax dollars, where did the property taxes go? At the end of the day, most of the people in this room, most of the people watching at home, I get a tax bill. What are you spending it on? I pay $4,000 a year. Where does that money go? Well, this is a great breakdown. This is on our website. We'll provide this throughout budget season and post-budget season to continue to educate our residents. If your tax bill is $4,000, the vast majority of that does not come to the town. 1,663 of that comes to the town for our services. Of that 1,663, 554 of that goes to the fire department. Just a little less than a third of the entire property tax goes over to fire and EMS services with second law enforcement. As you would expect, $326 of that goes to providing law enforcement. And third, parks and recreation. Again, I don't think it's any surprise the the three things that we've talked about prioritizing at $32 goes over to park and recreations. And then streets and solid waste, trash recycling, um limb pickup, grass pickup, leafs, $149 for streets, 200 $124 for environmental protection, and then all the other services that we mentioned from finance, human resources, engineering, planning, administrative services, the town council, everything else that we do is $28. So, of that $4,000 tax bill, 1663 to the town split up as you see here.

We also had a discussion about our impact from the town standpoint on affordability. You know, we know housing prices have have risen dramatically over the past four or five years. And if you look at somebody moving into our community, the average home value of $550,000, if they were to get a conventional mortgage at a competitive rate at 5.6, the the monthly payment, escros, and everything in there would be about $2,917. And so we take a look at what impact do we have on that? And what can we do from a town to make sure that we're being we're giving the best value and also not contributing to the affordability crisis throughout the country. We're 6% of the total monthly payment for property taxes in Harrisburg. Of that, $2,917. 187 of that comes to the town to pay for fire and emergency medical and police and patching the potholes and the roads and picking up the trash and doing the parks and wrecking. All of those things are covered in that $187. And we went through this exercise and it bears repeating in here. What could we do to adjust that? Well, if we eliminated our entire funding for all police, eliminate all 29 deputies that we have serving here for the town, that's about a $4 million hit. And that comes out on this to, you know, about a $60 cut to or I'm sorry, about a $40 cut to the total payment. So instead of $2,917 a month, you're paying $2,880 a month approximately if we were to just eliminate public safety. Now, we wouldn't, right? Public safety would be one of the last things we'd eliminate. But let's say it's parks. You say, "Okay, we could live without parks, so we sold every park we had and we got rid of every park employee and we didn't do youth

athletic." It's about the same. It's about $4 and half million dollars and it does about the same thing. you save, you know, $40, $50 a month, but you're still paying 2,850. And I think one of the most striking things that when we went through this analysis that I like to point out is for about the same cost as it is to insure the house, $172 is what it costs now to insure a house of that value. For about the same amount that GEICO charges you to ensure hail damage on your roof, we're providing 29 police officers with all the vehicles, all the equipment 24/7, even on Christmas. 54 firefighters showing up no matter what happens, any time of day, any time of night. maintaining over 100 miles of roadways, hundreds of miles of storm sewers, maintaining our parks, cutting the roadways. Everything that you think of when you think of the town of Harrisburg is covered for about the cost that All State charges you to tell you they're not going to cover your roof when you call them. So, you know, that's for me that's a pretty good value. Um, I think it's important to keep that in mind. Not that housing affordability is not an issue. It certainly is. And it's something we want to keep at the forefront. But it's not an affordability of tax issue. I think it's a really affordability of what is the principle of a house. You know, houses have gone up dramatically and interest rates have have doubled or tripled in some cases. So combine those interest fees with the principal and that's really the lion share of the affordability issue on the front of our mind, but we can't really have a lot of impact on on it with our property taxes. It's another way of just kind of visualizing where does your dollar go. We also like to say what, you know, how do we compare? Where are we compared to everybody else on all our fees and our taxes? So, we have one of the lowest tax

rates for full-size communities in the area. And when you add our fees and everything and everybody else's, again, we stay very competitive, being lower than Concord, lower than Canapapolis, very comparable to Mount Pleasant, and moderately higher than Locust and and Charlotte, who just are different beasts all in and of themselves. So, the big picture general fund overview for the fiscal 27 budget, this has been prepared, maintaining the existing tax rate for the second year in a row. no tax increase is being recommended after um a two and a half cent tax rate decrease two years ago. So this would be the third year in a row of either a decrease or zero increase. Service levels are expected to remain consistent with the current delivery year which is extremely high. We'll increase our economic development efforts, increase our planning and community development efforts and continue to invest heavily in public safety. Few new budget request examples are those focuses on long-term economic development. Some of our transportation improvements and investment and acquisition and expansion of our parks. When you look at the pie chart of what comes in, about 61% of our revenues come from the property taxes with 32% being sales tax and everything else being kind of moderate and in between single digits. Over time, as you've looked at our property tax rates, you can see here what I had discussed of the tax decrease there at 2425, keeping it last year at 41 and then keeping it again for the next year at 41. And we would anticipate to keep that through the next reevaluation. general fund expenses. 32% of every dollar that comes in is going right out into fire and EMS services with 14% to deputies, 17% to our parks and wrecks. 9% in the solid waste in streets. Everything else tends to be in that

singledigit nominal area. Nearly 46% of every dollar spent on public safety. You can see the split between fire and deputies there. requesting no full-time positions, only the uh reclassification of one parks employee and that adding two part-time park attendants so that we can have more um full-time service, especially on the weekends in our parks to be able to clean up and and make shelters available. 2.1 million in capital projects expected, one-year capital projects in our operation funds. those things, fire vehicles and equipments, greenways, pedestrian connectivity improvements, as well as vehicle replacements across the board. When we look at that 10-year financial model in the general fund, we start to see a decrease in that capital reserve fund that I talked about earlier. Think of that as our savings account for all the big projects that we have coming. But if you look at the um green line here, that shows you the cumulative capital that we have funded over that time. And what this really shows us is we're keeping everything in good shape. We're not deferring maintenance. We're not letting things fall apart. Nearly $70 million in capital expenses over 10 years in the general fund, fully paid for without any debt service on our financial model. There's a good look at what does that 41 cent tax rate mean for you depending on the value of your asset. This is the typical tax bill that comes to the town in the water and sewer fund. back to our enterprises service delivery again remaining constant consistent high quality. We adopted in 2023 a an ordinance to make incremental annual increases. We we were in a a process prior to that where we would see 0000 20%. And then customers would get very upset with that. Why are we waiting until you need 20% to come and raise my rate? So moderate annual increases. This year we're recommending 5% water and

sewer rate increase. That's really in line with water purchases from the city of Concord are expected to go up four to 5%. Sewer treatment 5.1% has already been passed along to us. And then we are um taking on principle and interest approximately 440,000 for the plant expansion at the water and sewer authority as well. About a half a million total in the one-year capital budget for water and sewer. And then as you would expect, 96% of the revenue for water and sewer comes in from customers. Nearly 12 million as we look out over that 12-year and making sure that we're staying on top of our facilities and keeping everything in good shape. Storm water, another utility. A lot of people I I love to put this slide in because every time we talk about storm water every year, everybody goes, "Oh, flood." Like, "Yeah, my backyard floods or the creeks are flooding." However, our storm water program is not a flood control program. This is meant to comply with the Clean Water Act, specifically phase two of the Clean Water Act, which requires municipalities to maintain their municipal separated storm sewer system, MS4s, through these six minimum control measures. public outreach, public education, elicit discharge, making sure people aren't putting things into the sewer that aren't supposed to be there, construction site runoffs, all as they build all these things around us that the sediment isn't getting into our streams and rivers. As we build neighborhoods, the ponds, sand filters, things that you see in there are part of that post construction runoff. Then ultimately the pollution prevention and good housekeeping, making sure that things we're doing aren't contributing to polluting the water as well. So, as we wash our fire trucks, as we, you know, clean out the the um vehicles at public works, we capture that, we recycle that, and we make sure that we maintain the tires and the oil changes

and all the chemicals in a good housekeeping manual. When we look at storm water as it goes out over time, we really try to focus on that one more on the five-year model. So you'll see this kind of go up and then flatten out. But the same thing here, making sure that our facilities stay in great shape without any debt service. The total one-year capital is the 150,000 that we do on spot improvements throughout the town. We also have some fee schedule changes, very moderate, but in parks and recreation, you guys are seeing a recommended uh increase for non-resident athletics. Our residents will stay the same. We already talked about water and sewer um rate increases, but we're also eliminating the service deposit in that department. And then for storm water, a new elicit discharge violation fee. So if we do catch people dumping things into the sewer that shouldn't be there, we do have some V um violation fees to be remediate that issue. In short, total proposed fiscal 27 general fund expenditures of about 36.3 million. That is 1.1 million or 2.9% less than the fiscal 26 budget. We're really happy to be able to to offer a decrease in that. That's that's becoming rare and rare. The three main operating funds, if we combine general fund, water and sewer, and storm, account for 51.9 million in proposed spending in fiscal 27, that's just a little over a million less than fiscal 26. So that's a 2% decrease in total spending. Keep that compared to uh the municipal cost index, which for the trailing 12 months is 3.9%. So, in order to achieve that 2.9% decrease, our staff, who is second to none, had to achieve about a 6.8%

efficiency gain this year in order to go down 2.9% and overcome the 3.9% municipal cost index pressures. That's a that's really hard to do. Um, last year we did a 4.9% all funds decrease. So, this will be the second year in a row that we're able to reduce spending backtoback in an environment that is very tough to do it in. Our three largest investments, transportation improvements, public safety, and parks, 8.4, 12, and $9 million invested in all three of those programs. At the end of the budget process, we will have had a thorough, transparent, and I hope engaging process. We've had over after the next meeting we will have over 25 hours of public engagement for people to come and tell us what they think about our budget. We're proposing to maintain the existing tax rate of 41 cents per hundred, maintain all the same uh service levels and can continue to provide everything at a really high level and we're also meeting our adopted vision, mission values and goals throughout the process. The recommended budget will be made available after tonight's meeting. It'll be on the website. It'll be up here for inspection. Anybody can contact Janet here at town hall and and get a copy of that if they need to. We anticipate having adoption at the June 8th meeting where we'll have a public hearing followed by uh a recommended vote. I appreciate you sticking in there for that. Um I will take any questions at this time.

Hey Rob, I have a few questions for Sov. Thank you. providing this. I know we had you know quick turnaround time after we met on the 30th and um so under capital projects fund transportation notable changes there's 9.34 addition of highway 49 under a bura mitigation I thought we only approved the design of it how come there is it seems like the full amount is in there where which where are you referencing it in the binder yeah page 82 of the MRB

so I think that's more of an accounting issue, Brian. So, it's he's booking the entire amount of the project and it rolls annually. So, I don't and you can correct me if I'm wrong on that, but I mean, we'll only spend a portion of the design now, but because it's a grant award, we anticipate future revenue and we anticipate future spending all as one single project. Okay. So, you're adding the grant money that we will be receiving for it. Okay. Yes, ma'am.

All right. Um, another question and this is partially probably for um, Brian. Um, so a couple of things that I had as far as the facade program funding. Um, in the during the budget exercise, we had sort of a slight approval there. It was like 43 to expand the program funding from 50 to 100,000. Um however when our spreadsheets were completed and the discussion took place during the meeting we learned that this program actually operates differently where at the end of the year if the money is not spent it doesn't go to the capital it goes to accumulate in its own fund. Um and we've also learned that there's about 400,000 sitting in there. So basically eight years worth of the um the facade program. And in my five years that I've been here, this last project that came in was like the first one that I've seen and it was only 8,000. So um I think that um given that there's so much money is already accumulated um in this program. I want to um and I was not aware of it and I would like to resend my support from it and that would bring it to three four um but you know if you all want to kind of

what's what's currently in there is do we have 50? currently at 50 and we want to we said let's increase it to 100 and I noticed that's what's in the budget and I don't think we need to do that at this point because we already have 400 sitting there. That would mean that businesses would have to do like 800,000 worth of facade work for us to even use up that money. So I don't see why we need to be putting a 100,000 into it every year. Um and and and to be clear, we wouldn't be putting we wouldn't be putting any revenue into it. The revenue is already sitting there. You'd be authorizing how much of that 400 are you willing to spend in one year?

