Board of Commissioners (boc) - Regular Meeting

that works. Good morning. I will call this meeting of the Pittsburgh Board of Commissioners special meeting for April 7th, 2026 to order. Uh we have the agenda in front of us that's been advertised for the special meeting. I get a motion to approve the agenda. So moved. Thank you, Commissioner Bonnets. Second. A second. Thank you, Commissioner Thurber. All those in favor say I. I. Thank you. Up first, we have department accomplishments and goals.

Yes, sir. I'll take that one. Um, real quick, just want to point out your uh community budget survey results. Uh, we just that just closed on the 31st. We don't have a presentation ready for you yet, but Kaitlin will be doing that at the May meeting um to kind of dive more deeper into those numbers. Um but just real quick, we had I want to say half Yeah, about half were outside the t town limits and half were inside the town limits. Um so in terms of using this type of information for um a budget, we wanted to separate the in town and out of town. So your second attachment was the in town respondents. So, take a look at that. There's some good information in there. And then we'll we'll take a deeper dive um in May. All right. To department achievements and goals. Uh start with public works. Uh had several paving projects completed this year, five streets total, over 30,000 and patches. Uh we were able to get some uh connectivity project done in Powell Place uh that was left out um from construction and about 20,000 of replacement uh projects around town. They planted about 50 trees and shrubs around public works which you all will see that I believe next week for the um open house down there um just to provide some buffering between public works and the residential uh neighbors and got our I work system going already almost 1400 work orders completed since July of last year. added some hybrids, uh, our first 350 truck and a storm response trailer with cones and barricades and pretty much got the public works building completed and that grand opening I think is next week. Um, 137 final inspections, continue to upgrade signage and um, public works has been working on their improving their internal customer service, how they work with other departments, help them accomplish their goals. Uh, so it's been good to see that improvement.

uh next year continue to try to uh resurface and repair sidewalks where we can. Uh we want to try to start moving our fleet maintenance inhouse. Uh we hired a fleet technician from Carboro and so he has already started to kind of um lean into that role a little bit and so you may see a title change for him in the coming months as we start to evaluate the savings from that compared to just you know contracting all that work out. Um, so be on the look for that. Um, facilities maintenance division. Y'all helped us create that a few months ago. That's going well. Having a a team of people we can call for when stuff breaks in buildings. And then, uh, they want to complete the design for, uh, the next building that they need at public works. And we'll show you, we'll have that staked out where that location is going to be, uh, at public works. Um, continue on inspections, provide and continue to work on the internal customer service. Could you repeat a bit? You you mentioned Carbra, someone coming from Carbra. Sorry.

Yes. We we hired D. I believe he was their fleet maintenance technician. And so he came over here to be kind of a public works um general maintenance worker. Um but with the skills he has, he he's kind of started to uh work on small engine repair, uh small car repairs. And so we're going to start leaning into that in-house fleet maintenance. Yeah. That should increase up time and and decrease cost. And decrease cost. Yes, sir. Yeah. Room for for him in a new building.

We could, but we think if we could get the the third building put out there, that will be built specifically for a lift and then he could then um that would be kind of our fleet maintenance section. So, u but Daniel's probably the one to to give you all that information. He can provide all that at the open house. Uh, is that next week? No, this week. Thursday, man. I mean Thursday. Things are starting to blend together. So, can you talk about the F1 the F150 hybrid? How is that performing? Oh, the hybrids are great. Yeah. Love the hybrids. Yeah. Okay. Thank you,

sir. Anything else?

Okay. All right. All right, moving on to development services. So, kind of a an approach to how we look at planning and engineering and and downtown with um the development services organizational chart. And we hired our development services director and hired a um senior planner. We got another we're doing interviews now for another senior planner, possible planner, too. and uh hired our new intake uh service person and they started a couple weeks ago. Uh they're seemingly doing great. Um process over 700 application grants and process 2 million. Uh future goals, storm water program, uh some transportation updates, which you should see in a couple of months. Revising fees, so that way new development is covering about 75% of our cost and development services. So you'll see some fee changes uh in this budget as well or in the new budget. um still looking at expedited a review process, trying to streamline process across division um and joining the state wershed program and we're looking to have uh 10 million grant applications in over the next probably six months. I know she's got one scheduled to submit uh every month uh until the end of the year. planning division added a senior planner who is doing phenomenal work um reviewing plans UDO research um and you'll see a lot of UDO changes coming over the next six months as well. Uh planner one uh had had a promotion there and again hiring that additional planning position that's open and doing more UDO revisions. uh goals for next year, continuing the UDO revisions, trying to um update the language, not for just what we need, but also for some of the issues that developers are finding. The conservation subdivision is a key one of those, and hopefully you'll see that in the next 3 to four months.

Um we have conflicting language in different parts of the UDO, which is causing some uh confusion and concern. and uh just continue to try to improve process

engineering uh again one question. Yes sir. On the uh promoted to planning technician to planner one were they hired in as a planning technician and then went to a planning one quick? Yes sir. They they probably already had the experience and the education to be a planner one, but at the time the only thing that we had open was the planning tech. Are we going are we opening back up the planning tech? You filled that position two weeks ago,

right? engineering uh added the connectivity project manager and working on creating a public art map uh where basically a map of where public art could go and where it currently exists. Uh phase one uh website updates are completed and we selected our architect for town hall and interviews for Seymar for the contractor uh our Wednesday and then continuing to up update the website. Um get our Seymar selected, get the town hall designed and permitted and um hopefully one day we'd like to hire an assistant project manager uh to help Ben with all the projects that we have coming down the road. All right. For downtown,

sorry. What is Seymour? Uh, construction manager at risk. That's right. Yes, sir.

Yes, sir. Uh, downtown, uh, purchased or installed three public art sculptures. Happiness just went up in downtown a couple weeks ago. Um, working on a an agreement with Greg Stafford for where the robots are going to go, which is kind of right at the entrance way of the parking lot across from Havoc. And then the taxi cab, I'm not sure if that's a location for that has been selected yet. Um, looking at downtown boundaries, how downtown might might expand, cultural asset mapping. Um, and then there's they've done some small business support. The and of course the continuation of supporting downtown events and uh the pop-up park was given an award for design from Main Street. I think the main focus for next year, they want to look at marketing and uh more of a digital presence with downtown. Uh I think 40% of folks that come to downtown to shop are from outside of Pittsburgh. So we kind of want to grow that number and then focus some marketing efforts towards recruiting more people to come downtown um to shop and and spend their hard-earned money. Um trying to do some advanced designs for alleyway, Salsbury Street, and wayfinding signage. And hopefully wayfinding signs will be done uh before the end of this fiscal year and then continue to support small businesses. Expand events uh build upon some tourism data that we received at the main street conference uh visit NC um is such a great resource uh for data. So trying to tap into that and um I think downtown's really looking for another position for marketing operations similar to how downtown uh Sanford has handled their growth over the last couple years. Um and then just continue working on volunteerism questions there. Um, this is maybe a little bit bug dust and not appropriate for a budget session,

but uh, every time wayfinding signage is brought up, I I just want to raise the hope that we do something very different from what other towns do. Um, there are some kind of uh, vernacular signage languages that are visible through town if if you're observant. And um I think it'd be great if we could hire uh Metal Worker to to do something original. You and I are on the same page. Cool. 100%. Thank you.

Okay. Uh expanded frequency of maintenance routines. uh now that we have a a full-size maintenance crew to take care of all that stuff. I think the parks are looking great. Um Robson Creek master plan, y'all should see the final piece of that here soon. Um partner with uh Cadam Arts Council on an art project for Robersonson Creek Greenway. I think that's coming in May or June. Um got some landscaping done in downtown. And night farm updates are coming. shade structure for around the uh splash pad and some concrete along with this uh shade structure at the dog park. The Town Lake master plan options uh that you should see that in May. They've they've kind of put together two approaches for Town Lake and so we'll be looking to you all for advice on which direction to go. Uh Rafi building acquired and is being upfitted. Uh our goal is to have the um citizen engagement wing of that building ready for the the next round of PBO 10. South Village small area plan. I think um w with the the concerns about the small area plan, the parks and recck section of that was was really great uh for the town and now how we're walking through the selection of those parks, where they go, what they look like, and you all will actually have uh if you've seen your agenda, a couple of park selections. Um, so the process for this round is much smoother and I think a lot better. And you'll see and Katie will explain all that to you u next week. Quantis Park fence finally got replaced. U Mary Hayes updates. I think the mister finally is working and was replaced. And the water fountain um

I think that happened last week. Uh fountain is working now. The mister the What about the water fountain? Water fountains working. I'm not sure about the mister. I know the water fountain. Water fountains. Okay. Great. I thought there were like two one unit. No, no, there's a there is a a cut off so one one can be operational without the other. Okay. Okay, good. Okay. Yeah, progress is being made. That's great. Minahan Street um added some pickle ball lines. That seems to be our favorite sport at Mcclanahan at the moment. and uh Rockbridge Park bathrooms uh still in progress on working on a design for that.

Uh quick question on uh Town Lake Park. Could you elaborate a little bit more on on that master planning process? So So when the when the bridge the foot bridge came down,

I think our our thoughts was like, "Yeah, let's get the bridge fixed. Let's do this." I think because of the age of the bridge and that a delineation had not been done in so long, uh the consultant was concerned about the change in state law and you know storm water and how we were even able to approach that project with putting something back. So um before I think before we went and did like a full-fledged design, they wanted to check on where things could actually go because I think the major goal of that park is to get that walking trail all the way around town lake. Mhm. And so we need to see what that looks like.

And so there's one option is a more let's say environmentally focused like more conservative park approach where it's more natural, more passive. And then the other one has foot bridges and lots of activities and and more things to do. So I think it's and y'all will see that presentation in May. Um it was slated for April, but your April agenda was was quite full, so we pushed it to May.

It is. May I ask a question about the maintenance of the parks? Um, so I was out, it was last weekend, no, the weekend before, uh, walking the parks, um, and the trail and and Commissioner Bonnets came with me and, um, we noticed there's like an old walking I I don't know what it is, like a piece of a bridge. It's like a wood structure and there are boards missing. There are nails um, exposed. We picked up a lot of trash while we were out. Will there be I don't know. Will there be I see maintenance routines? I mean, how will that work so that we can make sure that the parks are clean and safe? Which park was that? Town Lake. The boardwalk, not the bridge. The boardwalk to I guess that's to the south.

Yeah. No, I don't know. No, it's on the It's on the north side of the lake as you're walking towards the bridge. Oh, I don't think I've walked up there. Okay, I'll have to do that. Yeah, I think with with us losing the foot bridge, um honestly, I don't know if Town Lake has been at the top of our repair list just because of the shape that the the park as a whole is currently in. Um that's another reason why we wanted to jump on this planning process because we've got I think you all allocated 350

to Town Lake. So, we've got money to go in there and make some improvements to just figuring out what the overall park should look like. So, then we know how to make those improvements. last thing you want to do is go spend 300 grand to fix what's there and then change it a few years later.

Um, this what you've shared with us about the bridge is is I think of great interest to a lot of people. I I hear lots of people complaining about it and wondering why what's happening with it? Why is it down? Why isn't why is there a barricade up and things like that. So, if we could communicate what you've said that or if this is appropriate. Um, I think what you've said is that that bridge was so old that it was built perhaps at a time when stream delineation that was not viewed as a green line stream or excuse me, blue line stream.

That might have been built before stream delineation was a thing. And so that kind of encroachment next to a stream is greatly frowned upon with new advanced science about encroaching upon uh blue line streams. Is that am I hearing that right? And so that's why the whole project is is cast into question whether or not we should replace it. Yes. Okay. Yeah. I think that's an important story to tell. Yeah. It's kind of on hold um just because of that. And I think even the consultant was like, don't go up don't go out there and completely demo the existing bridge because if if there is a way where we can use the existing footings Yeah. and we're kind of grandfathered then you don't want to damage those, right?

And we also didn't want to go out there and spend whatever that would cost to remove that and then get ourselves in trouble. But I think the first step is kind of figuring out the direction that the town board wants to go with the park and then we can then the consulting can start turning up some some solutions. So what's that process look like? Um us deciding are you going to offer up uh options for us or for Katie or how would that happen? Yeah, Katie or the consultant will present to you in May and it's option one, option two. Um, again, one is kind of more passive, the other one is more active. And then

y'all can decide like how you want that route to go. And then once we know kind of which bucket to move into, then that's where we kind of bucket looks like. Thanks.

That'd be good. And there were some other simple things like there's a couple of signs that were down uh educational uh signage and u that seems like a pretty quick fix. Um and the barricades that are at the end of uh Cotton Street. Um it's been some time that we've had it like that and it just it's It's uh it's forbidding, but people are wondering, can they go in anyway? And if we're not allowing people in, I think we definitely need to articulate a very clear story as to why it is that an entire park is closed because of a dangerous bridge and foot uh uh boardwalk.

Yeah. Yeah, we can get something out. Okay. Yeah. Because the front part of the park uh is open, right? It's the Diane Street side that we've we've kind of kept closed. Um, but there's barricades at Cotton Street on the north. Yeah, those have been east since since I've been here. I know that. I'm not sure. Yeah, if people were driving down and trying to get on I don't know what what I mean typically things happen for a reason, but yeah, that should be something we could do in house probably. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Anything else on town later? you here to see the master plan options?