And I think the council is open to authorizing more if we need to, even more than the budgeted, but I think 50 is more than enough given this additional information about how this fund um works. We we have from a staff standpoint, we have no issue with 50. That's okay.

Perfectly fine. It's really The other thing is uh prior to that meeting I had requested a list of our budgetary programs so that we have a better idea of exactly how they work. Um I haven't received it yet so I'd like to have that the full list. Um including caveats footnotes as far as you know what are the provisions if there is any special like with this fund where apparently it just kind of stays in there and accumulates. So, I'd like to know that. Um, and I'm sure if the entire council knows that, they would, you know, be making more informed decisions. Um, the other thing I do want to bring up is the um the town hall um park proposal that we were discussing. Um so, there were several issues that I had with that. Um so, I would like to make sure that um I address that. Um first um we are already experiencing significant traffic at that intersection 49 in Roberta veterans. We actually are putting so much money into designing the work and going to be doing additional work to improve that. But then on the other hand at the same time we're going to be blocking Main Street. So, I feel like this is um we really need to be more thoughtful about it and I don't think it's a good idea to be closing that additional way of people for people to drive through um to avoid the traffic. Um I just don't think it's a wise proposal and I would strongly encourage um serious reconsideration closing main street. The second is um since we have approved the 400 uh the 700,000 and this was over two years ago um and since this last budget meeting um in one of the emails we learned that apparently a substantial portion of it was already spent on the design. Um and I want to ensure that

this money is not wasted. Um I feel like we need to have the opportunity to review that design so that um we can provide substantial um you know we can put provide some input uh before any additional funds are committed to this. Um third based on the size of the proposed space it really to me appears that it's about half of the size of the veterans park. Um, and I just do not believe that it will efficiently support meaningful park activities. I feel like a few benches and like five families and then after that it's going to feel crowded. Um, so um this will be a significant investment and um council should really consider truly what we're trying to accomplish here. Um, this space would not realistically support activities such as children playing ball or community gatherings um or even comfortable recreation recreational use once like a moderate number of people gathers there. Um the fourth is the fourth issue with that is that in regards to the town center overall, we do not own the surrounding undeveloped land. So um while we may have some influence in regard on what gets built there, we don't know exactly what the seller or the builder will bring us. So we don't know and we can't affect the timing of it as well. So um creating this attractive space and spending so much money on it, I feel like um without knowing what ultimately will be developed around it, I think that it may be a little bit too soon for that. uh it won't serve the um the residents well. Um and finally um I would like to see this area become more attractive. So I definitely want to see that designed and

see what's been kind of done to it. Um however, I think this current proposal really needs to be fundamentally rethought. Um, and I also want to be um I want to encourage everyone to be disciplined with the funds, especially given this current environment where towns may be more restricted with the with the state legislature as far as what we can do with um with our budget. Um so those were my issues with that. So we do we have 100 or 50 in for the facade? Currently 50. So that one's already taken care of. We made that adjustment between the last meeting and this one.

Um the second was the the kind of um footnoted

fund allocation and and fund details. We'll get that out to the entire group. Um the third being the park and whether or not we cut through and things like we discussed that as you know at nauseium at the last meeting. Ultimately whatever the board wants to do we'll do. But we have had this conversation not just on Main Street. We've had it when we're talking about the neighborhoods all around, not just this neighborhood. Are we willing to create cutthroughs to neighborhoods for the sake of traffic or are we not? And the direction that that we've all decided, and I think it's a very good direction, is that we're not going to impact existing neighborhoods by continuing to push additional traffic through there. We've looked at three, four, five different areas. If that's going to be different here, that's okay. We we're allowed to make exceptions, but I think that you have to make that exception, though. We have to say Main Street's different, Town Center's different. We want people getting through here quicker, but that that again fundamentally changes that project. If the entire board wants to change that, then I we'll do whatever the board tells us to do. Um, as far as the email and the expenditures of what's been put towards design, that money has not been fully spent. That's just a Yeah, that's misleading. Um, but you guys will have the opportunity to look. It would be foolish if we would not have brought the renderings that we brought to you guys when we brought them before we went and spent that money. So, um, you know, that that is a student of you to look at that and say, "Hey, before we go spending that much on a design we're not all on board with, I would want to look at it." That's exactly what we did. We stopped at a good stopping point before we spent a lot of money and said, "Hey, this is this is a major design. Let's talk to our board and see what you guys think. And I think you you do see some u diversity of thought on that. Ultimately, where we left it at the last

meeting was continue with the project as is with the 780,000 that we have appropriated towards it. Continue to design. Once we get to the schematic, let's bring it back before we get into detailed design. Don't waste money on detailed design until we've had that second conversation. So, that's our plan. If you want us to change that, I guess as a board, please, you know, give me that feedback between now and the next meeting and we can stop the current project, but we don't have any additional monies allocated to it at this time. I think that that hit from R. So, in terms of the facade improvement plan, I think it's great. I'm glad that we didn't increase it because now we have economic development officer and um because of the conversation. It's

Thanks. I turned it off. Turned it off.

So, I'll just repeat what I said. So, I think that um I'm glad that we're not in, you know, if we have that much money waiting, you know, sitting, I think we should use it wisely, but I also think that there's because we have an economic development officer, I think it's going to be used more, right? And so, I think it's that um from the conversations, there's going to be a more intentional effort to to reach out um to businesses to use it. So, I would like to see um the the number of new businesses or not new businesses, the current businesses that will be using those funds because maybe next year we may come back and say, you know what, it's picking up. We may need it and and to invest in that because we want our our town to look the same, right? We want it to look uniform like we're expecting the new companies coming in to look a certain way. So, I think that it might be useful. Maybe not this year, but I think we can revisit it next year.

Yeah, I think we'll be surprised. Um, it's a good strategy. Leave it at 50. We we've not hit 50 ever. Um, I do think between what Ryan and Stephanie do, they're they're knocking a lot of doors. They talk to a lot of people. We just have a lot more leads in order to do this. And now that we're doing a few, that catches on. I I do think we'll go over it. And I think when we bring those to you, like everything else, if it's a good project and it it kind of meets our standards, then we'll get additional funding for it. And we can communicate that out once we get close to 50. If somebody comes to us and says, "Hey, I had an idea. If we like it, we'll price it out and we'll bring it to the board and we'll add it there." But I agree. I think it's gonna take off. Yeah, that that Morehead Center update that was that was really beautiful. Yeah.

Um but do we have any safeguards in place there? Like let's say somebody built something three years ago and they're going to come in and they're going to say, "Oh, I want to improve it." Like what's the timeline? Like how old does it need to be before we There are program guidelines. I don't know exactly off the top of my head, but we can get you program guidelines and there's a committee that that reviews it even just for the eyeball test, right? It's like, yeah, does this make any sense? Are are you backdooring some other improvement into a true facade grant? So, it is built to okay to eliminate that and um and we can get you that in

not to beat a dead horse. bring it in. Um on that park and you love it too. Yeah. I expressed my concerns last meeting probably more so than some expected. Um you you mentioned that we have the 700 allocated towards it. That was established last year. This year. Yeah. I mean we're still in Yeah. But it's it's there. So there's no increase or extra funding at this time. That's has been pulled back and that money is just parked. Correct. Yeah.

What do we anticipate spending for just preliminary drawing to get us to another discussion? From from the discussions we've had to the next one, I think almost nothing. I mean, we've already gotten a schematic back. So, I mean, I don't know how many hours were spent on the consultant on that, but not more than a day or two. So I I was just curious where we what we had spent of that 700 and what would remain but if we've not spent it then it could

yeah I mean a good portion of that goes to detailed design um we can we can get those numbers of wherever the engineering is on it but you know you just don't you don't want to go full boore into a design for this exact reason right if you don't have board support on something that's not exactly what it was when you looked at it the first time, then you slow down. So if you've allocated it, it could sit there indefinitely, correct? Or do you have a time window on that? It expires automatically after four years. After four years. Okay.

So you in theory you could revisit it every year, see if the appetite changes, if the appetite's one way or the other, what have you. Yeah. Wasn't it approved in 24 like before? Was it? Yeah, that's what I thought. And us bringing it up every time. Does that extend the four the four year thing? I think we'll collect it.

If we Yes, if we if we reapprove it, it it does restart that. I think the significant part of that one was to start it under ARPA. ARPA had an ex expiration. We swapped it with, you know, some fire equipment. That way we could spend that down. There's also some lighting component that we have to rely on Duke Energy because we want them to ultimately maintain it. So there's a there's a lead time on that, which we did first. And we're like, you know what, we're doing really well on this budget. What what does the final design look like? And then it's really kind of focused into that main street um you know core rather than going very lineal. And you can go very lineal, you can go core, I think both of those are um exclusive if you want it to be a cut through though. I think whether you close Main Street or you narrow Main Street and you allow, you know, lineal parks in front of the businesses with outdoor dining and walking, both of those make driving 35, 40 miles an hour down Main Street dead in the water. We would we would put stop signs at every um intersection. We would put raised crosswalks. We would light it. We would narrow it. You'd be getting through 15 miles an hour through there. I mean it becomes unsafe now when you get by percent on Thursday through Saturday at night specifically you know after four o'clock you know we we've got close calls that call us all the time currently. So inviting more pedestrian traffic to your downtown and expecting it to be a 49 by I just I think if if you truly want to prioritize the traffic then don't don't narrow the road. Keep it keep it widened. keep it kind of separated, get rid of the main street idea alto together. If you want to do something on main street, we do have two

choices. We can narrow it, go lineal and you know go up and down where you can kind of create that central park and then create some lineal pathways to it so that people can get from the businesses to the park to, you know, kind of enjoy our outdoor spaces. Did the wiring ever get adjusted to where we could do the lighting correctly? Yep. Yeah. We've continued to kind of move from 49 up key and now we have a good launching point right there at key in Maine to kind of expand east and west on Maine. Thank you. You bet.

Any other comments for Rob? Thank you, sir. Thank you. We will move into the public comment portion of this evening. Um, just a couple housekeeping items. Anyone wishing to address town council may do so. We did have a signup sheet. Please be sure to state your name and address for the record. Be courteous. We do have several folks signed up to speak. So, in order to be respectful everyone's time, you've got three minutes. Um, you may not defer time to another speaker. If you do exceed three minutes, we ask that you just send any additional information to us at councilh harrisburgnnc.gov. That comes to all of us. And we will start with I believe it's Amos Mcclor.

Good evening. U before I start into my comments, I'm glad to be here and this is an exciting city council. Um very thorough, Mr. City Manager, if you could just state your name and address for the record.

My name is Amos El McClory. I live at 1413 Coupe Avenue in the city of Canapapolis, North Carolina. Uh I work for the oldest civil rights organization in the nation. Uh currently a board director for the NAACP here in the state of North Carolina. Uh my office gotten a lot of calls because of what happened right here in the city of Harrisburg. Uh, and those calls are concerned with what I see here. So, I came to see for myself tonight. Um, that this council and I and congratulations on your winning, uh, election in the last six months and those of you who are continuing your election from the years before that. And what I came to see was how you all are announced and addressed in your position that you hold for the city. Uh and I I'm glad to see that the mayor has a title. Uh the city manager has a title, assistant city manager has a title, and the attorney has a title. So my question is what happened? Uh and maybe I can get an answer of what happened because I'm going to make a report tonight on what I see uh not what I hear to my board. and they will make a report at 9:00 in the morning to the national board what's happening in uh Harrisburg. Why we don't see the mayor pro team see is that something due to a rule change is that something due to an oversight or is that something that that we would like to have some kind of explanation on when I make my report why you eliminate that position? If the mayor steps out of this room, does either one of you all get to take the position and continue the meeting at a city she had to go somewhere who runs this office or runs this council in her absence. Uh so that's my question. U and I'd like to hear from someone who

already has a title as to why we don't have that in this city. And you don't have to do it now. Just send it to me. I I left my address on there, but we'd like to have something in writing so we can go back and report to the state of North Carolina as to why the rule change or if it's a rule change, if it's something that went through the general assembly or where did it come from that that position is no longer announced when a visitor like me comes in and I'm looking for who's who in this city. Thank you.