Yeah. Um I know some of the signage because uh Commissioner Frell had pointed out some signs and it was it's not even on town property. Uh I think it was on either private property or the school property. Um but we'll we'll look. There used to be some really cool uh tree identification. Yeah. Signs off of the school property. I'd love to see that continue as an educational piece of what we're talking about.

Okay. So, I if you could for the next month really think about what what your vision for Town Lake is and then pre please bring and share that with us in May and that because that will help kind of steer where this is going to go which I think is really important. And I think that with these smaller projects that we're mentioning, like we like you said, we do have money set aside for that park, but we want to make sure that like what the street entrance will look like in the future before we block it off or improve it, things like that. So, I think that some of the stuff like, you know, educational signage, repair is probably good. um we can maximize our opportunity to do some quick projects with the master plan once we get approved to do well.

Yeah. And the other, you know, being that there was damage during Shanl and we have the match money once we have a plan in place, it would behoove us to apply for a part of grant next May. So then we could take that 350 and turn it into 700 or maybe 800 and then now we're making a much larger impact. I mean, that will delay us a year because of the application process, but I I think that's where Katie is headed. Good.

All right. Uh, UDO, UDO update for parks. Um, we're going to try to make a few changes. Y'all will see those coming to try to make it easier and cheaper for parks built, mainly around parking lots. But I'll let the planning folks um tell you about all that here in a couple months. Um, Night Farm natural play area revamp, Rafy Upfit, continuing to work on that. Park cameras and looking at a maintenance capital inventory replacement plan. Um, and we want to do a Katie wants to do a curated art piece where probably I would guess Parab or some group of folks come up with um kind of a vision for a piece and then they put it out and people bid on it. All right. Implemented wellness Wednesday emails. Um re up the safety committee. Uh some OSHA certification. Got the Goko gather system going and um using NEO governor provides in-house training for next year. Looking to continue to maximize the Go system quarterly trainings for department heads.

What is Goko? It's our a it's our um HR system that we are using for onboarding um new employees and also to do like our annual reviews for staff. Okay. Software. Yep. Software

quarterly reviews, six month reviews, yearly reviews. uh continue to highlight volunteer opportunities and then uh we'll be doing some department head training on uh how to use the personnel policy in certain circumstances. Finance why we're all here. Um they finance has improved their internal customer service and we want to keep improving that with um a couple of different things. Had a clean audit in 25. That's always the goal and certainly we want a clean audit in 26. Uh we hired our first assistant finance director um who's doing a great job. She knows how to tell people no. Um secured financing and LGC approval for the Rafy building. Um continue to research digital time cards. That's an interesting one. And keep me from spending money apparently. Um and then securing financing and LGC approval for uh the new town hall. And then we want to move towards a digital PO system. So that way department heads can put in their own information. It can be processed um and probably what half the time.

Yeah. And we have most we have several departments already doing that. Yes. So so the purpose of that is for interdep departmental billing. So um so purchase orders we have to do for anything over $500. Okay. Um and yeah and it's um it's financed. So either myself or Edna have to approve um those purchases and or those purchase orders and then the department heads can go and do those purchases. Gotch. So it's pushing pushing out the writing of the PO to the individual responsible.

Yeah. So they they are they are doing the initial request in the system which is called a requisition. So they're doing that initial requisition attaching their supporting documentation, their quote and then Edna Edna's doing most of them. She's reviewing them and she is then approving them or going back with more questions and yeah. Yep. It's our slow climb up the procurement hill trying to make our procurement um more efficient so we can move things along a little faster. That about right?

Police added two additional uh patrol positions um in the final stages of hiring should be done by May. Um this will have allow us to have three officers on duty at all times which had been uh shortest goal. So we are almost there. Um new hybrids to the fleet. Uh continued efforts in remodeling the police department. Um low cost and working on the additional phase of getting more space to PD. Goals. I want to implement additional deescalation and less lethal training um with the new tasers that we got. implement a drone program, continue the small remodeling projects, and then um continue design process for additional wing to be added to the existing police department. Um, one goal that I have for next year is if we can try to get a schematic design done for the police department. I think we can probably get that done for 70 or $80,000. If so, that may position us for a budget request from the feds. Um, because then it's a shovel ready project. So, in talking with Congresswoman Fashe about some of our projects we put in this year, they had kind of asked, well, if the PD was your biggest need for police, like the expansion, why didn't you ask for money for that? Um, and it's because we didn't have any plans. And certainly without plans, it isn't shovel ready. So, I think with at least a schematic design, I think that gets us to the level of saying that we're shovel ready. Um,

does that slow us down? What schedule wise? Um, not really. Okay.

Um, the the kind of goal with with our limited um, debt capacity, it was to get through town hall design and with the Seymar, we'll have an updated I mean, we'll have an updated price from subs before we start construction. So, at that point, I'll know or He Heather and I will know what town hall is roughly going to cost. then we'll know what our delta is on our deck capacity and that lets us know how we move forward with the police department. And so if if that gap is large enough then I think we would come to you all and say let's let's pull the trigger on design and then that way we're designing the PD while we're building the town hall. So when town hall construction is probably near the end we potentially could start construction on the PD. That's broad vision at the moment. So, can we get back uh you have questions? Look, can you go back to flock? You said you installed five flock gambits.

Yes. Think the initial trunch was four and then five more of the following. Okay. So, we have nine total now. Is that correct?

Yes. And I had one other question that'll probably come to me at lunchtime, so I'll ask it. But and one that's not on here for police that I think is an achievement is our community policing program. I think you all authorize a second community police officer. I think that has done a great deal to have two community police officers at all time in town and you see them everywhere talking to people. uh they're always downtown walking around in other places. Um and in our survey, uh I think the police were brought up several times at how friendly and approachable our police department is, which is a heck of an achievement. Smile. I just want to make sure smiling.

Yeah. Okay. All right. Any other questions, thoughts about achievements, goals? um with the budget that that we're about to show you, some of these goals uh may have to wait another year. Um but I think as long as they're in the back of our minds and our thoughts, uh you know, it we'll get there eventually. Just big picture, what I'd love to see is no power lines on East and West Street. I think that should be a visual goal for either next year or the year after that. It's it's a must. It's the difference between a small town

and a big town. So, just throwing that out there. I love that idea. That's a big ask. Yes. And probably not something we would embark upon all at once. Uh in my very limited experience with this, you've actually managed utilities, so please let us know. But I think that that's the kind of thing that undergrounding of power lines happens maybe a block at a time when when uh let's say hypothetically the the u old school admin office block if and when that is redeveloped we go to the developers to pay for it and do it. That's correct. Well it gets worked into the project. Right.

Right. Yeah. put as a condition and the the potential development in downtown coming uh east of Hardies, that's that's an opportunity there where you say put your power underground. And so there's there's ways to kind of piece mill it together over time. But yeah, to do that in one foul sweep would be staggering from a cost perspective. Um I think even a block at a time is for like what Duke would charge to to do that. Correct. like I don't even want to think about it at the moment. Well, hasn't Duke suggested that we do the the we dig and lay the conduit and then they run the lines?

That's their standard protocol these days, especially with with subdivisions um while the trench is already open. You put your conduit in, they come back, they pull the line um and hook up their lights. Cost savings right there. Which is why we would turn to developers to do it down. Yes, sir. But it would cost you in your priority request, right? because developers are only going to give it so much for each conditional approval. Um I think Reeves Farm is is an example of one that we had in there the condition to um put the power underground and then that was removed at the last minute because of uh their nervousness about cost

and so I don't I don't believe that made it in the final condition list. I think the subdivision as a whole is underground but the utilities along the street will will stay above. I think Ree Farm actually said like telecommunication underground but not power or something like that. But because I mean it's it's millions of dollars. It's not like tens or hundreds of thousands. It's it's expensive. And we actually looked at it for uh town hall site as well and it's just prohibitive uh for cost. So yeah, our new town hall site we met with Duke and talked about it and it was Yeah. He's like this solution's like 10. That solution's a lot. Yeah.

All right. So, we're we're in the right we have a conscious uh direction to go to with that. Absolutely. Okay. Thanks. When I was managing power communities, I put everything underground that I could whenever we could. It's just the like you're you're right. It's a difference in look. It's a difference in service. Mhm. Um, you don't have to worry about storms as much. Yeah. All right. I think that's it for me. Thank you. Yes, sir. Up next is the budget overview.

So, this is going to be brief because the detail will be under the departmental review. So, this is sort of the overview that I do that gives you um our budget calendar, our goals, um the value of the penny mic for uh just wanted to make sure the public can hear you. Yeah. Thank you.

Um our budget calendar is very similar this year to prior years. So, we're obviously having this meeting um now and then we'll have the public hearing for the budget um at our May meeting and then the adoption of the budget at the June meeting. Um our goals are um you know obviously we want to continue our current service levels um with aim towards efficiency and improvement. We want to keep our current staff and if we have any openings we want to um obviously get high performing staff and we want to provide them with educational and training opportunities. We want to maintain a responsible fund balance. Um and we also want to use a disciplined approach to align our limited resources with our highest priorities. Um so just again another overview on our revenue sources for a general fund. Our largest revenue source is our property tax revenue. Um and this is the thing that we have control over. Um our motor vehicle tax revenue. Um sales and use tax um is also another um larger source of funding. Um obviously sales and use tax we do not have direct control over um those fe those um revenues. Um other taxes that we get are are like various other um telecommunications, utility, video tax. Um and then we have our fees for garbage um planning engineering fees and rentals um at the parks. So for the upcoming fiscal year um we are estimating a 98.5% collection rate for our adform tax and um the it's estimated that one penny will equal $185,261. Um just so you know that projects that are programmed in our current fiscal year and that are not completed, those

will be carried over using a budget amendment um in probably the July um budget meeting. So those are not like in this proposed budget. Um costs continue to go to go up. Um we our GFL contract is not increasing as much as it has in the past. However, you will see an increase in that line item that is greater than that 2.4% that is due to growth um in the population within town limits. Um it is also due to the fact that we included the hazardous waste um service in there as well. Um and we also under our so not under GFL contract but under our sanitation department we also put in there the costs associated with having uh the bulk the disposal of the bulk bulk item pickups.

And if I could interrupt briefly just to be clear again because I know there's some members of the public listening in. So, that addition to the sanitation line item, uh, you mentioned hazardous waste, that allows individual homeowners or, excuse me, residents to take HHW materials, household hazardous waste materials to the county during their once a month, I think it is, collection site. Um, yeah, I can't remember what their schedule is, but they do advertise that schedule, and we have been sharing that schedule. Maybe it's again allows to participate in disposing of their dead batteries and dead electronics and stuff like that. I think it's 10 times a year. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry to interrupt.

No, no, no. You're fine. Please ask any questions. Um, so personnel trends. Um, obviously we want to um keep our high quality staff. getting increasingly expensive um as we're competing with other municipalities for um quality employees that just tends to drive up our personnel costs. Um so currently we have not received an official quote for our major medical but we got a verbal um estimate that if we stay with our existing provider which is Bluec Cross Blue Shield and our existing plan that it would be going up 49%. So that is not possible in our budget but we are and we are looking at other options but we obviously want to maintain the level of benefit that we are providing to employees as much as possible. So we will we are researching that and um hopefully by the budget that I present to you in May that we have a better idea of what that actual cost will be or what options we have available to us. Um we do have um programmed into this budget um a cost of living adjustment for board and staff of 3% just based on the inflationary index that we were looking at. Um retirement expense is um is not estimated. It will increase to 15.13% um for general staff and 17.10% for police staff. This is um this is dictated by the state. Um so this is um not something that we can change and this is how much we are the town is required to put into the retirement um funds for staff. They um at our finance conference they the state auditor said um said that they were hoping that this

would not be that this year might be the last year of these set increases. Um but again we won't know until we see how the fund is performing. So good.

Uh Heather, could I ask you to pause for just a moment and elaborate a little bit on this bullet about recruiting and retaining high quality staff and how maybe you could share some anecdotes about how it's increasing the more expensive? Uh is there something spec I so I mean it just so we are competing against larger municipalities that have um have more revenue are able to pay their staff more um just because of where we are located and so retaining I mean getting that staff and then retaining them is is costing us um and specifically I mean typically the departments you know that are key where we you know planning um so ones that we've recently hired planning, um, finance, IT. I mean, those those are all like we want to those are ones that we need and we're getting them from around here. Obviously, we don't want somebody typically when we're not getting somebody that's that's um moving here. Um, police is another area where we're competing against the local um

the entire triangle. Yep. Thank you. Yep. I think a lot of that too is like the re the retaining part of it is the benefits and the the work environment and culture that we're trying to which we've made huge headway on. Yeah. And progress really expensive to replace people. So, right. And that's the other thing to think about it. Yes, it is expensive to replace people. It is expensive to have a um a lack of an employee there um because other staff are making up that um picking up that slack and then that's puts pressure on the remaining staff um

right or outsourcing which is not always which is expensive and is not always ideal um because they have a certain amount of ramp up to even understand our um processes and procedures and rules. So um and the benefits and that's why the the medical benefit is um a very key piece um especially because like we are paying for the employee you know portion of that. We also need to keep in mind how much the child and spouse um portion of that is and how much that increases um because we do have staff that are paying for their children or their spouse or both to be on our policy and right now the children are pretty reasonable. The spouse is extremely expensive um and that is um very hard some for some of our employees and that also hurts recruitment.

Do you have a feel on the same topic? Do you have a feel for how many employees are commuting into Pittsburgh? Living outside of Pittsburgh ballpark. Um I mean for staff it's more than 50%. More than 50. It's a lot. Yeah. Okay. Okay. I would say more live in Chattam County, right? I think if you if you just did that Chattam County look, you get you'd get a lot more. Um but I think it's the cost of housing. That's that's part of this.

I think it's the Cooper parcel I think is the title of the um behind Pow Place. That's why we were so keen on the getting the local municipal workers included in the Hometown Heroes program. Good job. Okay. Um and this so then I just have two charts that are just showing our um property tax rates over the last 10 years. And then the next um chart is showing um the value of the penny um over the last 10 years.

Yeah. I don't think we're always like very clear about this necessary. Not that we're not clear, but like the reason the tax rate has been able to stay flat is because of this massive increase in value over the last 10 years. Yes. Of that penny because of growth, I think. So, it's um you know, we're getting significantly more revenue on that on that tax rate, which helps us keep up. So,

yes. Yep. So yeah, I'm glad you mentioned this mayorship because we just had that conversation yesterday with a constituent man who lives in town and has been here for 20 years and uh he's seen his advalorum property taxes increase. He's aware very keenly aware that we have not raised the rate but that because of valuations that is in everyone's bills overall bills are increasing and um it it is definitely forcing some folks out. It's it's an addition to increase uh costs of living in town. Um and uh these are folks who've lived in that perhaps the same house for so long that they don't feel that there's a benefit to that growth. Um uh we pointed out there's improvements and increases in service. We also pointed out that there's all this inflationary pressure and some of it that we're volunteering to bring upon ourselves in order to increase the quality of life for our employees and to make our workplace more attractive. Uh so Heather Meechum, thank you so much for speaking about that and elaborating how hard it is for us to recruit and retain uh good folks. Um these are these are tough times for a lot of people. uh and uh yet our cost of just doing what we did last year continuing to increase so dramatically.

Um so thank you for speaking to that. Yeah. And you will see when we get into each department um I mean you will see like the te so the value tax um revenue has only increased um 7 and a half to 8% um for this year but um costs in some of our areas obviously if you take into account the major medical costs are going up significantly more than so then we're having to cut in other areas where um just to obviously not have a tax increase and not take any money from fund balance. Yeah. Do you want to elaborate on that?

No, I think you kind of summed up that meeting. Um, it did it did kind of um make me reflect while I'm talking to this person who's lived here I think what close to 20 some odd years if not more who's works in town, works for the county to to say he's wondering if he can retire and stay here. And I hear that from people all the time wondering if they're going to be able to stay here. So, I'm just glad that we're really taking all that into consideration with with how we're going forward. Like, you're looking at how do we stay within our budget so we don't have to raise taxes. And I I appreciate that. Yes. And I know they do, too. And he mentioned Yes.

how much he he looked at our budget last year and said, "Wow, they really don't have anywhere to cut." So people see that, but at the same time, you know, y they're they're cutting at their own household level because we they know we can't make cuts. So I'm glad we're very very uh responsible with um our town's people's money. Yeah. And and the conversation started on the topic of revenue neutral and how and why we were unable to to do that last year. Um

I think too the reality of it is that our our tax bill is a portion town taxes and a portion county taxes as well. So you can only influence so much directly John just what meeting were you with yesterday? Uh a constituent uh his his name is uh Peter Stefen. I don't think he'd mind us letting him let you know because he's written to got his emails. Yep. Yeah. I know Pete Brooks at tax office. Yep. He's in a position to have keen insights. Yeah. Great. Great. Great. Could you send me his address? I think he's emailed too.

I'll shoot it to you right now. Okay. All of us. Yeah. case study to look at. I'm done. Y um and we are a little behind on our schedule, so we will uh we'll work to and we have more detail later on departments. Well, yeah, I'll be going over departments. Yep. All right. So, up next we have a request from two nonprofits. Up first is the welcome center and Mr. Greg Lewis. Okay. Good morning. Good morning. It's good timing. Happy uh what is today? Yeah. Happy Tuesday. Happy 262.

Uh I grew a beard just for this meeting because I knew you all were out there with beards now. So wanted to I wanted to stay current. Um before I start though, I know I only have a minute. The power lines, you're talking about burying power lines in downtown. love to see it, but it's happened in the past. And unless you create an ordinance to stop it from continuing, the easiest way to run a line going forward is just from building to building. There's been it's they've all been buried in the past, but people come in and just run power lines over the top because it's fast. If you bury them, you need to find a way to stop it from happening in the future to pull them out of the ground.

Yeah. I mean, you know, you get a new business in, you get a new internet service or whatever, they're running it over the top. So, cuz I've I've gone down that road to try and get them all buried.

Anyway, so yes, Greg Lewis in Lauren Rose Lane, Pittsboro. Um, I am the treasurer for Welcome Cadam. And did you all receive our letter of request? Okay, great. So, I'll leave that here. Maria created a new uh flyer for you all. Let me just pass that around just to give you some idea of of where we are currently in uh since January since we received our funding and forgive me I got new eyes this week so or last week so my reading is a little off trying to get used to glasses. Um, so welcome, Chad. I'm going to help you create some tax revenue. All right. We keep people in Pittsburgh. All right. So, if you if you look at this sheet we just gave out or that's going around community involvement, we're used as a meeting space for local organizations. I mean, I should say we are requesting $20,000 for fiscal year uh 26 27th. So, we're used as a meeting space for local organizations at no charge. We um home base for Small Business Saturday. So, on Small Business Saturday, everybody gathers there, they get get their passport, they go to different businesses, get them stamped, come back, and we uh have prizes uh for those that fill out the card. Um, we're open on first Sundays, finally Friday, Summerfest, street fair, holidays, events, tree lighting, uh, Christmas tree, and, uh, this year we opened for the No Kings protest, the most recent No Kings protest. There was a line out the door as soon as we opened just to use the restroom.

So, people are coming through. I mean, you know, we're a public restroom if if so be if it's needed. Um, we're also the uh location for Santa visits during the tree lighting and we coordinate with local organizations for free gift wrapping Saturdays in the month of December. Those things happen in the welcome center amongst other things. Visitors now this is J only January through the end of March. This is the slowest time of year and snow days involved and we actually had to close two days while the town was doing the the beds. I think that was March. But anyway, first quarter we had 573 visitors that actually signed in. That's not counting those that didn't want to sign in, didn't want to put their name. That's at least 30% more. All right. Um, of those 573 vid visitors, 212 were local, that would be within the county, 123 were from surrounding cities, and 88 were from outside of the state. Right. Uh, 176 used the restrooms, 172 were seeking a map or information, end information on the area, and 49 want to know about local dining options. And again, these are just the folks that signed in. 72 were looking for places to shop and 51 were inquiring about local events. So, tax revenue, all of that, you know, um we help keep people in Pittsburgh. We're we're there to be used for nonprofits. We're there. We're open for information and we try and keep people in Pittsburgh whether it's dining or shopping, strolling around, going to the parks. Um, and um, I think I think it's it's a well

worthwhile investing because it's only going to grow. Um, like I said, this first quarter is the slowest quarter of the year. We expect to have at least 4,000 people come through that we will know of. That won't count the ones that aren't signing in. So, at least 5,000 people if you want to count those. Thank you for sharing. Yes, absolutely. I'm curious, how do you do you retain you? You you said there you had a number of people sign in. Can you can you tell me is there any followup with those folks or

um we're we're collecting the information now. Um we have not done anything with the information but we have it. Um at some point when uh if funds are available we'll start sending out emails. of thanking them a data database sent out emails to tell them what's going on. Can you tell us about the county how they're they're helping? So the county helped with the construction and the opening of the welcome center. I have a request in with the county and I'm presenting to them later this month. So I'm requesting funds from the county as well. Greg, what amount is that?

The county 30,000. So 20 from the town, 30 from the county. And what would you use the money for? I mean, operations and and to grow what we do to be able to do more of what we do to be able to create email database, be able to like we don't have a website currently. We use social media, but we don't currently have a website. Maybe at some point we create a website. Um, creating flyers that we can pass out. Flyers are like the number one requested thing. I want flyers, maps, maps of the area, maps of what to do. Um, the county na has some, but we don't. And so we're not getting them from her at this point.

Um, you're going to have to We've asked, we've tried she won't give them to you. You're saying basically. Yes. Am I right? Nha and the maps. Nha won't give us maps, right? Yes. Yes. I I'm not any sure. At some point is not someone that believes in a physical welcome center. So, she has her office on the second floor or third floor. Uh I forget the name of the building down by the post office. We're not here to target her or

No, no, no, no, no, no. Not at all. Not at all. She does a great job with what she does. Maybe we can talk about if the welcome center was not there.

Well, if the welcome center wasn't there, you might have uh more offices there, another attorney there or something. Uh because it' be a great office space, but people wouldn't know where to go. I mean, I mean, they would just roam, but we can send them, you know, what are you looking for? Here's where you can go. Whether whether it's in downtown, whether it's up at the mill, whether it's up at Mosaic, I mean, you know, you know, we know we can send them to the plant that you don't know the plant's there unless you somebody tells you if you're a tourist. Many people come into uh the welcome center that are on their way to Duke for some sort of medical treatment. They've been driving through Pittsburgh once a month, once a week to go to go get chemo or to go get some kind of treatment. And one day they say, "Let's stop in Pittsburgh and see what it's about." So they come into the welcome center and uh we tell them what it's about. There's value there. Absolutely. Yeah. I'm a firm believer in it. you know um the welcome center has been open 6 years now and and um the I have sat in there and acted as concierge um when we were in between concierge and the people that come in there the questions they ask I mean they don't know Pittsburgh they don't know Chattam County and so just being able to answer basic questions for them they've never been to Pittsburgh what is there to do where can I go eat what kind of shops are Where can I go shop? I'm looking for a widget. Where can I go buy a widget? You know, I mean, just someone there to help guide them. It's just amazing. The number of people that have never been in downtown Pittsburgh and it's tax revenue.

Do you find that you're getting a lot of people who are looking to purchase a home in Pittsburgh, coming to look at Chattam Park and then coming to find out you see a lot more traffic because of the fact we do. Actually, we didn't put that on here and I don't know that we collect that data, but a lot of people come in there because they're considering moving to Pittsburgh, Chattam County. Uh they want information on what is there to do. They want information on the town, information on the county. Um not just uh what, you know, where to go, what to do, but schools, you know, um the the the town, how does the town work, how does the the town government work, how does the county government work? Um, I wanted to buy and retire here. Where could I go? What about how are the parks? I mean, they ask lots of questions. If they're considering moving

and what about people considering um coming into town to open a business, do they come and talk to you and ask how is it? If I wanted to open a restaurant, Greg, is this is this the right place? I mean, do do they come and ask you question, use you as a source, or consider having the welcome center as an attractive reason to put their business downtown? So, I would love to help those people and I'm on the EV committee for PDAB and I'm on the EDC board for Chattam County and that's something that is near and dear to me is helping people figure out how to open a business in Pittsburgh or Chattam County because there is there there is nowhere to go to find basic information of oh, you want to open a restaurant? Okay, here you go. Turn to page 30 and this will tell you who you need to talk to and what you need to do. Um but you know we just went through this trying to get a permit to open our restaurant took us eight and a half months just to get a permit and it you know going with engineer general contractor it's crazy. So how does somebody that doesn't live here know what they're doing? I'd love to help them. If we can get that brochure created or working with theres on that you know that in the welcome center would be fabulous.

I agree. Yeah. I mean you're going through it yourself. Well, just stream Well, you're done. Yeah. Streamlining that process and making it very clear um to newcomers would be great and and while that may not be, you know, the welcome center center focus to create that, but to have that information there would be great for I mean anybody considering doing anything in Pittsburgh, they come to the welcome center. So, do you do you have any plans to connect with the Siler City Welcome Center at some point? maybe to have, you know, like a where you guys are communicating and sharing and

Well, yes, we would like to do that. We haven't done that yet. Um, one of our board members, Suzari, is on the uh uh what's the small business merchants the merchants association in Siler City and she has spoken to them about it, but we haven't gotten that. That welcome center is fully funded by the town of Ser City 100%. Um, and it's staffed with town staff. They don't know if they're, you know, they're doing something else other than the welcome center, but um, that's fully funded by that. I'd love to connect to them, see what they're doing. Um, there's been some outer larger conversation, but we haven't really dug down into it.

Yeah. Same thing. I'd love to also connect with Sanford Chamber. I was I was curious as well like how many people coming through are looking for info on other areas of Chadam Siler Goulson Bear Creek like you know as the broader kind of gateway to Chadam.