Thank you, Rosa Sims. Good afternoon. It's good to see y'all again. We're getting we are beginning to be uh old friends here. Rosa Culver Sims. I am a resident of Harrisburg. You know, um, the only question I have is there was a decision that was made by this body that Dr. Ms would be mayor prom. That was a unanimous decision. Is there some reason we're trying to keep that decision private? It's not publicly known because it's not on the website. It's not publicly known when someone walks in because it's not on her name tag. Are we trying to hide that decision? Now, I know you're not going to answer me now, but that's what it feels like. The decision's been made, but we don't want anybody to know that we that decision. I don't know if you have been requested not to do it, so therefore we're not going to make it public or if there's some other reason. But if we've got to do groundhog today, like I said, for the rest of the year, I guarantee you I will be back next month.

Thank you, Miss Dems. Joanna Johanna Bako. Good evening. Am I still Can you hear? Okay. Good evening, mayor and council members. My name is Johanna Bako, 824 Wanita Drive, Concord, and I'm here in support of Dr. Aaron Banks being recognized as mayor pro Tim. One of the main reasons is I witnessed her personally working hard on her campaign visiting residents of Harrisburg, speaking to them, talking about her platform, her qualifications, but more importantly listening to their concerns and answering questions. And she did that tirelessly. and that was the results that we see that she was the highest vote getter. So, um I know you all as I'm sitting through your budget meeting have a lot of issues in this growing community to address. Very, very important ones. Whoops. And this is a very, very important one. But this one can be quickly fixed by respecting the vote of your Harrisburg citizens, respecting the hard work of Dr. Aaron Banks of getting out there and campaigning and earning that vote and that title and honoring your president president of awarding the top vote getter with that title in chambers and on the website. So I um ask that you honor those votes and um do the right thing. Thank you.

Thank you Carson Bailey. Um, hello. Can you hear me? Um, hi mayor and council. Um, good evening. Um, my name is Carson Bailey. I live at um, 3946 Melissa Drive in Harrisburg and, um, grateful to be here. This is my first time. Um,

I've lived in Harrisburg for a couple years. Um, I hope that this has maybe been brought up before, but I just kind of wanted to put out my plea. Um, my husband and I and our three dogs, um, we frequent the local businesses in the town center and we live one mile away. Um, we cannot walk here. Um, so we live right off of Roberta and I occasionally jog that route, but I prefer not to. Um because we all know the traffic um is getting faster and faster around that blind corner. Um I am begging for there to be some consideration on a sidewalk. We would love to walk to the local businesses instead. Um I would like to be able to exercise safely without having to drive to the Parisburg Park, which of course I love, but sometimes it would just be more convenient to leave the house and do that. Um I've and then lastly I have seen an increase in people frequenting that route which is just walking on the grass and then of course over the bridge. Um and a lot of it is um employees from the neighborhoods that are walking to work at those businesses and um it's just uh not safe and um I think being able to connect the ne nearby neighborhoods would really benefit the local businesses and the community in as a whole. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Bailey.

Can I ask Rob, is that something that we have been studying or it's on the other side of the bridge, too, going that direction. That was going to be my follow-up question is where is this to and from? I mean, Roberta, where I'm sorry. That's all right. Come come right on back out. We did have um so Melissa is So, as you cross the bridge on Roberta, it's on the let's see right hand side. It's a second street on the right. It's right past Riverside. I pulled it up, so that's why I was looking. Yeah. So, before you get to the curve. Gotcha. Um,

yeah, that would take some some coordination. There's kind of three jurisdictions, which is why it's not there. It goes from us to Concord, but the road is DFT, so there's kind of three different agreements. That's probably why it's kind of not been looked at. But just north of there, we do have, you know, Providence. Um, so yeah, we can we can look at it and see. Okay. But that's probably why it has been kind of off the the radar is just because it's a a weird, you know, uh, jigsaw type of shape there with the annexation boundaries. So, I think that section is technically DOT and Concord, which is why it's never been on our

We'll have to go to Concord City Council, too. Make sure that they Okay, I'll go there next. But it's a it's a much shorter walk to our downtown than Concord's downtown. So, I agree with you. I think that that probably is a good area to look at next. Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. and Wally Wallace.

My name is Wally Wallace. I live at 3093 Spring Forest Road, Harrisburg, North Carolina. As many of you know, I spent a lot of time in the military and I do a lot of volunteer work with soldiers and veterans. And we uh out of Fort Bragg, it's called Association United States Army. to stand here. And uh we support families. We support the veterans, active duty, and their families. And we appreciate people who support those folks. And I'm here tonight. Chris Paul and his wife K have done that. Last month, Chris was uh awarded a certificate and what have you by the fourstar general retired that handles that's a CEO of our organization. And the thing he said to Chris was he said, "Chris, that's gold, but it's since we're a nonprofit, uh he said, "It ain't real gold." It's

Anyway, uh what I'd like to do is to present this to Chris in front of the entire council. Mayor, move on in here. And it simply says, "Association United States Army certificate appreciation awarded to Christopher Fall and Kathy in honor of your service to the A USA Fort Bragg and North Carolina chapter. signed by General Brown, president and CEO, as well as the region president, Rhonda Sutton. Chris, I'd like to present this to you and your wife for all that you've done to help us and show our appreciation.

Okay. In addition to that, no money, no sales, no money, but we have what's called in the army, you get coins when you do something good. And this is our a USA coin. And if you get a picture of that, please.

Get my good side. That's really valued. A lot of times it's more important. It's valued more than an actual metal that goes on your chest. Now, since I don't have a metal to put on your chest, I do have a pen similar to mine right here, much like mine, that you can wear anywhere. anytime you want to. Folks, let's give Chris a hand.

I'm done.

Almost as long almost as long as me, Wally. So, you're almost as long as me. Moving right along, we have consent agenda. Is there a motion on the floor to approve the consent agenda as presented? So move. Second. Second. All in favor? Motion is carried. Thank you. Now we'll move into our communication section. And first up, we have Rob again.

All right, another 40 minutes. Everybody buckle in. Um, no, a couple of quick couple of quick updates. Um, before I get the update, I I did want to answer at least um two of the the public speakers. Um, Miss Rosa and Miss Joanne. We already uh answered uh Miss Carson's, but the um the website update for Mayor Prom. Unless I'm missing something, let me know. But I mean, it's been updated for for quite some time. So, um again, I'm happy to get with you after the meeting. But uh from a website standpoint and a staff standpoint um that that is updated and it has been. So if there's anything in addition that

Yeah. Let keep doing that. Well, yeah, it has been updated. You did put we talked about this a couple weeks ago. It's been updated and it states that. But the question was Rob and I said it over the phone to you and in an email. I said that we we we were asking I was asking for it to be the way that it has been in the last 15 years and it was not like that. Well, that's that's been changed since our conversation. Well, I checked today and it hasn't been unless you changed it before this meeting cuz I checked it at 12:00 noon and it does not say that on the website. It's a couple weeks ago. So, I mean it look Well, we'll Yeah, if that's a Yeah, an error. I just checked it today. So, I'll look at it again.

But Lee and I worked on that specifically after you're and I had a phone call same day and It's not on it's not it's not listed where it's not listed by my name as I specifically said and how it has been in the past. So it it's that that I know is not right. It's not there. Yeah, we'll we'll check on that but to my understand I mean it it says um your name councilwoman and mayor prom in the title in bold at the top which was the request. No. No. Okay. It's not. But we'll we'll we'll we'll talk about it. Okay. I just wanted to clear that part up. We'll make that's all I can

because it's not but we'll make sure it's right. That's fine. We don't have to go back and forth. Okay. Um that update also um couple of updates from between last month. We did have um last week the opportunity to travel to Raleigh for city vision. Councilman Fall, Councilwoman Glover were able to accompany Deputy Manager Connor and myself there where we were able to participate in a bunch of um cool sessions. I think uh you know I was able to participate in some that that were that were interesting and also some that were powerful. So hearing some of the mayors and managers who lived through Helen and some of the lessons that they learned on, you know, just the lack of um the simple things like cell phones going down, you right, we we prepare for lots of things in public safety, but just literally not being able to communicate one road over because there were no cell phones. Um and they were kind of recommending some preparedness plans and Councilman Fall and I were were in that one. and lean's over. He says, you know, or we ought to do that. I said, our fire is way ahead of us. We have six of those units. Um because we were out there, Elena, and our guys experienced the same thing. So, being a deployable unit was able, you know, we were able to learn some of those same lessons. Um but also some of the innovation that that that's out there on how people are using AI in local government. Um, in addition to just some of the challenges that we're all seeing as communities, um, from a from a tax standpoint, from an economic standpoint, we're all kind of facing a lot of the same things, including the same issues with with the legislature. So, um, that was that was a wonderful experience for for me. Look forward to um, attending many more of those and and hope to get as many council members there as possible. the uh while we were there, I was also go able to go up to the capitol and make some legislative visits. So, we were able to uh meet with Representative Alman, Representative Echavaria. I was able to see Representative Campbell and

meet with Senator Misamer to discuss the the levy limits, how we can be a partner on that, how we'd like to be part of that solution and make sure that local communities are not damaged because we do believe that, you know, levies are one of the one of the few things that the local community gets to decide on locally. You know, we talked up here a lot about a lot of things. Primarily, one of those things was the tax rate. And if this board were to get, you know, underfund services too much or overfund services too much, there would be members in this audience to let you know about it every single year when we do this. So, I I've always been a big believer in government close to the people is the best government. And so, you know, having th that levy controlled by the local communities I think is important. There are some structural problems with how property taxes are are done in North Carolina. So, I don't blame the legislature for looking at some reform. But while I was up there, I I did um offer our services from a staff standpoint to say we would serve on any subcommittee that they form to give them uh feedback from the local government perspective. And they were all very open to that. And um I want to thank the legislature for that. and thank Councilman Fall, Councilwoman Glover for uh hanging out with us for a couple days and showing us the ropes in Raleigh. Um Mayor, that is uh the limit of my update this evening. However, I am um in possession and you guys are of a quarterly report which we are so very proud of. This is uh the document that we send out every quarter now to show accountability and performance. And I would like to now pass the torch over to Miss Ellie Landram so she can present that because I think you've heard from me enough tonight. Rob is all talked out. Um so for those

who don't know me, I'm Ellie Landram, the assistant to the town manager and um this quarterly report is one of my passion projects. So thank you for having me. I'm here to to speak on it. So good evening, mayor and council. um you have in front of you the Q3 report and we're very excited to present that tonight. I think it's the best one yet. So, we appreciate all your support these last three quarters as we've um done some trial and error to make sure we have uh a new and improving product every single quarter. So in Q1, back in July of last year was the start of Q1, we made a commitment to transparency and to establish a culture of data and storytelling. And then in Q2, which started in October, we started to see our numbers gaining some context and our departments began pairing metrics with the stories of people, projects, and decisions. In Q3, which started in January through March of this year, we now see a focus on continuous improvement. Not only is this report a record of what we've done, but it's a tool for asking those hard questions. How do we improve outcomes? Where do we pivot? And how do we stay aligned with council's priorities? So, I want to highlight our people first and foremost because our people power the work that we do every day. The data that this quarter tells a story about our workforce. And I want to highlight our HR metrics that show a decreasing turnover rate on top of record employee engagement numbers in programming, trainings, and events. And really even more powerful in the outcomes of the training and development and talent of our people is that we saved lives this quarter. I want to highlight our sheriff's office and our fire department for their dedication and preparation this quarter and and all all quarters in service to this community. Really in short, an investment in our people is an investment in real outcomes. And then when we talk about our

performance, one of our key organizational drivers this year has been for our departments to set measurable goals and report on those progresses. So here we see uh public works on the far right. They have their goals uh along with some clear measurable targetdriven outcomes and show they they show strong quarter three strong Q3 progress. Uh similarly our IT department has delivered threequarters of protection against cyber threats and they've ramped up uh customer support internally with the new help desk ticketing program. And finally, I want to highlight customer service and finance because the data here in Q3 shows that we saw an increase of over 200 new accounts registering for a billing in the past two quarters. And this matters because it directly improves our payment collection. It reduces administrative burden and decreases service cut offs due to non-payment. So that's a huge win for our team. And then the future Q3 shows that we've been preparing for the future. for example, preparation of the budget, which you've heard at Nazoom tonight, our continued work through the strategic comprehensive plan, and smartly managing our growth through targeted economic development. So, thank you, council, for your investment and your time um over these past few quarters. Thank you for investment in our community and in our staff because we're really seeing progress throughout these targeted reports. Um and we are very excited to bring the fourth quarter and annual report this summer to you. So if you have any questions or feedback on this report, it was a very brief presentation. Um but we are happy to provide any additional comments or questions to you.

Thank you'all for putting us together because I find it to be very helpful um because we are moving a lot of moving parts going on. So, it's nice to really see these things summarized every couple months when we're like, "Oh, what happened ago?" So, thank you guys for your efforts on that. Thank you. And I do want to shout out um Jared Burgerer for his time and talent in putting this report together. Um he spent many, many hours making it look as pretty as it does. Is there um I mean, I just went and I I found it but kind of had to do a search. Is there a quicker way to get to it on our town page? It is housed in the town manager page. Um, it is not found anywhere else.

We easy button. I would love to make a a data website. Can I do that? This is awesome. But for me to go tell a resident, go find the town manager's page and locate the town manager is beyond many scope. Um, especially for those that are challenged with web. You know, at one time we had those buttons. Remember how long the button? This would qualify as a button. Yeah. Thank you. I love it. I just want to be able to share it more. And while you were talking, I said I was like, "Goodness gracious, where was it?" I found it because I knew somebody need to see this like right now. Go see this.

I can't wait for the staff meeting where we talk about whose button we're bumping because we only get six. This becomes a This is so fun. Yeah, there's only so much room for buttons, but no, I think this is a good we do have a dream of a dashboard where this is not just a PDF and you can go in, but we need we need steps, you know, not not just steps, but we need um time, right? We need we need to have trends. So, you know, it's hard to have a dashboard if you just have one point in time. At the annual report, we'll have four, we'll be moving five. So, we'll be able to see over time and go over into into certain demographics and and certain measurables and see how those perform over time. But, uh I love

me getting my own button on the front of the page. Yes. Well, we confirmed in real time that we can do a news flash on the on the homepage. So, Jared can the many titles of Jerry. Yes. Very good. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you, Ellie. Brian Lee is next up with our finance monthly report. Good evening, Mayor and Council.

So, here's the revenue and extent and expense dashboard uh as we sit 10 of the 12 months through the fiscal year or 83%. So, tax collections have reached 101% at the end of this month uh at just over $20 million. And the general fund's total revenue at almost 32 million represents 95% of our annual estimation. The water and sewer fund uh remains a little bit ahead of schedule at about 88% collected for the year and the storm water fund is exactly on target at 83%. So we have a really great um revenue shot here as we enter the last couple months of the year. Um so we're in really good condition on our revenue. Department expenditures over operations are shown for the general government departments. At the bottom of the screen here you can see all the departments are ranging in the 70% mark about six to eight points uh behind the annual targeted budget. So all the departments are in great shape here and same story across all remaining general fund departments uh as well as the two enterprise funds the water and sewer fund at 72% and the storm water fund at 68. And if we go back to those revenue amounts at 88 and 83 we have that nice spread that really contributes to our capital reserve fund at the end of the year that's developing there. Salaries townwide are at 76%. Uh so trending about the same as we were last year as well. Here's a look at our facilities and infrastructure uh project dashboard. So this is our single year projects. We had a little bit of movement here. Uh the first is the annual greenway program. We don't show any uh progress in the prior month, but I did want to mention that John will be presenting on this uh later on tonight. And so we'll see this pick back up steam. Uh John went to the county meeting recently and got approvals for some easements to get our Back Creek Greenway connected up towards the high school. So that's a pretty um exciting little piece of greenway that can make a pretty important connection to a future sidewalk project we have as well on Raging Ridge. The next is the splash pad updates. We have a couple

weeks before the splash pads opened and so that surface is going to get a new uh uh paint treatment on it that'll carry it through another year or two. Um, so we'll look for that to happen and everything's on target to open up on time this year. Here's our facility and infrastructure multi-year projects that are in design. Had a little bit of movement on several projects here. Uh, the first to draw your attention to is the Oakley Drive pedestrian facility. This is an in-house design project. It's nearing about twothirds of the way uh complete and so a little bit more work to do on this design and then this will roll into the uh bidding procedure. So, we expect to see that happen in the next couple of months. Here are our multi-year projects under construction. U Rob mentioned this in his budget presentation, but the Cambridge Drive traffic mitigation project is nearing completion as far as the road construction. So, that that is in and uh has some finishing touches left on it as well as site restoration. Once that's complete, we can kind of take a a pause and uh relook at this project and see what do we have left for the Davis Creek Greenway connection, potentially matching that with our annual greenway funds and get that taken care of right here at the end of the year. Here's a look at our equipment projects. These are coming to a close for the year. Uh there is a dehumidifier addition project at stations one and two uh that the fire department is doing. That's another staff project. So, that's about threequarters of the way done and they aim to get that done before the worst humidity months hit us. Uh, the people hauler wagons, we've mentioned these a couple times, those are being manufactured and we expect delivery of course before July 4th. The deputies two golf carts this year uh are fully outfitted and placed into service as you can see them pictured here. And this is the special operations trailer for the fire department that's also fully outfitted and placed into service. and they actually took it on a mock deployment last week that I think Chief Don will tell you a little bit

about. Here's a look at our vehicle projects. This is the best that this screen has looked in probably five years. Um, we have a bunch that just got completed this month. Three of the four deputy vehicles in that top item are placed into service and the fourth one is ordered. So, we are about to catch up on deputy vehicles and that's really exciting. We don't have any that we'll be purchasing in the upcoming budget. So we kind of get another breather on deputy vehicles as well and get to start fresh uh going forward. We also have five vehicles that were placed into service in the water and sewer department. So you can see pictured on the left is a freight liner dump truck as well as four crew trucks that look like the one on the right. So those were all placed into service and are out and about right now. And then lastly, our professional services projects. Uh we I feel like we just got done with the 25 audit. We're adopting the 27 budget and our 26 audit is now kicking off next week. So, uh, fun times in finance land, but we'll have a lot of that testing which is around our internal controls, our grants, revenues, and as many of the capital projects as as they can test. Uh, getting those all out of the way for our interim procedures. And then that'll set us up for September, October time frame to finish the audit out. And here is our budget calendar for potentially the last time this year. Uh Rob gave the manager's recommended budget presentation. We'll have our public hearing and budget adoption at the June council meeting. Any questions?

Go ahead.

I have a quick question. She said she's going to be a second. Oh gosh. on our financial audit and refresh me. We had asked about whether we were going to do any kind of IT uh audit with all the hacking and everything that's going on. Is that part of our financial audit and is that additional professional services or is that included in the basic financial package? They do they do a basic um IT audit that gives them comfort that our entire internal control structure works but it is not as in-depth as what we talked about in that budget meeting. So that would be kind of a disaster preparedness or um you know penetration testing or something like that that we have had in the past. But that would be something that James would do as a professional service separate from the financial aid.

Can can we get that back in front of us for consideration? I just see like the stuff that just went on with the school system, everything else that'll bring us to our knees. If we have to spend five grand to protect us from a million dollar ransom, that'd be great. Yeah. And it's not just us, it's the whole nation. UNC Charlotte. Yeah. Yeah, we can definitely bring you something. Y um could you go back to your um annual projects list? I want an update on one of them. Was it the construction? Um no, the greenway. Oh, I'm sorry. The single year. Sure. Yeah, the single year. Yeah. What's the uh what's the latest on the food creek?

The food creek. Um, so I have gotten some dates that work out for the group and so we'll be scheduling some of those backyard walkthroughs. Um, I think it's the first week of June is where all those dates line up. So that's what we'll be aiming for. We'll walk it with those property owners, see what kind of um, screening they may need or any other considerations and then that project will pick back up with design. Okay. So design is not completed yet. No, it's not.

Okay. So, what I wanted to say is that over the past like two years now, people have been asking me for updates about this project. And I recently received the schedule, what the original schedule looked like. We had approved it in February 24, the same time that we approved the Back Creek Greenway project. The Back Creek since then's been designed, built, people are enjoying it. Um, and meanwhile, this one is sitting at 5% not even designed. And I feel like this has been a failure for our residents from us. Um, they've been waiting patiently for the progress. Um, and in the meantime, we're completing the multi-million dollar projects like the the Cambridge um road extension. That one we approved in July. Now, it's going to be completed by June. Like 12 month turnaround. uh turf I think approved in October, completed in March. I mean, it's great. It's awesome. We can do things quickly. So, we just need to put attention to this and keep this moving. Um and our recently completed community survey, we had over a thousand residents and they pretty much unanimously said they they want greenways, pathways, and so forth. Um, and I feel like on this one, we've been failing them. So, since the council unanimously approved this, I really want to see some progress on this project. Um, I want to see measurable project progress and also if you could give us updates on that as well so that we know that things are moving along. Um, and we can tell that to the residents.

Absolutely. Yeah, we can do that. Yeah, Brian. get that done. I I just wanted to I'm sorry. I wanted I wanted Brian It's not Brian's fault that it's it's behind. So, I wanted I just wanted to jump in. Um you know,

you know, we all remember when this project was approved. Um about a month later, we had about 25 people from from your neighborhood, both your neighborhoods um and Jim's neighborhood come here and and were real divisive. And that's really what what slowed it down because at that meeting if we go back and look at it we committed to walking the backyards with those people and we've went through a few iterations of that. We went through a public meeting and this is you know this is not an excuse. This is just an explanation of it has not been easy getting that neighborhood settled down getting those meetings scheduled out there and getting the right people to do that. Um I agree with you it should be done. Um, but also what we originally approved was a real basic one like we do on Bat Creek. It's kind of wide open and those neighbors wanted something better and we did commit to them that hey, we'll walk it and whatever it is, it's going to be a first class facility. If if you have difficult terrain back there, we'll do what's necessary. It's a very short stretch, so there's not a better place to to make sure that we're ending a greenway because it really ends there at Somerset. Um, but then it continues through the EPCON community. It crosses over into Church Hill. So you have multiple miles. It will connect into Farmington probably down through Mallerie Lane that that kind of area as we get development in there. So you Brian is scheduling and I think this is scheduled for this month to get those walkthroughs. That is really the log jam is that the adjacent property owners that actually have backyards that we're going to go through, we did commit, hey, we'll walk to your backyard with you and see what how this will affect your privacy, how it'll affect and get those those issues taken care of, whether we got to plant trees, whether we need privacy fencing, those types of things. Um, it is Brian's project, so that's why I was being uh funny there because we did assign that over to him, but he is

on it. He's got those scheduled. I'll be walking that project with those neighbors. Once we get that done, then it's really just it becomes a normal project at that point and it goes into engineering design. We get the budget um estimate updated because it will be more. I don't think it's going to be quadruple, but I do think as we said when we talked to him originally, I think it's probably double. I mean, it was a pretty um it was a pretty straightforward project when our former town engineer specked it and we've committed to more than that. We may have some areas that we want to do can levers or boardwalks or or things like that since we have a you know a pretty high drop rate there. We'll get to get you updated on that and yeah get that one done.