Yeah I mean what we'll send them anywhere what they're that what they're looking for. Most of them are in Pittsburgh want to know what to do in Pittsburgh. But there's certainly a fair share, you know, if they want to move to Chattam County or they want to know, you know, about the chicken festival in Siler City. You will tell them all of that. Uh we'll help them with anything in the county. Absolutely. And I've been known to send people out of the county. You know, they're looking for something in downtown Raleigh. Well, you know, it is what it is. Greg, thank you very much for this presentation and and thanks also to you and and other volunteers for all the efforts through the years, but especially in recent year. Um, and I'm curious, uh, is the organization receiving any, you mentioned support from the county. Does that come from the CBB from the

We're not currently receiving it. We've applied. Okay. We've requested funds much like we did here. And I'm going to present to the board uh later this month. Um the county board. The county board. Yes. County board. Yes. If the county were to fund them, it wouldn't come from the CBB. It would just come from their general fund. Oh, okay. Well, I don't know why, but I think their CBB funding, which is the funding from hotel stays, is just for Niha's division, tourism, for staff and the website, right? currently, but it's I think the state allows it to be used for tourism

and now we have a hotel. So, her department got a big raise. I mean, that's, you know, so I would think some of that money could come here. I don't know the rules and what rules they have to follow by the state or the feds. You would know that better, but I would. We're not here to talk about the county. No, no, no, no. But about county funding, so I would think it could come there, but I don't I'm not sure. Thank you. Yeah. I'm curious. What does PDAP stand for in EDC? You're a volunteer. Yeah. Pittsburgh downtown advisory board. I am not on the advisory board. I'm on the economic vitality committee of that board. A volunteer. A volunteer. Yes. And the EDC is econom county economic development corporation as a volunteer. I'm on a board. I'm a board member there.

Okay. I'm also on the Chapel Hill Chamber board. I sit on a bunch of boards. And this board consists of myself, my wife Maria, Sarah Cooney of the Root Seller, Bill Hartley of formerly of Postal, now JDubs, uh Pam Folk, formerly Tiger Rescue but now retired, Suzari, Syler City Merchants Association, Cheryl Littleton of the uh Chamber of Commerce. And so we have a pretty diverse group. You know, wouldn't mind having a board pulling for Pittsboro. Excuse me. All all of you are pulling for Pittsboro

100%. I mean, you know, because like Sue with the ch or sue sh with the chamber, you know, this is where they operate out of the the chamber of commerce created a western chamber because they felt like they were being, you know, they they were being slighted by the Chattam Chamber because they're focused here or their office is here. Let's let's stay on topic. I don't want to get into all this. No, no, no, no. We also have a lot more to get to today, too. Yeah. Any questions for me? I have one. Greg, do you guys receive rent or lease from any office space in there?

Yes, we we receive $1,500 a month rent from Century 21. Century 21 rents out two of our three offices. That's $3,000 or just,500. 1500. Yes. Thank you. Yes. Thank you, sir. Maria, just just come up if you're gonna Yeah, we can't hear you.

You were asking about information on people looking to relocate. We do collect that information. Um I only included the um areas uh where people are asking about the most. So we do collect other information also um the bathroom numbers like for instance um no kings protest there was no way we could collect the names and the numbers of everybody that was coming in um so when you see the first quarter the numbers are actually bigger at the end of the year if you see year to date the numbers are actually bigger because during protests and um events too many people come in we just can't keep that bill. Thank you.

So, 200 people use the restroom on No King's Day. That's not on here. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Thanks. Go ahead.

Um, as a quick reminder, for providing money to organizations like this, you have to have a public purpose. And we went through this discussion with the first contract last year. The contract was basically for the welcome center to provide public bathrooms, a certain number of hours per week, different days. Um so that was the public purpose that we identified that the town currently could not really provide on its own simply the bathrooms. Um and I think the uh PDAB the downtown committee also saw the value which is I think what their recommendation was uh to support the welcome center for the purpose of those bathrooms being open and available to the public. just more generally like we Pittsburgh does not have a a nonprofit funding program like other places do the county and some others. Um so we do but we do work with nonprofits to provide town services.

Yes. Um up next is the Boys and Girls Club and Lorie Gatewood. If for all clarity I am the chair of the board of Central Carolina um and I have a child that goes to the pitch club. So,

hi, good morning. Um, I'm Tori Gaywood, the director of resource development and marketing at the Boys and Girls Clubs of Central Carolina. Uh, first I'd like to thank you all for your continued support of our mission and the youth of Pittsboro. Um, we are here to request continual annual funding of 30,000 to support the Boys and Girls Club movement in Pittsburgh. um as outlined in the proposal that we've submitted and I would like to highlight those key points. Um uh our Pittsburgh club has become a staple in this community and a trusted consistent resource to local families. Since opening, we've served more than 771 youth um providing structured afterchool and summer programming for over 150 kids a year each year at the Pittsburgh Club. Um, and we're we're seeing results. So, 92% of our youth are on track to graduate. Uh, 93% of our youth report that they believe they can succeed academically. And 100% of our teens report no substance abuse. Um, and they do expect to graduate. So, uh, this all of this work and the investment in our mission, um, directly supports working families, public safety, education, and continued workforce development here in Pittsburgh. Um, we're providing a strong return on that investment by helping reduce long-term cost related to juvenile justice, academic remediation, and workforce gaps. Um, and what we're seeing is that national data is showing that more than $9 is returned for every $1. than $1 invested in our mission. Um, and again, we're we're proud to partner with the town in delivering these services and are happy to answer any questions.

Thank you. Any questions for Tori? What's your age group? What's your age group? School age. So, it's K through um senior. So, like through high school.

Okay. being that it is K through 12, right? Um what do you where do you see the cont conc concentration though? Are you seeing a lot of people in a lot of kids in the high school or is it more younger kids? our our teen um audience or our members that make up our our teens um programming is less than and it's that's across the board for the Boys and Girls Club um of America like it shows that you know that's the area where where kids tend to drop off. Um so we that is you know we have less of of our teams um currently in our programming which is why we currently are working on initiatives um to have options for teens uh that they can get involved in outside of school still like growing that with our we have a a new workforce development center that we're going to be opening in uh Syler City. Um, so yeah, that's the portion of teens in our programming is is not as um great as the or not as many as the school age.

I'm guessing part of that is going to be part-time jobs and after school sports and and

yes, so extracurriculars. We also have um we offer um like a a work program for our teenage members. um that is and and we do have a a significant commitment um to that program, but again something that we're continuing to grow and because so many of the you know teenagers now have access to pre-ol programming and during their school day they can you know actually go and work a job or they can um seek training on a specific skill. Uh that's where it's critical for us to offer that same access within our organization, within our clubs. Um because that gives that makes us an option for them to actually be able to participate um as opposed to what you know is already being offered in in the community. So that's kind of how we in order to grow our participation in the teen population, we we've um we're strategic and planning on how we're going to do that over the next um year. We've actually we launched a future ready initiative about this time last year and one of those commitments was specifically um towards growing workforce development within our clubs.

Well, put on my other hat for a second here, but we are part of it too that we're size limited at the at the club. So, we have had members now being open u five years that have gone kind of into high school and do return, but we just don't like physically have the space for a lot of that programming. But we do in Pittsburgh, we do have the highest percentage of uh middle school students. That's traditionally a hard time to keep kids in an afterchool program from elementary into middle. Um but because of the fortune of the location there where you know they can walk to the club, we have the highest percent of uh middle school students in in Pittsburgh. So it's a really good benefit of that location. And we actually we just we're wrapping up our um annual survey that we do for both club members and families. It's our NYI survey. Um so we'll have even more stats on that in the relatively near future.

First of all, thank you for your service and mayorship as well. Um what what takes my breath away is the 92% of youth are on track to for high school graduation. 92 that's that's a great number u of 150 plus you're you're engaging it's like 145 are going to graduate and that's much higher than the the graduation level which uh it's good props. Thank you, John.

I was gonna ask if you had any programs in place to get that 92 to 100.

So, essentially all of our programming is based around um what's person centered um you know, we're serving the whole person. You know, every program has an element built into it um to promote academic success. Um, and we find that sometimes, you know, a lot of it, not maybe don't have a specific stat that would answer this question. Um, we find that kids just simply need access to other comm essentially a community mentor, someone that they can confide in, you know, maybe even just an ear to listen um in addition to what they have, you know, their teachers, their family, or lack thereof of either. Um so the way the model is set up essentially it's if having those numbers will continue to grow so long as they have access um to people that they have in their corner. Um and that I think is is one of the core elements of the Boys and Girls Club model and why it works so well um is because it's not just sending them to you know somewhere where they can do activities after school. I mean, they're they're being welcomed daily um by people who are, you know, essentially the foundation of their their community, the support that they have within themselves. So, it's it's that idea that just empowering and encouraging and being available is showing that's that's the work that's happening that's um that's causing, you know, that we're seeing these outcomes from. So, it's really just being able to continue that. And that's the key is, you know, that because it's it's a collective effort, you know, it's it takes a it takes a village, it takes a community. Um, and I think naturally those numbers are just

going to continue to increase so long as we have the investment in our programs that we can provide those safe places, the safe people, um, and essent. Agreed. Yeah, because y'all's numbers it it makes the Boys and Girls Club a really easy organization to support. So, that's all. Thank you. Any other questions for Tor? Thank you.

Right up next is departmental review and it started 30 minutes ago, so we're good. Uh we will have Chief Griffin come first.

Morning all. Morning. Jonathan, how far you want me to get into this part here on our budget? I know Heather, you had talked a little bit yesterday. How much of that you want to go over today or I know we're going to meet again next week. Yes. As far as the budget side. So all the departments had a lot of needs and requests. Um most departments did not get anything. Um so the fire department we we are a little bit apart on their budget and what we had budgeted. Um but we are going to work that out next week and I think we're already closer than we think we are. Um so just know that going into this presentation. Yep. Is that is that good?

Yes, sir. You're happy? I'm happy. Daryl took me outside and said, "I need more money." That's all that's easy in in every department has gonna say. Yeah, that's right.

So, uh, with that, um, I've got a few paperworks I want to give y'all of some of the stuff that we're asking the growth that that we are seeing. Um, some good reading material. it will um explain everything pretty much to the tea on on on the growth that Chattam Park is um putting on us. Um, as town parks continues to grow, you know, there are spread out and ISO, uh, who gives us our ratings from the fire marshall's office out of Raleigh, you know, everything is done by road miles and as we make these roads, the Disney Dale Web, all these places, um, everything is done by mileage. Um it's not about the road flights, you know, like from station one out to into Chhattam Parks area was like two and a half miles and we're already exceeding the mileage. We had do have concerns u about our rating changing. Um to help that is of course it's going to take more money. It's going to take more stations. um the station that we're we've been talking with with with Jonathan uh up north will be off of Russell Chapel Road and that's going to be a big station. We're looking at 24 more people that we have to hire for that station and we're going to have to do that quicker than than you think. Um or we will start losing ratings. Um

see if one one qu would you like to explain the rating to some of our new commission that ISO rating is?

So we have three fire stations. We have one downtown um at 150 Sanford Road. We have one at 4170 Old Graham Road and the other one is uh 8 miles on Walter Bright Road. We call that our Asbury community station. And about 85% of our district is is hydrogen and we're getting we're getting more and mileage from station one, station two to station three. It's all it's all done by road miles and how we get there time frame and all that is a is a difference. Um we are getting checked again. We get checked every five years. We're getting checked I think in October of this year. um which will be a a headache. Um things have changed a little bit distribution and and we sort of feel like that may hurt us a little bit but the station locations um I know this the study that we've had where you know we're looking at four more fire stations coming up but the biggest I think the biggest priority for the town and us is the station north which is something um that's that's got to happen. Um, station two on Old Graham Road uses stays pretty much on the north side and we because of traffic, everybody knows what town traffic is like every day. Um, so we're having to bring station two closer to Pittsburgh. We just cannot make no time going through town. It's ridiculous. Um so we've picked up about 15% increase in calls on on this on the um station 2 area which is continuing to get more. they start the road project is even going to be more our ladder that we

have will help our ISO rating as we get it closer to Chattam Park area because it's so far out we we won't get full credit for the ladder in the Chattam Park right now at this at this um renewal. Can you please elaborate on that?

So that it's done by mileage um from station two to the Russell Chapel to the end is almost three miles. So we we're already a half mile and then as we go into Chattam Parks, you know, as the road miles goes, you know, it's longer. So it takes us out of that 2 and a half mile time frame. So, the fact that we have to station our newest, tallest ladder truck out so far puts it beyond the mileage limit to achieve a good response rating to get the to get the 100% rating for I get that right. Yes. Yeah. Thank you.

So, that's you know and and that that's what we we worry about, but we'll get the truck there. There's no doubt. is not going to the credit. Getting a a good rating is it is a it's a great for us, but it depends on how much money you want to spend to get that point. Of course. Yeah.

We have to be sensible about that. We know we need a fire station north. We've been needing one there a long time and and that will help us. We're working that way. I mean, I know T Johnson's been working with us. U we've met several times with a a builder location. moneywise that that's all yet to be heard of for sure. But you go talking about, you know, another station, you're looking at 24 people. So fire trucks, it's it takes three years to get a fire truck now. So it depends on us working together, making plans and and and doing this order.

When you start designing your fire station, you almost have to go ahead and order your fire trucks.