We have residents you know up and down from the greenway from neighborhoods up from the Camelot that are waiting and asking. Um we had some people that actually bought the houses um near the greenway and just waiting for it to to get started and get going. Um another aspect of it is that the budget, you know, we allocate 250 but then we don't spend it but that's because things are delayed. So you know um and it's not like that special project. It's not like if the money was accumulating in it, there'd probably be millions in it by now. So you'd be able to just come in and you know if I I understand we still think we'll be in that same situation with you have to put extra.

I'm not super concerned about the fun trees or everything. But that's really why money wasn't spent. It's just things weren't moving along. So the only thing I'll add to that I I get the I walk the same neighborhood and like hey what's going on? So we need to be transparent. We need to overcommunicate. Yep. We're coming. We're coming on June 15th or whatever it is. just overcommunicate with those guys and that'll get us going, get us moving. Yeah. And some people don't have a are not necessarily adjacent to the property are more vocal than the people that are whose properties it

and we also looked at alter, you know, we did meet with the original HOA board when this started. Now it's changed over as you know. Um, we looked at alternative alignments going on the other side of the creek. Like we did do a bunch of investigative stuff with the HO HOA that was in place at the time and that takes some some time as well. But at the end of these projects, like like any other,

um, we want to be able to say, look, we did everything right. We we met with everybody. We heard everybody. We built the right project and everybody is as happy as they can be with it at the end. Some of those are easy like Back Creek, right? It's just the school. That's the only property owner. However, to to just run that through and deal with one person on these where you have five, six, seven backyards and they oppose the project, they they do hang up. Um but those people that are for it, you know, sometimes they're not speaking out as much, but they have come to the meetings and said, you know, asking for updates. They've been very patient,

extremely patient, and really like 27 months and it hasn't been designed yet. We really need to get moving on it and get through this hurdle. I mean, it's this the original plan was approved 2015. So, some people have been waiting for this greenway that long and really have been patient. So, thank you. Appreciate it. Yeah, absolutely. Any other questions for Brian? Thank you, sir. All right. Thank you. Next up, we have Captain Nash with our law enforcement update for the month.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. Want to go over our numbers for April. For our law enforcement related activities, we had 42, which is above our average of 3,911. Security checks, we were at 2,244, again above our average of 287. And then traffic stops, we were at 695. Two of my traffic deputies were in training for two weeks each. And then two of my patrol deputies that are really traffic focused were also in training. I'm hoping those number numbers will recover next month. I found out today that one of my traffic deputies has a broken foot and he has to have surgery. So, kind of kicking me when I'm down. So, I I hope we're going to work on trying to get those numbers back up for next month. And our non-emergency response time was six minutes exactly. Our crimes by discipline, see there was a spike of crime against property. We had about 10 car breaking and enterings in one area. Um, some windows were broken out. There were cars at a shop that were waiting to be worked on. So that just those 10 made that number go way up for the crimes against property. And here's a breakdown. We have crimes against property. This is year to date um 2026. Crimes against property 35, excuse me, crimes against persons 35. Crimes against property 77, white color crime 32, vice crime 39, crimes against society 59, and then the non-reportable is 67.

I'll take any questions. Um, one of the things youth council brought up was scamming and I think we talked about this before and you guys have an education program going. Are we working with the businesses, you know, at the bank, all of a sudden grandma comes in to withdraw $10,000 and wire it overseas? Do you guys work directly with them or the UPS store and need to get a, you know, money order or

a lot of the the bank tellers are, and I don't want to speak for every every bank, talking to some bank tellers, they're trained if something looks suspicious, they'll start asking questions. You know, if an 80-y old woman comes in and wants to wire $10,000 to somebody, they start asking questions. You know, what's this for? You know, why don't we call your daughter? And then we end up dealing with that on the back end. As far as the general public, we have a great social media person that puts out, you know, the latest scams. Unfortunately, one thing I think some people in the town have been um have received calls on this. Somebody calls saying, "I'm Captain Nash with the sheriff's office." you didn't show up for court and it's not me. So, it's just somebody using one of our names um and trying to make people think they didn't pay a fine or so she our social media person does post a lot of stuff out that um but I would say anytime if you get a call and they say it's a sheriff's office, if they say it's a bank or any business and you owe them money, I would hang up and then actually look up the number of the bank, whoever, and call them and verify everything. Social medium is our our main thing.

Yeah. All right. I I just, you know, u a lot of the houses being built are the over 55 crowd and susceptible to that. Anything we can do to be proactive on that and spread the word. It's great. And they a lot of times they do call to say, "Hey, asking questions and this person called me, you know, and I was going to send them money." And we're like, "No, no, no. That sounds like a scam." So at least they a lot of them do have the forethought to call and get some advice before they before they send money. Excellent. Thank you.

On the financial side of it, um I can just tell you from financial institutions, even folks that aren't dealing with money or trained in it. So there are so many different controls in place that you know such as elder abuse or you know they're calling in and they need to make a transfer they stop it right there. They don't bring it you know they don't do it come into the the branch let's have a conversation they observe the individual they fill out forms and then it goes to another level. Seems a little suspicious.

Yes. Yes. Absolutely. My mom used to be a bank teller and I mean this was years ago but a little man would come in he said I want to withdraw $10,000 and she's like$10,000 how about a hundred and he's like okay and she um she'd get the son on the phone and just try to mitigate things that way. So I don't want to speak for all tellers or what their training is. I'm not sure but I know they tried to deter it way back many years ago. Yeah. One more thing. A lot of times it's not cash out of the bank. It's gift cards. It's other email scams. Yeah, go down to Publix and get me. And they're pretty smart about trying to avoid interactions with things like bank tellers. They'll tell them

tell them this story, you know, here's what you got to say. They've gotten good though with with your names when they call from the sheriff's department. So, they did a deep dive search to figure out who was who and use those names. So, I appreciate I know one of them was Captain Zimman or something. We have a Captain Zeman. I was like, "Well, we got to get the name." Yeah. Right. Spell it right, please. All right. Yes. Any other questions for Captain Nash? Thank you, ma'am. Thank you. Next up, we have our fire department update, which you've done.

All right. Good evening, Mayor and Council, your fire department for the month of April. Start off with our fire marshall activities as usual. You can see several pre-plans were done and completed. uh fire prevention events. Several were held. A community CPR first aid class, uh stop the bleak, stop the bleed class at Hickory High School, a show and tell at the action behavior, and then the field day at Harrisburg Elementary where about 850 students attended that. As far as inspections, completed 23 of those in the month of April, 21 were first inspections and two reinspections. And to to the right, you can see some of the violations that we do find out in our community. As far as operational statistics, we responded to 254 incidents in the month of April and you can see our 90th percentile times there at the bottom. We did have quite a bit of fires in the month of April. Um you can see the top left chart had some vehicle fires, vegetation fires or grass fires, trash or rubbish fires. Did have two fires that involved structural involvement which are houses. Uh the other categorized as outside fires and then cooking or appliance fires. As far as our special operations team, uh we did complete a 60-hour land search field team member uh in the month of April, which allowed our uh people to learn about land navigation, tracking of lost persons, uh wilderness survival, and things of that nature. So that gives them certification to effectively cover

wooded areas or greenways, uh construction zones or undeveloped land, parks, trails, and rural properties. So when we have we have certified 14 in that land search field team members. We also completed a eight personnel completed a North Carolina surface and swiftwater certification. Uh they were partly up in Lake Norman and then the other part was at OSFM's new facility in New London and down in Stanley County. So that now gives us 44 certified people in our special response team. And then to the right you can see some of the pictures. Uh for the wilderness class last night, they had to sleep out in the woods. So that bottom left picture is someone's uh attempt to stay off the ground.

And with that, I'll take any questions. Chief Dunn, um this week, I think it's been probably more active. When I say this week, meaning the last seven days. Um, one over by Mc McNeely Family Dentistry. There was a explosion. Were we primary on that or we

So, so that is our fire district, primary fire district. That particular parcel is still in the county. So, that's why if you saw the news releases, that's why the Cabar Cabaris County Fire Marshall was doing the initial investigation. We responded as well and Jeff responded as well. And it was very quick, you know, what happened. So, it didn't take a whole lot of investigation. And then there was what last night there was a material fire. So, so last night at one of our businesses, I won't name them, but they had basically it was a heating element problem which overheated and then caused other combustible material to ignite. So there was

an asmat situation or no I think that's initially how it came out but it it was a heating system that heats a a particular chemical that they use in their in their products but the actual chemical was was not on we just appreciate all that you guys do. It's been a busy seven days. Thank you. Any other questions for Chief Dunn

and I'll save our mock deployment for next month since it was in May. Thank you, sir. Um, just a couple mayor comments. We had our first rock in the bird this past Saturday. Hope some of you were able to attend. It was a beautiful night. Very well attended. Um, also had the privilege of attending the pinwheel ceremony at the Cabaris County Courthouse for Child Abuse Awareness. Um, District Attorney Ashley Shanley, her staff, and many of the other agencies were represented um to really speak to the collaborative effort it takes in our county to take care of our most vulnerable. Um, also had the honor of attending law enforcement day on May 1st. That was very humbling as we honored all of the Cabaris County um police that lost their lives in the line of duty. And today I had um the honor of attending Puit Health kick off their skilled nursing um healthc care week uh with reading of a proclamation and then a little reception after. They're very excited about their expansion. I think it's the first phase is 30 additional private rooms which is in very high demand in this area. So they are looking forward to that expansion. And that is all I have. So, with that, we'll move to council comments.

Um, I'll start with the Concord is, excuse me, holding their um ribbon cutting. Good god, that was hard. Um, ribbon cutting for the new standalone emergency department on Wednesday at 3. And, um, like Rob said that, you know, we went up to, uh, City Vision last week, which I always enjoy that as an opportunity to how other municipalities are doing things or what may be out there that we could probably bring here. Um, but I do have a couple of questions and I don't know if Chief Dunn um, and Kev Nash maybe can answer this, but um, we talk a lot about how great our scores were with the one comprehensive survey and how the safe people feel um, in our community. And I'm glad to hear that. But we've had a lot this has been a very volatile period and we've had a lot of loss of life. And when when um we used to have the heat map that would show where we were going and what you know if we offered any additional resources or supports. Um do we offer anything like that as it relates to like um crimes are happening in the home? Because it's just it's really disheartening to hear on the back end. But we knew that

you're talking about followup domestic violence follow-up support other than the the primary public safety. Were you were you inquiring about like follow-up support for for this? No, I'm talking about preventative all preventative stuff. Um we do have a division on on the police side on the fire. That's I mean other than the code stuff, we're just responding on on fire and EMS side on again on uh why don't we do anything because other municipalities do it like we don't I mean there was a whole session about it at city vision.

I was probably at a different one but yeah I mean if there's something that that someone else is doing that we could be doing um either I don't know about it or something that we might want to investigate, but I'm not sure on like I said on the fire side, we have fire marshals. So, as far as design and preventing kind of fire things that that's going through the UDO, which we have um one of the most robust UDO sections on on fire throughout the state. So, I'd be surprised if there's something there um on on the kind of crime prevention side of things. That's something we've invested in, but we're just just building that out. So, I think last year was the first time we had the sergeant with crime prevention. But

so, I'm gonna take a page out of um Alian's book. We probably need to step that up because that's with that's ending in fatalities. Yeah. Are we talking fire or police?

But I was also going to say there's some stuff in Wake County I could share with you as a resource that um both preventive and interventions. So, I don't know how deep we want to be involved in that, but I think other there's something that I think we can do or maybe collaborate with other resources um on those types of um cases. Yeah, we talked about this some at a retreat in January and I'm not exactly sure how many um how many fatalities our community's experienced since then, but one of them is too many. If we have resources that we can use, we need to use them. I apologize. I can bar I can barely hear. I'm not sure if the mic is I can't hear.

I've never been told that before. Yeah, I'm Maybe it's just me over here, but I can't hear. I said we talked Can

we talked about this summit our retreat in January and I don't know exactly how many lives we've lost since then but one of them is too many. If we have resources that we're using that we have in our county that are at our disposal. I do think that we need to be looking into it to see how we can better ensure that if you're if law enforcement is making repeat calls to somebody's house and we have concerns of domestic violence the same way we talked about um utilizing community health when we have the heat out. Yeah. Why would we not?

Yeah. Let me check with uh Captain Nash on what they're doing with the county resources. I know from a town resource standpoint, we've committed all the resources that the council approved from a a management standpoint. So, we've built out the crime prevention, we've built out the traffic unit. We certainly add more to that. Um over time, it's just we we were cautious about getting up to 29. Um but certainly it's not always just about numbers, right? You don't necessarily have to double the amount of people. It's are there resources that right should be I'm not asking for more. Yeah. Should be being used that are not

I can't answer. I don't know of any personally. That doesn't mean there aren't any. Um but we can look in and see if there's some resource already available in the county that we should be using. Speak of the devil. She was she was thinking back up. That's kind of like I could hear part of what you were saying back there. Let me just make sure I understand. Are you talking about for example like calls for service we go on if there's domestic violence? Do we provide? We do.

There's different resources. Usually it's the female that we provide the resources to of safe places they can go, people they can call to help them get out of that situation. We do have different services that we provide. Whether they take us up on it is a different story, but it's it's provided. Is some of that resources from DSS as well or no? Nothing. I can't think of anything directly from DSS. If we're trying to get somebody out of a

out of a home or offering them a place to go, you know, to get away, we have certain numbers, certain resources that they give them that they keep it very lowkey so nobody can find them so they could pick up their kids and go stay there for a couple days or they would provide them hotel room to get out of the situation. Is there um victim's advocacy? We can we can talk about it more offline. I'm just I want to know. Okay. That's what I do outside of work. I mean outside of here. I want to know though because I feel like we're missing something somewhere.

Always always open for ideas or anything that you might have that that we don't anything we could do to help. We just think it way be more effective. That's all. Thank you. Anything else? Any other council comments?

Yeah, I just want to uh tack on it was a privilege to be in Raleigh and I think what I learned was, you know, out of sight, out of mind. We were not out of sight. Uh we were we were there. We were present and half of life is just showing up. I was also uh you know interested to see how interested they were in us and what we thought and what is driving our local constituency. Um and and you know I think it was telling that while Lee and Rob and uh we were there at the state capital they're like can we get a picture of you Harrisburg in the house like yeah notice who's not in the house. So uh you exist.

Yeah. Yeah. You exist. U so um that was good and we learned a lot about uh preparing for disaster and trying to prepare for things you can't prepare for. So, uh, that was that was very uplifting and I missed the, uh, the last council meeting. So, I do want to echo what we heard from the youth council. So refreshing to see that body and they're the future of Harrisburg. Hopefully, they'll go off and do something wild and study overseas and then come back and and reinvigorate our town. So, I think we're we're blessed to have that many uh, young people that interested in our town and uh, and I don't know if she's still back there. Thanks to Nicole and everything she's doing for the youth council. We really appreciate it. So,

anybody else?

I do. I do. A couple a couple comments. Um, first I want to thank um I I participated in the 5K that happened a little couple weeks ago and it was well done by YMCA and and Park and Rec. So, well done. Um, it was my first and I'll do it again, you know. Um, I thought it was great. Community was there. Everyone was excited. It was it was very very nice. Um, also, uh, Hatch had the art walk a couple weeks ago. Another something, uh, I'm a member of that. I'm a leazison to that committee. Very well done. Um, I wasn't able to attend, but everyone's been talking about it. So, again, kudos to Park and Recre for doing that. Um, another um um announce well, another thing that we're having with uh is um Junth is coming up on on um Thursday, June 18th. um from 5 to 8 uh the Black Student Union, some youth um are taking up a leadership role and wanting to participate in that and celebrate for that. And so um that's happening. So I wanted to make sure I said that. And the other thing is I'm not going to belabor the issue again uh for right at this moment on the mayor prom, but I look forward to working with you Rob to get making it right. Um the other thing I'll say is that um the diet still has not been reflected and uh to my knowledge there has not been a decision by the council to change anything um um um to reflect that and so I look forward to that being also reflected in how it how it has been in the past. Um so um because again the council we we are the voting body. We make those decisions. Not one person does that. And so um I look forward to that um being resolved as well. So I won't have to go into month number five talking about the same thing. So um I'm glad that we can get some resolution very quickly. Thank you.

I'll make mine quick. I know we're pressed on time this evening. Um in the uh this past month I had to step in and on our favor NC uh DOT was bringing in their uh new newly appointed department secretary Daniel Johnson. Uh so I ran the NO this month. Both our chair and vice chair were out. So they called the backup to the backup to the backup. Um, and we also had Stephen Rosenber who was uh one of the transportation board members come and speak as well. And with the with Daniel Johnson, it was interesting to hear, you know, it was very uh political speak uh per se. You know, I I pushed back on the idea, hey, new body, new role, new vision. What do you think? Do we still looking at three to five years and I think I got a fiveminute answer with without an answer to be honest. Um they're they were very careful in how they worded anything that and any commitments that they made. They you know we will go back and revisit projects and couldn't say if that was good or bad. So um but they did come in they were excited to spend time with the various municipalities. Had a great turnout u in that meeting. So all good stuff there. we can just keep our fingers crossed that maybe they do find some money

and the budget does get passed at some point. Um, two issues that I bring from Stallings Road. One is Harmony should be at that window now to put in the burm or whatever we're going to put in the grading on Stallings Road that would um buffer that pond or whatever where the um retention fund.

Yeah, the retention bond because now they're down to three three homes left, not five, but three. Uh they keep changing the number every day. And then lastly, the the question still remains. We've got one little section of um sidewalk that from Hickory Ridge, I mean Harrisburg Elementary to Stallings Farm. We know there's probably four homes there that been the hold out and a status on do we know when do we anticipate if that will be done or will it not be done on on the last one I can get you an update that's just a matter of we've now staked it it's a matter of getting permission from the the property owners but we did break that that log jam I would like to get that done in this fiscal year so that gives us like, you know, six weeks to get the uh um easements there. Whether we can let construction or not, that is that takes a little bit longer. But that's the section of sidewalk there at Stallings from

Is that grant money or our money? That's our money. Okay. And then um the retention pond I have passed that along, but I'll figure out where we're at on that. because they are at that 90% they can convert that from a um sediment pond which they have but I don't think they have completed all of the you know that that gets lighting it gets a fountain I think it gets plantings around it and that all remains that needs to be done I mean they did connect in the last week they did connect the sidewalk the stallings into harmony so around around the corner has been done we'll check that it's moving But, you know, they were just asking about the plantings around the

Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's it's plantings and a couple other things, but we'll follow up on it. Thank you. Any other council comments? All right. We will move into our public hearing portion for the Peach Orchard Road subdivision. I believe Shelley is going to speak to us for a bit.

Thank you, Mayor. So, this is a request to conduct a public hearing to consider an annexation petition, a zoning map amendment petition, and a development agreement for two properties located on Peach Orchard Road for the purpose of establishing a conditional zoning district authorizing the development of a 149 lot single family residential community. This evening's presentation includes a request by the applicant to continue the public hearing until the August 10th town council meeting to allow additional time to analyze uh a pedestrian crossing options on Peach Orchard Road. It is staff's recommendation that this council receive the staff report, conduct the public hearing to allow public comment and continue the hearing to the August 10th town council meeting. The applicant PY Home Company LLC and the property owners have requested a non-ontiguous annexation of two properties located on Peach Orchard Road. The aerial photograph identifies the subject site and Peach Orchard Road connects uh Robinson Church Road down to Lower Rocky River Road located in the southern area of Harrisburg. The subject site contains 175 acres. Along with annexation petitions, we then have to apply Harrisburg zoning to the properties. So, the zoning map amendment again for the two subject properties is proposing to reszone these county properties from a

county residential zoning district of CR to a Harrisburg residential low conditional low density conditional zoning district to accommodate the 149 lot single family residential community. The uh request tonight also includes a development agreement. Now development agreement is a contract between the developer and the town that vest rights to develop a specific project subject to the terms and conditions specified in the agreements. Sometimes these agree agreements include details of public private partnerships or in this case it contains phasing plans for required roadway improvements and park development. So the po the proposal this evening is a subdivision design following the residential low conservation design regulations found in the unified development ordinance. Lot sizes varied from a quarter of an acre to over a half acre in size, resulting in an average lot size of over a third of an acre. The proposed density for this development is less than one dwelling unit to the acre. With all conservation subdivisions, they are required to provide a minimum of 30% open space. This project does meet that requirement providing 52.70 acres. 32 and a half acres of the open space is found within the development is identified as private open space. The remaining 20 acres is proposed to be dedicated to the town for use as a public park. The developer has also committed to developing a portion of this public park. The subject um project includes transportation improvements. There are

off-site roadway improvements based on a traffic analysis. There is a site distance analysis prepared associated with the access points on uh Peach Orchard Road and um there also is a proposed pedestrian crossing on Peach Orchard. So the um image on the screen represents the proposed development plan. Again the two properties actually straddle Peach Orchard Road which is right in this area. The northeast area is proposed with 65 single family residential lots. It includes a primary access to the northern portion with two future road connections provided in in the design as well. The 20 acre park, see if I sorry I don't mean to make you dizzy here, but the 20acre park is proposed on the northeast side of Peach Orchard Road in this shaded area here. The southwest portion of the development uh is proposed with 84 single family residential lots. There are two uh access points, one directly out onto Peach Orchard Road with one other road connection connecting into Peach Orchard Estates to the south. As mentioned, the developer is committing to development of a portion of the 20acre park. They have committed to providing two full-size soccer fields, a um parking area with a minimum of 150 parking spaces with access driveway uh with ways for ingress and eress in two directions. A proposed children's play area and utilities for a future uh public restroom facility.