Yes. To get them in time. Yeah. and and the paperwork that that um Carrie give out, it talks about the 1710, the NFPA 1710. That's we're not there yet, but we are getting closer. Over the last five years, we we've been adding people and you know, see like a residential construction fire, how many people it takes, how many firemen you need, uh how many firemen you need on a apartment complex. We a long ways from having that, you know, and it keeps changing. used to be 12 people on a residential structure fire and they consider that a 2,000 square foot house. Apartments are huge, you know, so it's something that we have to keep going. Um the money that's that y'all going to have to provide for that it's continues. But it pretty much and then near the end everything that I've highlighted, you know, that's we don't want y'all to think this is something we're just pulling out out of our hat. This is This is going to make our community stronger. It's going to make our firefighters safer.

Yeah. And these ratings also impact people's insurance. Yes, sir. Absolutely. So, if we allow the ratings to degrade, people's insurance costs will increase, right? And then they'll fuss at us big time to some extent. Yeah. The bigger impact is commercial. That is correct. You're over a certain limit, your residential is not affected as much. Yeah, the commercial folks, that's that's where you get into the higher the rating, the better it is for commercial. I don't remember what the cut off is for residential. Is it um at six? Six. Six. Yeah. For you. Right now, we're three. What do you think you'll go to on the next one?

We're we're we're thinking we'll stay at a three. Uh it just depends whenever they come in and do the the maps. That's the reason we've asked Robbie for the the south village and the north the road miles. So, uh, ISO will look at that and we'll come up with that and they'll look at our distribution. You know, how how how long it's going to take us to get to Disney or that kind. You just shy of a two though. Last time was 5050. We was in two and a half. Yeah. Okay. I don't like to show that because you know if you if you if you lose it's like man you missed by a point. So,

yeah. So what else do the um does the rating is it just for insurance purposes? Okay. Yeah. Just insurance like Jonathan said I mean it really helps the commercial for instance Lowe's they're selfinsured so don't make no difference. If we was a 10 they wouldn't care because they're selfinsured. All this you know and I'm sure Hampton's probably the same way. But as as our commercial grows hopefully you know it's going to could be a drawing card. Hey, we can they got a good rating. I think I mean it's used for insurance, but I think it's also a good measure of best practices. Well, absolutely. Goal.

Yeah. And it's 1710 that you got. I mean, road miles um is a big thing. How long for us to get there? Um you know, they they even look at the miles per hour like Chattam Parkway. You know, it's what 35 miles an hour. all that's into a a program where they it's going to take you from here to there, it's going to take you five minutes. Where a goal is four minutes that it's just nothing we can accomplish. Y'all cannot accomplish that right now until we get bigger and finances become much bigger. So, I'm intrigued that you're telling us that the traffic in downtown, I'm assume that that's right along the circle or east and east and west.

Yes, sir. uh is causing delays that result in need for changes of operation. We asked this we've had assignments and calls and who gets go where are potentially impacting our NIFA NIFA ratings. Yeah. And I um I am curious. I have seen in other small very dense downtowns where there's signalization set up just for that purpose. Like when a call is out then there's signals that notify vehicles along that street you cannot proceed. You must stop or where however it's managed.

Yeah. Would it necessitate that we do that not just in front of the downtown firehouse but also around the circle? Yeah. I don't I don't know how you would ever fix the circle because you got parking. You know, when we we we go through a call now, I mean, if we were lights and sirens and we've got to the point where we we don't do that no more because where are you going? You know, people start getting mad or, you know,

maybe signals at each entrance to the circle could prevent cars from proceeding and allow you to go through. I really don't think that would help during the day, lunchtime on on the weekends, you know, it's like I don't know how many people come in from out of town, but everybody sees the traffic. It's not like that on Saturday and Sunday. It's just during during the day mornings, especially school traffic. People on Sanford Road, if they see lights and sirens and they just panic. Everybody panics. They might end up blocking the road rather than getting out getting into the circle and getting out of the way. That's that's the scenario I had not thought of.

Yeah. You're you're saying it's faster to get through the circle without lights and sirens because people can't move and stop and they don't know what to do. They freeze. So, you know, sometimes you'll see the fire trucks going through town. We're going trying to get there, but we can't. You should have seen it on East Street a couple weeks ago at like 4:00. Yeah. I think an ambulance came through and it Yeah, it looked like the snow apocalypse on I40. Or not knowing what to do, just pulling whichever way trying to get out of the way. Well, I I spoke to Shorty last week. You know, even that way they changed the signal up here by Als. I mean, there's traffic backed up now. I don't know what in the world they did, but boy, they really messed that up. I've heard there's 20-minute waits to Yes, sir.

to turn left to go west. Yeah. And we have DOT looking at that. Yeah.

So, as far as other thing like station where our ladder is, we're trying to keep that staff of six to eight people. Um we are getting ready to start a remodel. We're adding on for our kitchen. We're taking an office out, making our kitchen bigger. Um I we wanted three more people this year, but Johnson said absolutely not. Um actually, our plan was six and then it went to there. So, uh but I mean I know it it we're we're struggling also just like y'all are. Um Chattam Park has put a a damper on y'all and it definitely has put one on us. Um but we're getting there. You've got another remodel for the other station, too, right? No, just station two.

Yeah, I'm I'm I'm out of room. Downtown station. I mean, we got bunk beds. I mean, we're we can't put no more. The one to the south. That's Asbury. No, we keep three people down there. We're not That's That's done. That one's good. That's That's not That's not our busiest station. So, it's it's the middle. And one other thing, and I'll leave. I know y'all want to go to lunch in a little bit. Um, just so you know as as staffing, Asbury, if we have a structure fire in Asbury, all my guys from downtown are going, all my guys from station two are going and Pittsboro is empty.

And what we do, we we contact North Channel Fire Department to come stand by for us. Um, we are having multiple calls at one time now and we we get spread out and it's it's tough trying to answer all them. We've had a lot of, you know, have some older folks coming into Chattam Parks and medical has really picked up. MDAs, our wrecks. Um, one of the biggest pains in our butts right now is a cell phone crash, iPhone crash. people leaving their phones on the car and going off and they'd hit the ground and it lets you know they p us out. But you know, yeah, that's what happens.

I don't understand. It's like iPhone. So if you drop your phone in here right now, then it's going to contact somebody. It's going it's going to contact 911. 911 from an abandoned phone. Yeah. They fall off on cars often in the highways. Now, we have had iPhone crashes when we get there and it's been pretty bad, but it's like a 2% of that, but it's just it's just one of those real crash. It's just one of those we have to answer. We don't we don't send as many on iPhone crash as we did, right? But the guys are ready in case we do. You taken an approach or looked at an approach just for medical response. I wanted to ask

different vehicle configurations teams we have squads we have a squad one two and three at each station um for downtown if say I have four people there all the time if we have a medical call we're down to two as far as an engine or you know a fire call brush fire something like that okay what percentage do you say are like medical versus accident versus fire 5050 50 5050 medical goal and other

y and and it's about that with the county you know we have you know about that many town in in the county you know works about the same we actually had a few more fires in the county than we did last year you know here in the city limits what we call city limits Griffin can you describe the apparatus that you use in those medical calls so we last year we bought two new Taho okay we got off the state contract and the one at station three is a pickup truck. And as we get bigger, you know, when we have we have more people, you know, there'll be a time where

a engine company engine will run medical costs, which, you know, that's pretty normal. That's happening in the big cities because of staffing hiring. you know, we we we just had five last year, you know, that we got out of the academy. Um, hiring is is is tough. Um, and I can can I use you for an example? Say you want to be a fire lady, fire person, firefighter. You could go to Carrie with nothing and they'll start you out at $60,000. And it's hard to compete, you know. And my guys that we hire, they're level one and two EMTs, hazmat, they have it all. So, I know y'all trying to keep up with big cities and we are too.

What's your starting pay now? 585. Pretty good. Yeah. And what are the revenue sources that we're looking at when we're talking about fire service? They have all that. Please remind us. So, it's town of Pittsboro, you know, provides um we are providing 46% appro straight from general fund. Straight from general fund. And the county is providing 56%. Yeah. Again, I'm assuming straight from general fund. So, so essentially you asked for 11. Yeah. So, so last year we was at 11. Yep. And this year 11.25% cents for the county. So for for the count

there is a fire assessment at the county level. Yes. That's what I was looking for. Yeah. And that you can go no higher than 15 cents. I mean that's a I know there's been it's a state law. Yeah. But there's been people trying to to up that but had no success. Eventually they going to have to do that. But and I really think the re-evaluation has a lot to do with that. The reason they haven't done that because, you know, it changes so much when you re-evaluate. We every time we've had to go, you know, neutral because y'all were at 14.25 14.5 and then with the reval they came down to 11. To 11. Oh, so you did adjust it to something resembling revenue neutral. Yes, sir. Okay. And thank you. Yeah. Um

I mean we, you know, my board, you ask Jay, I mean they're pretty conservative, especially Jay. Jay gives me a hard time, but u we've worked through it. Believe it. So Chief, I have a question for you. If taking traffic out of the out of the question, what can we do to help you become more efficient? Okay,

we are doing pretty good job at that. Uh, extra staffing of course will will help us a bunch. Um, as we get the station north of town, um, that will that will cut a lot of a lot of moving around and and for instance, if if we go north us and in station two, then Asbury station has to move. I mean, we're moving all the time to cover to keep this town cover all that we can. The multiple calls at one time and just, you know, we're just we hope for the best that nothing else comes in. Staffing is probably besides Yeah. response time.

We're staffing, you know, we we're we're running out of room. You get 24 people when you hire you have you have 12 people on duty at the station, the new station. I mean you you that changes operations better for us and better for the community. Okay. Okay. Thanks. Thank you. Any any last questions? Thank you. Thank you, Chief. Chief, real quick, did you did you get a quote or a rough number on what you think the north station's going to come? I

I talked to Trip. I hadn't I hadn't got that yet. He's been working on the addition station two on the kitchen area. All right. Give me that. Okay. Is that going to work into the 2627 capital budget or then going to program that into 27 28?

So the um that conditional reszoning needs to go before the planning board and before you all for approval. Once it does um then at some point they will run their water and sewer because we're requiring that the site be you know pretty much not site not pad ready but buildable. Uh and then from there we need to go into design. So my hope would be we cut a ribbon in five years preferably sooner. Um but we are looking at a uh you want to say sooner Jay love to say sooner but you know

four years. Um but we're looking at more of a metal building construction. Um because it's north of town it's kind of to the left. It's should be somewhat hidden. Um but we're looking at a decent size station. and three bay. Yeah, it' be three bays and bedrooms and bathrooms is and you is the big thing. Two new apparatus or two new engines. You'll definitely need another Well, y'all going to have to have another ladder sooner or later. That's He don't want to hear that, but you are. Any brand preference, sir? Any brand preference? We're having trouble with both of them.

We are having trouble with Pierce and E1. This may be out of left field, but have we looked at importing? No, sir. It's not been proven. I understand. I've been proven. They've been proven abroad. Well, they haven't been proven here. Yeah. You know, I look at it like, you know, we got to have something we trust cuz of course, I'm I'm pretty important to myself and my guys are real important to me. Yeah. Anything about the merge? You want to talk about any of that? So they have 20,000. We have 20,000 in the budget for a merger study to conduct that study next fiscal year. And that merger with the county merging the fire department with the town of Pittsburgh.

Okay. Okay. So they'll they'll look at that on how uh what the property transactions will look like, what costs will look like. Yeah. All those different things that we'll need today. And there a lot of good for us and a lot of bad for us. A lot of good for y'all, a lot of bad for y'all. It will cost. It's one of those things we're going to have to do. in terms of recruitment and continuity of service and all these different things. It's it's a positive move. Uh but it will it will cost probably an additional 15 to 20%. Just based on retirement numbers.

Chief Griffin, I'd like to explain the reason behind my question. It's just that, you know, through my day job, I hear from other municipalities and their struggles with ordering delays, delivery to manufacturing delays. And I understand that the speaking of mergers, the mergers and consolidation in the fire apparatus manufacturing industry has just been really extreme. And um if if things are so bad in this country that we can't provide for our own needs, then maybe we should look at very carefully possible imports of of equipment. I mean, well, I'll agree to disagree.

Sure. Because I mean, somebody's got to work on it. Yeah. And uh that's that's the thing. I mean I I you know we we work with E1 mechanics and we work with Septton mechanics and we work with Pierce mechanics. Okay. All the fire trucks are having problems. The two problems that we're having right now is all about the Cumins motor. It has nothing to do with E1 or nothing to do with fire connections. It's this it's the parts. We got two trucks with the same code the same problems right now. That's good enough. But it's not just it's not the manufacturer, not the outfitters. Right. Yep. Appreciate that. Thank you. Have a good day. You chief and the fire department budget is in your inbox.

All right. Thank you. Up next is I'm going to Yes.