Okay, maybe it's the battery. Ah, there we go. The images on the screen represents the uh architecture proposed within the development. These are just an example. Um, as with all conditional zonings, we do include conditions associated with architecture. There are a minimum of two conditions uh in this proposal that requires uh quality building materials for the wall cladding as well as no exposed concrete foundations. Now, the zoning map amendment was presented to the planning and zoning board at its April 21st public meeting. The public comment in discussion with the planning and zoning board focused in four primary areas uh all associated with public safety. Uh there was concern regarding access to the northern area of the development. There was concern about traffic speed and the curvature of Peach Orchard Road. There was concern about the proposed pedestrian crossing. It was at grade on Peach Orchard Road as well as some environmental concerns. After a very lengthy discussion and deliberations, the board approved a motion 4 to3 to recommend disapproval of the reszone to the town council, stating that they believe that it the project was not a reasonable request and not in the best interest of the public due to the limited access on the north side of the development, environmental concerns and safety and topography concerns related to Peach Orchard Road, including the atgrade pedestrian crossing. Now, staff has followed up with the applicant um the DRC as well as NC DOT

regarding the planning and zoning board's concern with regard to the north northern access point. Again, there was one primary access road with two future connections uh proposed. Uh there was an access drive proposed within the uh park area that would provide a direct access through their development out to Peach Orchard Road. Now staff has continued to uh gain guidance from the fire marshall and this has been redesigned where the access drive was separated from the parking where you don't have to drive through the parking lot and um the uh actual road design was widened and based on this redesign with the additional uh added ride ofway uh to this road uh our fire marshal for the town says it does comply with North Carolina fire code. With regard to Peach Orchard Road, the curvature and speed uh of travelers on this road, again, a transportation technical memorandum was prepared by the town's transportation consultant. It did deter it did determine that there were required off-site roadway improvements, not only to mitigate the additional trips from the subdiv subdivision, but to add some public safety features. And they specifically are adding turn lanes at each access road into the development, both a right turn and left turn. Therefore, taking stop vehicles making these turning movements out of the travel lanes on Peach Orchard Road. A site distance analysis was prepared by the developers engineering team. It has been reviewed by the DRC and NC DOT and approved. Uh these studies, if you're

unfamiliar with them, they do analyze roadway geometry, both horizontal and vertical curves. With regard to speedy motorists, um that's a little more difficult to address. However, speaking with NC DOT, they did indicate that the town can petition NC DOT in the future requesting the speed limit be reduced on this segment of Peach Orchard Road. Uh they recommended in coordination with the park development with regard to environmental concerns. So the applicant has prepared the typical pime uh preliminary environmental assessments that are done on on uh sites they're interested in developing. They've also um contracted and had some third-party assessments done. Uh one in response to public comments at the neighborhood meeting related to the status of McKe Creek and possible nesting areas on the northwest side. Additionally, there were further reports of buried debris in the proposed parkland area at the planning and zoning board meeting. The applicant has since contracted for additional investigative soil analysis referred to as a multi-geeoysical investigation utilizing ground penetrating radar and frequency domain electromagnetic scanners. I probably cannot repeat that. Um uh the study has not been completed but we look forward to getting that report. With regard to the pedestrian crossing, the original development proposed an atgrade crossing on Peach Orchard Road utilizing a hawk signal as seen here in the picture and supplemental early warning signals based on the concern about the

atgrade crossing. uh a condition of approval has been added to the project you're hearing tonight in the development agreement requiring a grade separated crossing. So the options for the applicant is to utilize going under the bridge such as a greenway path on Peach Orchard or over Peach Orchard utilizing a overhead uh pedestrian bridge. So again this has been added as a condition of approval. Staff is of the opin the opinion that this project as condition complies with the requirements of the unified development ordinance and the Harrisburg area land use plan. Proposed conditions include grade separated pedestrian crossing on Peach Orchard, dedication of the 20 acre park to the town and construction of the infrastruct infrastructure as outlined in the development agreement. compliance with all local, state, federal regulations and permitting requirements, architectural conditions such as building material and no exposed concrete foundation. Compliance with the North Carolina fire code related to access and lot design, transportation improvements in keeping with the transportation technical memorandum and the site distance analysis. Other conditions associated with the typical design standards are related to streets, the development of storm water ponds, mailbox cluster areas, and tree protection. Uh there's a condition, excuse me, there is a condition uh restricting a maximum of 10% rental units within the development. If approved, the annexation map would need to be recorded within 30 days and the requirement that the developer enter into a development agreement with the town.

Town council action tonight and staff recommendation is again this one project consists of three components. It has the peach orchard annexation petition, the peach orchard map amendment petition as well as in a development agreement. Staff's recommendation is that you open the public hearing for each of these action items in order to receive public comment here tonight and continue the public hearing for each action item to the August 10th town council meeting. That concludes my presentation. I'll be glad to answer any questions. Again, we're recommending you open the public hearing for the uh annexation petition, the map amendment, and the peach development agreement.

So, council, I think if it's okay, we'll open that up and hear from those that came to speak and then you that way you guys can hear that again. Um, if you did not listen to the planning and zoning meeting, those that came to speak, and then you guys can offer comments. Okay. Were we able to ask questions or no? Do say that again. Are we able to ask questions or after? We were going to do that after public comment. Okay.

Anything else you need to add? Okay. With that, we are going to open the public hearing. The public hearing is open for annexation, reszoning, and the development agreement. We did have three people that were signed up to speak. Um, keep in mind at the conclusion of those three speakers, we are going to make a motion on all three to continue that to the August 10th meeting. So, there will be other opportunities for the public to come in and speak as well. First up, we have Lisa Thompson. And just as a reminder, just um state your name and address for the record, and each speaker will have three minutes. Good evening, mayor, council. My name is Lisa Thompson. It's 100 North Trion, Charlotte, North Carolina. Um happy to be here on behalf of PY Homes. As staff mentioned, we are seeking a continuence um to that August 10th meeting. That will give us more time to analyze that uh grade separated crossing and answer some of the questions that were brought up at the planning board meeting. So, um we have sent a letter. I'll enter enter that into record. Um if um we understand additional notification may go out to the adjacent property owners, we are more than willing to cover those costs. So with that, be happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, Lisa. We might come back to you once we get through. Next up, we have Mike Wallace. Mike Wallace, 11460 Beach Feed Orchard Road. Um, I still have a lot of concerns about this one access point. They said they've changed it around to meet fire code and all another entrance into the park. There's still only one access point for these 65 lots on the northeast side. It crosses Clear Creek, which has a conservation easement on it. There's a 60oot gap in that easement where their entrance is going to be. That 60 foot gap has to has to contain the road, all the utilities, the creek that goes under it. If six months down the road we decide this is not going to work, they can't go 100 feet upstream and put another entrance in. There's a conservation easement there by the state. They can that is the only place they can cross. They talk about these stub roads going into these other properties. These other properties aren't for sale. Will they be in six months? Will they stay like they are 25 years? We don't know. Well, Amazon come in and put a warehouse there and having re resone it to industrial. They don't want a neighborhood road going through their warehouse. We don't know what's going to be there. So, we got if if something happens to this 60oot crossing, these people are landlocked. There's no way for emergency services to get in there and get to them or get them out. It's bordered by a creek on the other side. The conservation easement is let to grow up natural. If they put a bridge or a pipe or in there, these people are buying these homes may drive across there and not realize, hey, I'm buying a home on what could potentially be landlocked property because it's conservation ements let grow up naturally. You don't even really notice there's a creek there. The 60 homes they're wanting to put there. I'm not really concerned about the 60 homes. Quick Google search said there's 3.2 people living in every house

in Harrisburg. That's 192 people that's going to be there in this potentially landlocked and dangerous position. I wouldn't want them 192 people to be any one of my loved ones. Would you? Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Wallace. I hope I don't butcher this. John Rowski. Did I get anywhere close? You're good. My apologies.

I'm John Rowski. I live at 108 91 Robinson Church Road. My concern is you're putting 149 houses on Peach Orchard Road. Robinson Church Road, Peach Orchard Road, and Rocky River is swamped with traffic as it is. Harrisburg has to slow down so you can get this infrastructure built right. We cannot have too many h more houses built. There's no room for traffic now.

Any place you go, we're sitting in traffic. You're adding more houses. That's at 149 houses. You're averaging two cars per house. That's 600 cars going down Peach Orchard Road every day. Where's We're You can't sit in that much traffic. We have to slow down so we can rebuild this infrastructure. That's my biggest concern. Safety. And thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Oowski. So now we have three motions. I want make sure I get that right. So we are not going to close public comment. We are going to continue that. So we need a motion to continue the public hearing for the annexation petition. Mayor, I think before you move into the motions, yeah, I got to continue. I think you had some questions here before we So we have to do that before we just continue. Yeah. Well, I think once you continue it then Okay. We've continued it. So um before that we would do pause everyone now all of our questions, comments, discussions and then let's continue at the end. So Shelley yes

um you had mentioned 84 homes on the left side. I didn't hear a number on the right side. Okay. So the northeast is 65 lots where the parks proposed. Good. And the southwest is 84. And I know you've mentioned there's some that are smaller. Do we have a breakout of how many of what size? I do have that. I don't have it right here to to go into that but it is on the plan.

Um so one of the conditions is grade separated.

Yes. And I have the advantage that most council members don't, but I've seen plan after plan after plan on this site and I haven't been excited to see any of them yet. Um, grade separated. I asked for that to be grade separated above, below, one of the two. But what that is missing is it needs to be convenient to the park amenity because you create it, you build it, and it's not convenient. They're going to be back in a year. They're going to be back in two years. They're going to say, "Hey, we can't get across the road. We want to go to the park. You got to help us get across the road." So, if if they are looking at building grade separated, it needs to be convenient. not at the end of the property under the bridge that they're going to have to go all the way down and come all the way back up. People just won't do it. Kids won't do it. Um, Mr. Wallace mentioned the the conservative easement and I know in the past that we've done it with other neighborhoods. We've had an a dirt road entrance. I I think the property off of um Lower Rocky River have an entrance similar to that. Um is there anything in the the design that would have something like that for this?

Yes. So what we have here on the north side as you know if you kind of went through the park is one primary entrance, one emergency entrance. Um, not to mention the stubs, which as as the gentleman mentioned, who knows when those will develop, right? Right. Um, that does meet our code and it does meet our standard and it's the same thing that was done in Bloom South. Um, if you think of Bloom South, there's one way in, one way out. Um, there is an emergency access for fire, designed for fire as well. Um, we actually used grass pavers on that project. So, if you look between two of the houses there, right, there is a

there's kind of a wider gap. It's grass, but you it does um hold a uh a firet truck if you go through there. Um the same as you go to Bloom Estates behind it. They're they have the same access out Tour Traymore 2 and McKinley all with the same one emergency access, one main access. Um Wallally's neighborhood out there has has one access. those actually got sprinkled because that was before the fire code changed. So we we actually, you know, had those sprinkled, but um almost every project that comes before you guys,

when it's the first one off of a main road, as all of these were, it's going to have one access point and one emergency access, and then you build out a network from there. Well, that was my next question was because the sprinkle Used to be the number was at 45. I don't know where it's at today. I think it's 99, but don't quote me on that. It it was moved up um in the state fire code from this single access. So, as you saw, our fire marshall looked at this. This meets the state fire code. Um it also meets our UDO, but that second access point. So, it is an emergency access. It would be gated

when the park's not open, but if somebody needed to get in that extra access, they could. Where is that second access being proposed? Through the park.

I thought you took that away. I'm the original access road has been redesigned to separate this primary axis road through the park from the parking. So that is that has been redesigned per the fire marshall to meet the North Carolina I'm confused because you said it was gone. It it had been removed. So one of I think that parking was turned last time.

Yes. Let me show you the other site. So what's happened is it was redesigned. The fire marshall did not would not say it met North Carolina fire code when you had to drive through the parking lot. It was just a access drive through a parking lot. In discussing it further with them, it's been redesigned and widened so it can act as a private access road where you have to turn into a parking area. So, it still can be used for access to parking, but it can operate separately as well. So, this this redesign is based on um the fire marshall's comments uh to comply.

And and how long is that and how much of a delay is that going to create to go down that winding little side street over there that for rescue? I mean, now you're starting to understand why I haven't seen a plan yet that's been feasible on this property.

And may I add one more? Um so although they have redesigned the access road through the park to comply with North Carolina fire code, um they actually are still pursuing there is a 60 foot wide gas easement that follows this northern proper or excuse me this uh eastern property line here and they uh the applicant is still pursuing with uh Piedmont Gas. Yes, Pedmont Gas uh to do a secondary emergency access through that easement that would join up at this location. So, it would follow this pathway as a another possible access that still being considered. My question is, I was all for like a great separated crossing, but now that I look at this, and I don't know, maybe there's people that study human behavior and roads and design and all that, but are people just going to still cross over the road? Are we better off just having a uh hawk signal and stuff? Are they still going to be crossing there?

Have you driven that road? Yeah, I know. I I I could not I would never put my name on any project that let them cross it. Great in that curve. I I I said it from the first plan and I'll continue to say it. That that is too I mean I don't care if you cut all the trees out. I don't care if you put mirrors down the road. It's just a really hard sight. It's Yeah. Any other council comments, questions?

Um, yeah, I do have one quick question. How how do we enforce this rental? We said not more than 10% of the house is in. What if I'm the 11th% guy? That's part of our That's just a condition. Yeah. Yeah. But HOA. So, yes, the HOA actually. So, it's in the conditions of approval, the ordinance if approved. It's in the ordinance. It's also within the development agreement that the developer and then then what happens is we review the CCNRs for the community where that make to ensure that this rest that restriction is included in the CCNR. So it's basically enforced by the HOA.

Okay. And what what is the condition of this land now if we just say no this is baloney we don't want to do it. they can't build without moving forward or they have some kind of plan now that they could build something else other than this. They can't build on this land as we know it now. This is the um well the existing land is has dilapidated buildings on it to it was used for agricultural type right use in the past. I do not believe it's being used at all currently and there's no other proposal for this project. So, so without this approval, they can't do anything that this is what's before you for consideration.

And then I'm I'm I'm down with what you're saying with human behavior. I also worry about a false sense of security. I press a little button, I step out in the road, and I still got run over. Um, you know, because I just don't think we're a pedestrian community, especially on that road right there. And then I'm cognizant of what you're saying. Well, if it's 500 yards to go under the road, why not just run across the street right here? So, I'd be interested in seeing what that really looks like. But other than that, what's the good news? Yeah.

Well, and and I didn't mean to step on the applicant if they wanted to answer the secondary driveway issue. But, um, I did want to point out from a staff standpoint, we kind of had five issues coming into it. Um, we solved four of them from from a sta staff standpoint. you know, the the traffic issue that we've done at TIA, there are traffic improvements. There's all that. The other three that were mentioned um at planning and zoning were all addressed in Shel's presentation beautifully, by the way. Thank you for that. Um the remainder is that at great crossing which is not solved which is why staff is recommending that um we go along with the applicant's suggestion of continuing it to August to give them time to come back and really address that one way or the other for the board. So it's something that you can actually look at the applicant can be comfortable with and you can make an educated decision on.

So with the continuation we we've always done we hear it we give it 30 days we come back. Yeah. So with a continuation, if you open it up in August, does it get decided in August or does it get decided in September? I would decide it in September because you're going to hear this for the first time, the solution in August. I I want to make sure we hear from the public. I mean, August is a prime time vacation month. So yeah, um you know, people be like, "Oh, that's on purpose." No, I want to make sure that we're giving them the full opportunity to come in and speak and notices will go out just like they did for this one. They're going to redo that as well.

Yeah, we'll renotice everybody just so they get that 30-day notice as if this is a normal public hearing because like you said, you want to get as many people in. You want to get as many opinions. Um the people that live out there see the traffic. They know their neighborhood. One way or another, we don't want to leave any stone left unturned. you know, be able to address. If it's traffic issue, we have traffic impact analysises that we can look at. If it's a speed issue, that's something you can take care of. I think the the remaining issue that staff had not uh seen a solution on was that grade at grade crossing. That's something the board was very clear about early on that they weren't comfortable with. We weren't comfortable with it either. That's something that needs solved before we move forward.

Not that I'm advocating. Just going to ask because I know where NC DOT sits, was there ever a consideration for a roundabout at that location that would break that curve and allow entrance into that park, but at the same time, you've slowed it down to a crawl where it's a lot more safe. I mean, you're kind of looking at Harrisburg Elementary today or Yeah. for Yeah. Harrisburg Elementary. Yeah. Um I don't know that answer. We'll get you that answer. And

I mean it's an extensive cost and that's why I said I'm not advocating for it. I just would like to know if that would be within consideration. And as far as I'm sorry as far as under over the road it'd be helpful to see a rendering or correct to visualize I don't know what that is that a tunnel or what is that? I think that's why they need a little bit of time. Yeah.

Any other council comments before we move into our three motions? All right. Um, first up is the motion to continue the public hearing for the annexation of Peach Order to the August 10th town council meeting. Is there a motion to continue? Motion. Second. All in favor? Motion is carried. Is there a motion to continue the public hearing for the reszoning? I'm not reading that. Yeah. For the reasonzoning for the Peach Orchard to the August 10th meeting. Motion. Second. All in favor. And the final motion to continue is for the Peach Orchard development agreement to the August 10th, 2026 town council meeting. Motion.

Second. All in favor? Motion is carried. Thank you. We do not have any old business this evening, but we do have two items for new business. First up is the consideration of the fiscal year 2026 budget ordinance amendment for the North Carolina amateur sports grant proceeds. Thank you, Jim.

Good evening, Mayor Council. Uh, as always, it's a pleasure to be up here speaking to you about uh our parks and recreation programs and the things that we uh do to make our program uh the best what we think is the best in the area. And um the what we're speaking about tonight is uh consideration of a budget amendment uh from the North Carolina Amateur Sports Grant Proceeds. Um we're we're here uh it's it's a smaller grant. It's not some of the bigger transportation ones you see, but we think it important that you all know and the community knows that we are constantly looking for ways to make sure our program takes advantage of many grant opportunities we have, trying to keep costs down for our community as much as possible and still give our kids quality opportunities to to participate in uh great programs. And so um we thought important tonight to present to you tonight a little bit more information on that. And so I have brought with with me our great recreation manager. Uh she missed you guys. It's been a while since she's been up here talking to you guys. So Erin Kegley Paris is here to dis discuss some of the uh terms of the grant. So I'll turn it over to her.

Welcome back Aaron.

Hi. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening Mayor and council. Thank you for having me for this. So we have applied for so the grant that we applied for was a North Carolina amateur sports grant. Um, so just a little bit about this grant is that this is a goal to promote amateur athletics in North Carolina. So it is funded by the remaining profits from the Triangle Community Foundation creating the North Carolina Amateur Sports Grant Endowment Fund. Um, so this is actually a very new grant. It started last year. So this is only the second year that it's been available for the state of North Carolina. Um, so for this the youth they youth sports grants are provided annually to the local government, local schools, and the 501c3 nonprofits in all 100 North Carolina counties. Each county is awarded $10,000 and distributed to all organizations who apply. And any of the organizations who apply within the county for this grant has a max of $5,000. Um, so last year what we did, because again it was the first year, we did um we applied for the grant and received $5,000 to fund the new cages or news netting for all of our batting cages at Harrisburg Elementary School. And for this year, we applied um and we were awarded uh $1,000 this year for the Harrisburg Cowboy football helmets. Um this fund will help us purchase additional helmets for our Pop Warner program due to the increased participants. And with that, any questions? Um yeah, the whole Pop Warner funding are we if we didn't do the helmets last time Pop Warner does that we cover that? What would have happened to that thousand? I mean I I don't understand if let's say we did $10,000 for the Pop Warner thing. Is that $10,000 less that Pop Warner wouldn't have to spend and they just put it in the bank or how does that work?

Go ahead. um that program breaks even right now with these costs already taken into account. So this just allows us to not spend a thousand that we would have otherwise spent. Okay. So we're more profitable. Okay. Got it. Just wanted to say great job on, you know, going after these grants. Every time I walk by these like batting cages, I like think of you that you got that money. So great job. Thank you. Um, wasn't there something too that like some sort of what are they called? Calisthetics. Some sort of like exercise equipment that was going to be added to Harrisburg Park. Did you guys get that grant or No. Yes, we Oh, you

Oh, uh, we did the matching incent or we with the county we did the matching incentive grant. Um, okay. And that was fun or we helped that or that's how we got that equipment. Yeah. And timelinewise, yeah, we we still have that equipment. because where we were going to place it was the turf got in the way a little bit at some point. We also moved the the the path around Harris Depot. So, we're still trying to figure out where to place that best advantage. We want to get it probably near a um the plan is to get it near a greenway that could be used along

sort of like um what they have in Frank Lisk Park like when you walk the greenway and they have these Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Great job. Any other questions for Jim or Aaron? All right, with that, is there a motion to approve the budget ordinance amendment for the North Carolina Amateur Sports Grant proceeds in the amount of $1,000? Motion. Second. All in favor? Motion is carried. Thank you both. Thank you very much. Thank you. You too. Our last item under new business is consideration of construction services contract for the Back Creek Greenway Connection at Raging Ridge Road. Welcome, Jonathan. Mayor and council.

Uh it is a pleasure to bring to you tonight this consideration of construction services contract for Back Creek Greenway Connection at Raging Ridge. Um Brian actually mentioned this a little bit earlier. I believe the county has already approved um working with them on the easement for this project and I'll explain that here in a few minutes. But just a little bit of background, this is extension of existing Back Creek Greenway located behind Chamellia Gardens. Provide direct access across um access to the existing greenway from Hickory Ridge High School. There is going to be a pedestrian crossing included with this. We will be installing those actually internally. the the rectangular rapid flashing beacons or RFPs will be installed there. It's directly across from the secondary access right there at the football stadium from Hickory Ridge High School. And then it will tie into the future sidewalk condition is currently being planned for Western reside of RA Raging Ridge. That's in our budget this year. Just a little map here. I just want to point out, but the area in purple is owned by the county. So that's why we have to work with them. We and we have been doing that. They graciously approved us to work with them on a final easement um for this actual greenway and and I don't know why that's doing that but

we're going to go with that.

So anyway, if you see the green there um that green is our proposed alignment for this. It that is a I will that's going to be the best guess for that alignment. Uh and some the reasons behind some of that are there's some existing wetlands, some other challenges there that we don't want to get involved in. So um right now we've we've aligned it the best possible based on our field conditions, but it it could end up a little bit different. So that's the reason for the um for the varying potential on easements. Basically what'll end up happening once this project is complete, we will do a final easement document and the the county has given the county manager permission to finalize that easement document once it's completed. But just a general kind of layout there's going to again but in the middle there is our access to that existing driveway going into Hickory Ridge High School and again the RFB will be along that road there on Raing Ridge. Fiscal impact is this contract is $98,925. Project is being funded by town's annual greenway program as Brian mentioned earlier in his financial report. And then project was informally bid with ex expectation being under 500,000 received three submissions. Project meets the time goal providing safe well-maintained dependable public facilities systems and services. Now we'll take questions.

Any questions for Jonathan? Thank y'all for working with the county on that to get the that easement. I know that was Oh, they were great. Um it's actually with the school system odd is odd because it was a school system, but since the county owns the property, right? Um we had to go through the county. So, but they were it was great. So, yeah, they've been great to work with. Great. All right. With that, is there a motion to approve construction services contract for Back Creek Greenway Connection at Raging Road to Ward Contracting for an amount not to exceed $98,925? Is there a second? Second. All in favor? Motion is carried. Thank you, Jonathan. Thank you.

Um, action items. I had a couple, Rob, so you might have to check me on that. One was the budget specifics for line items. I guess the footnote fund allocation that Aine had mentioned. Um, I've got review design on Main Street Park before more funds are approved. I think we had already worked that in, but I just made note of it. um an easy button for the quarterly report and I think that might have somewhat been addressed with a banner. Did I hear that correctly? They can run the banner but I've got that down. As well as IT professional services contract for protection and then updated continuous updates on the Fuda Creek Greenway to let the neighbors know by you got it.

Perfect. Um we do have a need for close session a brief close session discuss legal and real estate matter. Um, so with that, is there a motion to move into close session? Motion. Second. Second. All in favor? Motion is carried. Can we take a quick recess to use restrooms and all those things?