I and and a change in the agenda. I'm going to go through all of the departments. Jonathan and I are not going to switch back. Um, and I will try to do this as quickly as I can, but also please if you have questions, please stop me and ask those questions. So, I'm going to be going through this packet of all the um revenues and expenses um for the departments. So just as a general um the first two pages are um the estimated revenues for the town and um again the large the larger numbers are our ador taxes um and the um sales taxes uh which are broken down in like four categories at the bottom of the first page and and onto the second page. Um we do have some additional uh planning fees that we are that we are um going to be having in the uh upcoming well at your April meeting where we are adding a section design fee um to the fee schedule. Um and in the new fee schedule for 2627, we are going to be proposing a technology fee be applied to um full the planning engineering fees. So that'll be so you have there's two new line items on this revenue page. The biggest change um you'll see at the bottom of the second page on the revenues is that we are not taking any money from fund balance and there will be no funding from city of Sanford because they are not going to be utilizing our inspectors um in the upcoming fiscal year. So without those um revenues, you know, it is looking like our revenues are, you know,

dropping from last from the current fiscal year when in fact if you took those out, our revenues are are in fact increasing. Uh but we are not using any fund balance to um to make make it even make us whole. Um and the reason that we are wanting to do that is because we we need to leave our fund balance for our capital projects. We need to not be using it for our um operating expenses. Um because if we keep doing that we are going to run out of fund balance. Um and due to that because our budget is sort of shrinking because of that we had to cut some in a lot of departments. Um, and I'm going to try to explain as much as possible like where we cut out stuff. Um, but I know I will not get all of it. Um, so, um, under I'm going to just go into the department. So, the page three and four or sorry, page three, four, and five is the summary of all the expenditures of of every department. Um, but I'm going to skip to page six and start going through the individual departments. questions on revenues. We have more that'll be up to you all.

Right. The only you have something about I'm sorry. Yep. So the zoning permit fees y going up and is that because uh is this a stress u is it because describe why they're bumping up. The fees are is this a number? Uh so it is it is just due to um the number of applications we are getting. Okay.

So so you will see in the um what the fees that we are proposing for fiscal year 2627 there is going to be an increase in those fees like an inflationary increase. It's not going to be a significant increase. So some of that increase is due to the fee just going up but most of it is just due to absolutely the volume of um activity planning and engineering departments.

Um and so yes it's going up compared to what I budgeted in the current fiscal year. What we've already collected in the current fiscal year is has exceeded some of those line items. So that number is not actually that much greater necessarily than what we are currently collecting. And then the other thing is that so the fees that we are projecting for planning and engineering those are um like we um Jonathan said earlier we are trying to um get where that is covering 75% of the planning and engineering department budgets. Um right now actually that is covering more than 75%. But we are also it is hard to necessarily know how many applications we're going to get in the upcoming fiscal year. Um so that is also we have actually been a little more conservative. We're going to it's it's going to sort of depend just on how many applications we get where the where the volume um is going to be in the upcoming vision. Okay.

So um Just a highlight on the governing board budget. So across the board with all the departments, you're going to see obviously a large percentage increase in the group health insurance right now because that is um where I've stuck a lot of money um in and then hopefully when we get um an idea of what our actual increase is going to be, we can reallocate some of that money um to some other funding um options. Um so in um the governing board budget I just wanted to highlight so contracted services that's where you see we get we use our audit um that's where we pay for our audit from we have the funding for boys and girls club in there we have funding for to cover um the rental of this space for your board meetings. Um currently in the budget we do not have the f I don't have the funding for welcome center included in this version of the budget. So if that is something that the board would like to see it, we will just need to know that so that I can um try to work that into the next version of the budget. Um economic development line item that is the amount that we pay to Chattam DC um and it also includes the hotel incentive that we will be um paying for the next several years. And then under dues and subscriptions, that includes um dues that we pay to Central Pines. It includes the Zoom subscription for running these meetings and um dues that we pay to the League of Municipalities.

Another question on the economic development. Um that increase from like 8,500 to 379 that is the hotel incentive. Yes. Yeah. Delta the the the Chattam EDC is like $9,000 current, you know, in the current budget. Yes. So, where are we with what what page is this? Sorry, page six. Where where does our TJ Cog dues come from? Our Central Pines Regional Council. What are our dues? Where does that come out of? Dues and subscriptions under governing body. Yes. Okay. Yep. 6530.

Yeah. Thank you.

Um so then going to our administration department budget um starting on page seven. Um so our travel training increased um due to additional positions and some required training for some of those positions. Um under admin the the contracted services it covers um an annual fee that we pay for charge point um for the um the service there um our finance software Tyler the website there's additional fees that we pay to Central Pines for grant assistance um in the contracted services here um we pay for our um HR the go gather um software we have money in here um if we need to use our um financial advisor Davenport and we have the 20,000 for the fire study um merger in in this contract services um dues and subscriptions on page eight there are increases in there due to our um some changes in Microsoft licensing um that we will be seeing in the upcoming year and then our IT services That includes um we are continuing to use NetSmart for our data backup and um security. And then we are wanting to extend some of our laptop warranties for staff in addition to having some laptop replacements so that we can stagger um the replacement of laptops for staff.

What does our spending trends look like for IT services? Um I mean it is pretty FL it's just it's just the the them providing the data backup um and them providing the security and I think we're see this fis this upcoming fiscal year um how it works with NESmart and it may it's going to be something that at some point we are probably going to have to do u an RFP for that service and um and see how that falls but that's not been something that we want to rush into changing. So, Robert is has been here for six months. We're letting him get settled. He's done a lot in that six months and and that'll be something that we um continue to look at.

Yep. You know how I feel about that. I know. And Robert did save us a bunch of money on our car insurance. It was on our our telephone. Um immediately came in, switched our telephone service, which I think cut that bill in half. work and it's a much nicer service. Um, and we have apps that we can use and access it from home. Yeah, actually use the telephone now. It's that much better. Yeah.

Um, so page nine is our um one question. Yes. The line item town manager project 75,000. Can you explain that?

Right. That is a new a new line item this year. Um that is uh was requested by the town manager um for one of the um projects that is going to come out of that is his um looking into econ economic development opportunities in the town. So having a study done um I think right for the town. Um, and then if there are other additional, you know, it was it was to help him accomplish goals that the board set out for the town manager. Is there isn't there like a $5,000 max on something that like that would have to come to the board?

No, I think it's much higher than that. 50 spend up to 50 without board approval. Is it 50? I think it's 300. technically higher than that in our budget. If it's if it's in the budget, um so if if something's not in the budget, obviously it has to come to the board regardless of the amount. But I I'm pretty sure in our budget it's maybe 250,000. As long as it's originally budget budget if it's budgeted. If it's budgeted. Yeah. I'm not going to go buy land for a million dollars without telling you.

For example. For example. Just got that one. Sorry. Um, but really so throughout the year we run into small little things where people are like, "Can't we just do this or can't we just do that?" And it's 2,000 here, it's 5,000 there and it's impactful small things and I would like to just be able to do that stuff rather than trying to go through each person's budget and steal a couple thousand and then I tell him no. So, correct. Yeah. Uh, so we we run into I run into those small little projects throughout the year. It can be frustrating. Um,

I mean, we was assuming would still be informed in your update or whatever about what that was. Well, and anything that he does over $500 he has to get a purchase order for. taking all the fun out of this. It's not a brief 49, but 50,000 of that is um going to be set aside for the economic development strategic look at Pittsboro long term. I'm hoping to get that start. We've already I actually already interviewed some folks and probably should have consultant selected before the end of this fiscal year.

Thank you. Yes, sir. Thanks for asking, Jay. I appreciate that. I have a question about group group health. Like overall, I think we talked about a 49.1% increase. That's that's an estimate, right? Now looking at each department, you don't have a blanket 49.1% increase that um so some of that change is going to be due to the number of person if any personnel changes within within the department adding or subtract prior fiscal year. Okay.

Um so it's not just going to be you're not going to just see a 49% because there were different changes to personnel. um some personnel um you know we have the be the option where if you have insurance coverage somewhere else you can do um you can do the 50% option where we pick just give you the 50% of what we pay so in some department there are there employees that do that so so you won't see 14% yet thanks y we don't have a line uh an object code assigned yet for town manager projects no I have not created an account yet. Yeah, it's the same for all categories.

Yeah, with all new account. I don't I don't put an account number here until it's um until it's approved. Thank you.

Yep. Um so under on page nine the legal um so we just um are growing um the fee for um Paul Messi at 3% the same increase that we did for staff um for the um our cola um I do have additional funds in there under legal services that's for any like contracted out legal services that we need um for for specific questions related to potentially planning item or an admin item. um that are not that either Paul is not somebody you know doesn't have time or you know we need somebody more specific um if there's a specific HR thing you know it would be coming out of those that line item um on page 10 the engineering department

good on page 10 the engineering department. Um so uh the change in salaries here is related to um we moved our inspectors from under engineering to under um 54 under public works 5400. So um some of that um change in salaries is due to that. Um and then that's that affects obviously all the other line items under personnel as well. Um contracted services for engineering is pretty much um like if we need to do a third-party review of something, we have money in there um to do that. And then um dues and subscriptions has increased because we are doing additional um we have additional software to um assist the um engineering department specifically civil 3D um which it helps them review plans uh blue beam and and we've had ArcGIS but that is also in that um dues and subscription.

Yeah. and we do want to start taking a a larger step towards more GIS work in the next fiscal year.

Um, under capital outlay for engineering department, you will see $75,000 there. This is one of the two capital outlay items that made it into the budget. Um this is for a storm water program study which is the first step that we would need to do if we want to implement a storm water program where we are collecting fees from all residents and that those are getting allocated for storm water program items and expenses. So, um, we kept that in there because it is covered by the fees that they are collecting and it is something that we want to, um, we need to do this step. If we don't do that this step in the upcoming fiscal year, it would delay us by a year in terms of implementing any storm water program.

It it would be covered by fees. Yes, it's covered. Yes. Well, no, that 75,000 is covered by the fees they are collecting for just in general for planning engineering fees currently. And then and then when we implement a program that is treated like an enterprise fund. Um so the revenues and expenses have to the revenues from that program have to cover all the expenses like a study for SCF fees. Yeah. do the study to figure out what your theme could be and then I was just clarifying this this study is not paid for by the study like No, you're paying money for the stud. Yes. 55740.

Yeah. Well, it's not equipment. I mean, it's right. It just seems like I don't have Yeah, I'll have to actually create a separate capital for that department. That's one of about six studies that May wants to do around storm water and wetlands and all that.

Um so for planning um the change in salary. So we currently are not budgeting for a planning director in um in the upcoming fiscal year. Um they have they will have their their different planners um from senior planner down to planner one and then their um the intake person the development services technician I think is specialist specialist um is also in the plan in the planning department. Um contracted services um under planning that covers um open gov which is the platform that we use to accept applications. It covers the fees that we pay to the a center for the planning board meetings. Um and the decrease is related to the fact that we removed um our contract with code enforcement. Um so that is now being code enforcement is being done inhouse

or or complaint. It's complaint based. One question I understand that we're we're not using our inspectors are not going to Sanford. So, are they are they in that code enforcement? No. Our inspectors are under the public works department. We didn't lose any employees in No, no, we just we just shifted the department that they report to. Okay. So, they now so our our well Jeff we demoted to assistant um public works director. He's still also doing inspection work and then Johnny is our other inspector. So, we still have both of them but they are just reporting to Daniel now. Okay. Reporting under engineering. Yeah.

Thank you. And they had requested an additional inspector to start in January of 2012. Yes. You'll see that under the position requests that we do not have included in the current budget. But I think in 2728 this school year, we will need to hire another inspector, especially once the force main is complete. Um, and then these subdivisions really start cranking. Uh, Del Webb and Asteria. We're going to need more people on the ground checking our road, sidewalk construction, all those different things. That will go under engineering. That will go under public works. Public works still stay under public works.

And then Jeff, it is my hope that Jeff will take some more of a supervisory role, but then we'll supervise those inspectors, those two, Johnny and and the next person. And then we'll also assist in in those inspections. that like $70,000 savings we're talking about in planning is we've basically stopped active code enforcement and we're doing uh based plant based

you know if we see things when we're driving around we we address it but at the moment uh due to funding levels it's yeah if people call in with a complaint we take care of it Um so under police um so there this budget is not including any additional positions. This is keeping staffing um where it currently is. Um the sort of biggest change um biggest percentage change that you see is under contracted services. So this this is um due to the new body cameras and um dash mount cameras that we have for the vehicles um through Axon. Um that is about 50% of or like 50,000 was um that increase for those body cams. And this is going to be something that we will have in every budget year. But the um this was a necessary move to have reliable um up-to-date cameras um for our officers. Um and then there was an additional increase under the telephone line item for SIM cards for that service as well so that they have dedicated um SIM cards to access um for the for those um cameras. Um is the drone um and the drone training program that was mentioned before in here?

No, that is you'll see that on um so I gave you also this capital project. Um this is these are all the capital project um items that were requested by different departments and um it is not currently in the budget. Thank you. Y but we have included a phone in an application that we suggest. Okay. that we should hear back from and not just call us.

Um so you will see obviously that police department's overall budget decreased and that's because there are no capital items um in their in their current budget that we included. Um, so as Daryl said, um, they I have put in here, um, an amount that was only a 3% increase to the fire department. Um, I'm looking at page 16. They did they requested a 10.3% increase, um, which is 11.25 cents of at our um, penny rate. So they um they requested did I I didn't write it in um uh 2 million like 84,000. Um so we are working to get um that number back up. But that means that it just is going to depend on the numbers that we get from health insurance and what else we can move around um from other departments. So um because they do and you'll see um Jonathan did forward you their um budget information that they had sent to us um which does break down um and you can see the capital items that they are requesting um and their growth in um salaries because of some additional positions. Um so public works um so the increase in salaries within public works is um related to the fact that we moved the inspectors um under public works and we also moved our facilities maintenance um worker from parks under public works. Um so that is um some of that increase there. And then there were also some additional changes

to um position titles and some increases due to um additional supervisory um duties. Um buildings and grounds maintenance under public works includes the yearly request that we get um from Chattam um 911 memorial. Um so they request uh $4,500 yearly that is um allocated under buildings and grounds maintenance within public works. uh dues and subscriptions includes our I work software and we are using that for um not only the the work orders that people can submit on our website but we are also utilizing that for our vehicle maintenance uh tracking um and it is working

and for general internal customer service if people need help with hanging a whiteboard or fixing a chair or a light bulb went out. Yep. Yeah.

Yeah. And that's and it's working very well um for that as well. And it's a good way for us to track um and it's a good way for for public works to track um their um how they're spending their time and how much um you know brush pickup um what are different types of calls. And we're trying to make sure that we have good categories in there so that we are um tracking um that data usefully. Um in public works there are you know several line items like uniforms um safety supplies um that increase just due to additional staff in that department um POW bill. So we are restricted with um I can only budget um oh shoot 90 9% of what we collected this current year. So, um, that was an area that we had to cut because because, uh, Daniel was asking for the full amount of what we I've got this year, but I had to cut it back. Um, and that you'll see the same revenue amount on the revenue side. So, it equals

But you expect to receive more. We expect receive more and and when we do, you can do we can do a budget amendment, but we can't budget for more. Yeah. It's a restriction within the POW bill. Um, okay. Laws. So in other words, that's uh presenting an unrealistic picture of what our next Yeah, because we got 29,000 this year. Um and so and obviously we would hopefully that would increase in the next fiscal year, but yeah, we can't. So is the just natural increase in power bill funding due to our population increase? Is that right? Mhm. That's the majority of it.

Not our linear roads because it our linear roads have not technically increased significantly yet. Okay. The population has increased more. Is it formulaic though? Does it does it both and length of road? Yeah. 75% population 25% road mileage. Well, kudos to staff. um how much paving has happened in the past year. It feels like a visible increase. Daniel is doing great. Wonderful. Thank you. Thank him. I'll try to get the batch of roads that he's planning on for next year and I'll let you all know what those are.

Yeah, that'd be great. And and one goal we do have is the roads that are not um power bill I guess certified as far as width. When we go in to repave those, we do want to make sure we ride those because there are a couple one we were going to pave this year that we we stopped because it's only 14 ft wide. And so we would then be using pal bill money to pay a road that we're not getting credit for pow bill. So we gota some of these little tight side roads we got to widen a little bit. Interesting. There goes our road diet.

Well, 16 feet is still a tight road. Understood. Yeah. Yeah. But but still we're increasing impervious surfaces because the the funding requires that in a way. Also, if you're looking at let's say public safety. Sure. someone parks on the street because they don't have the driveway size and then you try to get a fire truck down that road, you're you're in trouble. Okay. Sorry to tangent. You're fine. Right. Um

and and just to let you know, so in public works department, they originally asked for um their operating budget um an operating budget um of 736,500. So when you look at um on page 18, their total operating at the top um we had to reduce it to 687,200. So just showing that that we're not just cutting capital items from um budgets, we are c cutting um operating items as well. Um I did not track this for every department because some departments came in all already pretty tight. They did not ask for a lot of extra and not that public works was asking for a lot of extra.

The biggest items obviously are the capital. You You understand where I'm coming from with that? Yeah. Robert, your your phone savings that, right? That's that's a win. Yep. Yeah. So those items I mean we have we have cut um some of the items you know in in personnel in terms of from what we currently have this year um or that we have allocated for bonuses. Um we've cut that number back. Um we we have cut um just cut that more right and that may end up getting cut but um we have cut

um you know we're not including some requests um for additional software um and I can detail those items as well that would be in in operating and not necessarily under capital. stuff. And I'll try to send that out. Uh well, it may get sent out with the version um of the budget for the May meeting because then we'll have it'll be a little more finalized. Just generally, you're going to put this out later.

This this is a working doc. We don't typically put this this document out. um we wait until the May version when we when we um do the public hearing notice and we publish that's our that's our official first version of the budget. Yeah. This is just a working um document version. Yeah. Yeah. Because this may have some things in it that you don't want to see and then may have some things in it or that may not have some things you want to see. So we want to make sure we have that put together before send it out.

Yeah. Um, okay. So, just quick, so public works, um, sorry, public buildings and grounds, um, page 19. Uh, not very many changes to that. that is just essentially covering um utilities, any maintenance, equipment maintenance um um for um mostly the police department building um and um and then because we are allocating rappy I think under parks. So, and then uh

just just general like category question I guess like why do we put the police on?

So, we have so I've left it there because that's how we treated it when the building was shared by admin and police. I just haven't moved it under police because it was a shared building. So we had a separate department for those um for all that upkeep of that building. And when we have new town hall, new town hall will be under this that budget like any of the maintenance for new town hall will be under 5500 under because because again it's shared by multiple departments. Um,

and with our facilities maintenance division now created, we may want to Yeah. And there may be some reworking. Yeah. In terms of departments, um, I didn't want to reorganize any departments in this upcoming fiscal year, but in the next fiscal year, we may we may be combining um, engineering and planning under development services department. There may be some changes that you would see and we might do something different with the facilities maintenance. Um I'm

dollar savings might mention this report because I think that I have heard a rumor that uh Daniel's team is finding say eager land owners to dump the leaves rather than taking it to the landfill. Is that correct? Oh yeah. Yeah. So that that would be a reduction in yard waste tipping is what I'm getting at. The the town attorney is the number one leaves. Yes. Okay. um pay him and leaves. Yeah, kind of are a little bit. You might take it up. His request each year is more than than we assign.

Um on page 20, sanitation. So I already mentioned this. Um so that increase um I'm showing an increase of 10.5 for contracted services. So that's just uh uh for uh the GFL contract and the hazardous waste um that we would be paying to the county um for that. Um and so that does include obviously the 2.4% 4% increase in the GFL contract, but the additional amount is due to um just growth in um our number of residents that are that are getting trash service and the um and there is a revenue that offsets um most of this amount. Some of it is just covered by regular taxes uh and not the um not the fee. But there will be so in the in the budget proposal there will be an increase in um the fee that we charge on taxes for um sanitation but it'll be um approximately that 2.4%.

And you had mentioned bulk pickup before also. Does that track peer or public works or so? So public work I mean so we we try to track our bulk pickups with the I work software um that public works does. Yes. So public works is doing all the bulk pickup. That's not G. There's not a line item in sanitation or in um No. So that yard waste tipping um so that is for items that they pick up and have to dispose of either at um the county's um landfill site or at the GFL landfill site in Sanford. So that second line item, the yard wastist tipping, that's that's for that. I try to separate it out.

That be is with the yard waist tipping. I mean, I'm I'm kind of curious generally like if we're picking up stuff and driving it to Sanford for like what what percentage of that is. Yeah. But I don't track I mean I'm not tracking like the the the vehicle usage. I mean it's just the the fee that we're getting charged from the the transfer station. Yeah. Um, and Daniel may be track I I'd have to ask Daniel how much he's tracking and if we could calculate something maybe that's we can use Eye Works or something. Yeah, I mean it's not a it's not a large amount overall. It's probably worth breaking down, but you're saying separate it between the yard waste and the bulk pickup.

I was curious. I'm not saying to separate it because, you know, it's $8,000. Yeah. But I think from a service provision standpoint, I think it is important to know where these services are being requested. You know, if it's leaf pickup or if it's picking up, you know, couches and mattresses, where are those services being requested the most in town and at least the the name of yard waste that encompasses bulk pickup as well, right?

But again, this and this doesn't really reflect the amount of time that staff is on it. Um so that that is a is a important factor too um is the amount of time that staff is spending on on those items. Um but that is not reflected obviously in this line item which is less because of the grapple. Yeah. Yep. Yep. Because I do it with one man or two rather than three or four. And Daniel's got some some tricks up his sleeve to make this more efficient in future years. But we're we're going to need an equipment investment to make that happen. Um, and that's just something we couldn't fit in this year. So,

more than a year, but when I last tried to find on our website how to request a bulky item pickup, it was buried very deeply. Um, do we have a way for the public to access I works? Yes. Yep. So, the public can can file work order requests each and submit a service request. Fantastic. Thank you. And so just bulky orders can go to that page. Pick up, please pick up any Y. Thank you. And people can even say, correct me if I'm wrong, but people can even say there's a pothole in my street. Yeah.

Or a street sign. Yeah. My sidewalk is broken. Yeah. get a ton of requests. Um, okay. So, page 21, um, recreation, uh, personnel has decreased, uh, partly due to a position moving to public works, um, under salaries. Um

so when we created the facilities maintenance division the individual in parks that was main or cleaning the bathrooms and helping that they moved under facilities. So now that the two person crew that's handling all that stuff for us.

So even though the the person's supervisory position moved over, we're still accounting for that labor from building and grounds maintenance under recreation. No, no. Their their position moved. Their position moved. Um so they're set. So the salary line item decreased because that position was removed from parks and it was added to public works. Um the increase in um buildings and grounds maintenance. So that is related to um athletic athletic field equipment, gravel mulch, sand for parks, um small playground replacements, um repairs, uh benches, trash cans, you know. So with additional um sort of as our service levels um increase, then we have additional items that we have to obviously keep our maintenance um up there. um under contracted services for parks. Um so the that is like Night Farm Park. Um the splash pad maintenance, we have to contract that out. We currently contract out um landscaping, you know, the mulch and stuff at Night Farm Park. Um green some greenways maintenance is contracted out. We do have some mowing that is contracted out. Um for the a lot of the parks, we rent uh portagons, so those are a contracted out service. Uh we also have um some money in there for um just continual downtown rain garden repairs um because that stuff gets broken easily. The the paver the the ledge around the the lane gardens. Yeah.

Um on the splash pad, I think this is important. Yeah, we we we're going with a different company. They are more expensive, but we think they're going to be better. And I think spending a little bit more money to keep that splash pad open more is is worth the money. Yeah. I mean, that is our most visited park by far. And u keeping that flash pad open and going, I think, is far more important than Yeah. the additional five or $10,000. They do service work on it and or they just routine.

They do they open and close it. They do service work. Um I believe in the contract they are going to be visiting it daily to check to you know check on um making sure that it's up and running and everything's working well. So because it is also a company that is um servicing uh the YMCA or paddles I can't remember. Uh so it's a company that's already in the area um that is that is servicing that. Can you talk a little bit about the general liability insurance? It it bumped up. Um yes. So that is um what is that

the addition? No, it's not Arafi. That's the property. So um that's the real and personal property um is some of that um the general is um additional parks um are are under there. Um and so that additional parks has with with Night Farm Park. Um, so some of that jump is also just because I did not budget correctly for this current year. So I am increasing to reflect the additional liability insurance that we have for some additional parks. Is that percent increase correct then?

Yeah. I mean not for not when you're comparing I uh I'm trying to remember what this current year's um charges were. Um so we went over budget in that line item this current year. So it's it's uh uh Okay. So, you're looking for it to grow? Yes. Or 100%. Well, yeah. I mean, grow by 300%. 300%. Well, over this year's budget, not over this year's over what I budgeted, but not what we actually got charged this current year. So, I was looking I I'll get you the numbers. So, but that is um we are seeing increases in our insurance just because we're expanding our parks. Yes.

Correct. I don't need those numbers. And the add Okay. And the additional, you know, because we're ensuring um additional equipment items. Um the splash pad is an extra liability. Um but the like the new equipment at Rockidge Park that als you know that got increased our insurance. Um our our newer vehicles are increasing our auto insurance. the more vehicles obviously we get and then the additional properties that we are purchasing um are increasing our skate park skate park as well yeah yeah that was that's a biggie I'm sure

does that include like future parks like monier monkey so it includes I mean so the land is currently there but as we add structures to it the our insurance will go up so just having the parkland planned that's minimal when you're adding so like Monikur Pittsboro is not currently open is not a functioning park that is just being covered at at a sort of base level once you're adding structures to it and you're adding facilities that where people are using the parkland yes our our liability insurance will go up and

how do we assess what our liability insurance should be for for park hazards do you have a a contractor that tells you how much it should be or Well, we have so we do all our insurance through the League of Municipalities. Okay. So, they have adjusters that come out and do an assessments. Okay. Remember with the skate park, we had to add the fence. Mhm. And that's why Yeah. because they came out to assess to figure out what they would have to charge. Okay. Thanks. So, I want to do a quick time check with lunch. We're at We're past 12:30, but we've got um downtown, I guess, in Capital left section.

Yeah. I'll just here. So, how do we want to get I say go through downtown and capital, get lunch, and then present as soon as possible with me that I I can do whatever. Capital's pretty easy. There's a lot to ask for and it's all out. Yes. Next. Um, so recreation, ju just speaking of capital recreation 25,000. That's for the baseball lights at the clinic. So this was the second the the only other item that was included from our capital request and that's because we made a commitment already approved with

the baseball. Yep. Yep. East Chad. Um so then just quickly so downtown um um so just to let you know they originally requested approximately 44 491,000 in their operating budget. So that's that's just the operating section. Um we reduced that to 273,000 approximately. Um the biggest cuts in there were um reducing the facade grant um allocation from um they were they requested 100,000 with 50,000 for building um grants and 50,000 for facade grants and we cut that to 25,000 each. So a total of 50. Um, we also cut 145,000 from contracted services which was related to um some of the the amount allocated to wayfinding signage um and um different art projects. So, we still left money in there for art projects and the wayfinding we just reduced the amount. Um the other thing in contracted services is some money for marketing and then um we have a contract with Placer Labs and so that contract is under is in there. Um under salaries that is is just one full-time employee um which is a current employee. Um, additionally, you will see on the capital project list that that uh an additional position was requested that it's not currently in the budget. Um, and under event sponsorship um the increase in that is um largely related to the farmers market. Um but for that there is an offset under revenue which so it really nets to zero. What's the revenue from the farmers

market? We pay ourselves. So, so we as a municipality cannot just wave a fee. So, the way that we um give people um the option of not paying the fee for an event is we sponsor the event and we then have to pay ourselves for that event. So essentially we are expensing an item under um downtown and then we are paying ourselves that under revenue for rental for a wreck rental. Okay. Um like $25,000 event sponsorship increase is the farmer

because because it's a it's a one it's 52 weeks and and currently under our current fee structure it's $500 per week. Thank you. It's a really worthwhile um No, I mean we've gotten very positive feedback from them that it has that I mean sure it's increasing uh the traffic traffic. Yeah.

Um so um then just the last um department is our debt. Um so that increase is related to the loan for the Rafy building. Um additionally we have uh um a second equipment loan that we are that we will have to pay in the upcoming fiscal year that we are not currently paying in this fiscal year um from the loan that we closed at the beginning in um September of of this fiscal year. And then it's our rental space um for town hall as well. um the capital project list. I mean again let me know if you have any questions but these are the items that were requested um by the different departments and um the only two that made it in are that are the stormwater fund study and um the Mlanahan baseball lights. So, at what point do we start uh accounting on a a capital planning? Maybe this is a different document that I'm thinking of. Maybe there's a there is an actual capital

CIP plan that will be at the May meeting. It'll be part of the budget um presentation, right? Um, and so, you know, we discussed the new fire station on the north side of town. We know that at some point we're going to have one on east side of town by Eubanks. Um, at what point do we start putting those things on the radar in terms of trying to assess some kind of dollar figures to longer term capital needs? So, we have dollar figures in our our capital improvement plan. Those are in there.

There are dollar figures in there. It's it's just that right now. I mean, so ideally, yes, we would be creating a capital project fund and we would be sticking some money in there ahead of time. Ideally, we just don't have that money to do that. So, again, this helps helps the public understand, right? So, um, yeah, without doing a tax increase, we do not have the money to fund those capital projects because I mean, we've cut a lot from our budget. There's not much else that we can cut with without it impacting the services, right? So, thank you. Y, so that'll be in the CIP in May.

It may it'll be included with the documents like it's not part of the public hearing for the budget, but it is included um with the budget documents. Yep. Thank you. All right, we'll do a recess until 1:00. Get some lunch, get back in here. Okay, 20-minute lunch. can eat whether

What? John, right, we'll be back in session. Up next, close to right on time, is a presentation on the downtown Pittsboro properties project.

We can go back

and check this mic. How's that sound? Good. All right. Well, hello everybody. Um, thanks for having us today. Um, thanks for not letting us get in the way of lunch because this could have gone a different way. Um, that was supposed to be funny. I'm sorry. Um, well, we're here again to present basically what is a midterm check-in or a midterm review of our work in progress for the um, downtown property study. Some of this information you will have seen before, but I'll try not to be too repetitive, but it's always good to do a little bit of level setting. Uh we'll do a project overview today. We'll talk about our work to date. Uh mainly the synthesis of the various inputs that we've received that's going to direct us as we move forward uh with the remainder of the project. Uh and then we'll talk about some potential site uses. Uh and then we'll just have a general discussion. The project overview. We all know why we're doing this project, but again, it's just a good reminder that we are looking at the publicly owned properties that are located in the heart of downtown uh that are owned by Chattam County and the town of Pittsburgh along with a couple of private property owners and um you might say the uh quasi governmental agencies. Um, we're going to position the site, we want to position the site for redevelopment in a manner that's consistent with the community vision, adopted plans, and the technical and market feasibility. We consider both public benefits of redevelopment and improvements and also the private part of the redevelopment and ideally begin to craft some public private partnerships. We all know where these sites are located. As you may recall, last time I was in front of you, I went through each one and discussed how each of them are strategically positioned and how the geographic aspects of them, the size, location, uh, shape, uh, lend themselves to certain opportunities. I'm happy to

do that again. And we've learned so much about these properties, uh, over the past few months that I can go into even greater detail about all the opportunities involved with each of them. You saw this slide last time but it's it also again for level setting purposes it's really important to go through uh these aspects of the project. Uh you know the ma the the main thing here is this is obviously once in a lifetime opportunities. It's very rare that a a city or a town of this size uh has so much uh land available uh so much so many ways to control its future uh in a very direct way. And um we think that's an amazing opportunity collectively and both both collectively and individually for the for the specific uh plots of land. We really see this as a phased uh strategy but also a holistic strategy in that if you redevelop all of these you can also look at how you can make improvements between each of them and improve downtown as a whole. We of of course as I said before we want to leverage the public ownership. That's your primary uh bargaining ship so to speak in terms of uh charting the path forward for for the future of these sites and for downtown. Really focusing on mixed use and infill development just by nature of these sites being located in the heart of downtown really lends itself to both of those attributes of development. Context sensitive design is extremely important. We all know that downtown Pittsburgh has a unique character and charm that we've all got that we've gotten to know uh very well over the past couple of months that is um very special and it's not something as I said last time you can't really land a spaceship or some something that doesn't belong in Fitzro uh and expect it to fit and expect it to be successful. Um we explore opportunities for adaptive reuse. Uh we've learned a lot more about

this aspect of the project as well. Um uh there's a handful of existing buildings that um are what I I like to say is slam dunks for adaptive reuse. Um have a lot of great inherent potential and of course with adaptive reuse you have the ability to capture the embodied energy of the building. So there's a sustainability factor associated with adaptive reuse and it also speaks to the potential uh to to help um to reinforce the character of the place when you can adaptively reuse a building. And then lastly, but certainly not least important, we want to prioritize walkability, affordability, economic development, and placemaking as part of the project. So, what have we done since we last spoke? Uh, we've engaged you obviously uh and we continue to gauge engage the leadership of both the county and the town on a bi-weekly basis. As part of the study, we've conducted our due diligence. That's technical feasibility, technical due diligence, investigated where all the utility lines are, what the grade is doing, uh the physical aspects of the site, all the things that you do when you look at a piece of property. We've looked at uh we've done a market study and we've come up with what is basically a technical highest and best use analysis. And we've done community engagement. Community engagement is probably the most important part of this work because we really want to hear what people have to say about what the future of these sites should be. You know, you can do all the technical analysis that you want, but not really um going to tell you very much unless you hear from the people who live in the place about about what what their ideas are and also some of the constraints. As part of our engagement, we kind of did uh two processes, if you will. Um uh an in-person process and a and a sort of an online uh process. The online process involved uh obviously having a website where folks can obtain all the information that they need to about the

project including ways to be involved um and also an online survey. We

did two types of online surveys. One is a very general survey about the project and we also did specific surveys. So if you were interested in a particular piece of property, you can go and provide us all the information that you wanted to about that. The in-person process uh involved um us providing materials to town and county staff so that when they are set up at various events uh uh trail trails and treats was that right? Did I get that right? F things like that that um you know you can set you can hand out information and again tell people where to go to provide their input. We also did an openhouse here in the a center. Um that openhouse was one day but there were two sessions. It involved a map exercise where we asked folks to put dots on maps. Um, and those dots did mean something and they gave us a lot of valuable information about the future or potential future of the sites and the individual structures on the sites and also some people put dots on parts of the town that were not the sites that we were interested in. But as always tell us a few things as well. I think that covers everything about the engagement and the technical feasibility uh technical diligence that we've done. Um, and I'll hand it to Jeff to talk about how we're going to bring it all together.

Pressure. Pressure's on, Jeff. So, yeah, look at this slide. Mine's longer than his slides.

So, um, we're not you have the full market analysis in your in your reports. So, we're not going to walk through it in detail. What we try to do is extract sort of major takeaways from the market analysis. Um, and this this slide is basically summarizing that. Um, you know, generally there's a um retail vacancy rate about two and a half% within a five mile radius of downtown, office vacancy of.3%. Um, we've got a growing multif family demand. Um, and you got 8,000 jobs within 10 minutes of the daytime population in this area. So, generally there's pretty strong demand for retail, office, and um, retail in this area. So, um, I think that's all intuitive to everybody. The market analysis now market analysis confirms that. So um kind of how those that market demand relates to the different uses um you know the highest and best use findings. So for each of the sites the market analysis basically goes through and you can see this in the report. It identifies the highest and best uses for each site um and and generally for most of them there's a retail component. For the larger sites there's residential um and then um you know there's always a retail restaurant component with kind of associated with your retail. There's some support for office in in the downtown area, but it really is kind of focusing more on the residential and and related sort of restaurant, retail, restaurant, retail, residential, you know, clearly play off each other. You need the residential to support the um to support the retail. Um we're all familiar with housing gap. There's a 12,000 plus units, you know, needed um through 2029. um in this area there's a a for sale gap of this primarily workforce um housing. Um and then you just kind of an important point to keep in mind um you know even if we built all these sites out for residential at their maximum density you wouldn't make a dent in your housing demand. So at the end of the day it's you know that we're going to have to decide the county and the town are going

to have to decide you know what kind of housing it wants to focus on in this area. But generally the market analysis supports all types of housing. It's really what what you want to focus um focus on kind of going forward. Quick question on that number. You said in this area is that Pittsboro County greater what were what was the radius for the residential recall? Um I think it was she actually has that in the report. I can't remember what Yeah, it's actually a kind sort of a a drive time just outside of the center point of the city. Um it's both city and county.

Yeah. Yeah, you'll notice like the the it's for the jobs it's 10 minutes, you know, for the retail it's five five mile. And the one thing we don't have on there is what the radius is for residential, but there's there's a residential um sort of sort of radius as well. Um one of the things that you know we will note um is sort of a tension between what's you know between the demand and what's happening on the ground. Um you know the county is planning to move 500 plus employees out of downtown. So this market analysis is kind of a snapshot in time now where we have these employees downtown. Moving all those employees out will affect the demand um you know eventually. And so that is not that that invalidates the market analysis just it's just something to keep in mind as we're evaluating demand going forward as these properties are developed.

For the market analysis with the office office vacancy rate that to me says that we have a demand for more office space. But does did did y'all include in those numbers the county offices themselves? I don't think we did. Okay. I don't think that was included because if so then that number wouldn't be as strong. But if that if if we did not look at government office then that's a pretty strong indication that we need more offices in I don't think we did because um honestly we weren't sure where the office was. We don't have that specific information. So that really kind of factored into the analysis. Thank you. And and I'd say too while they're leaving downtown, I think they're still within the 10-minute base because it's three miles outside of

it's just that walkable ready, you know, access the lunch crowd, um, you know, the coffee crowd in the morning and things like that. So, it will have an impact and we're not saying it invalidates it, but you'll have other uses coming downtown. It it is something to keep in mind though and it's obviously a customer customer base that could be repopulated with additional uses on the subject sites.

I think the bottom line is to take away from market analysis. Like I said, it's a snapshot in time. Right now, we're talking about a phased approach with these properties. We've got several several sites, several large sites which will be developed over time over many years. Um, and so, you know, any assumptions we're making today will change in the future. So, just we we'll keep that in the back of our minds. Of course, we'll we'll note that as we as we kind of wrap the report up. But again, not saying that you need to, you know, redo a market analysis every 5 years, but if you're putting a property out, you know, in five or six years, um, this conversation may be different depending on what's going on. Next slide, please. Yeah, it's clicker right there. Oh, I didn't ask.

There we go. So this again is is is summarizing sort of the um you know the demand for the the for the mixed uses downtown which is restaurants, local businesses. You know residential food and beverage as I said kind of the strongest uses for these sites. Um they're downtown mixeduseoriented um they're they're really they thrive on street level activity um and vibrancy. Um we talked about how housing is widely needed. Um this is a The workforce price range represents majority of the unmet demand. Um I think we talked about that before. I'm trying not to repeat myself here. Um and again we talked about sort of the value of existing charact existing character builds. We did get in in sort of feedback from the community. There was interest in reusing um reusing some of the existing buildings and the redevelopment and not just tearing everything down. So, we focused a lot on kind of evaluating what potential value is. We're using adaptively using these buildings. Um, that's a that's a that's a that's a conversation that we'll kind of continue to an issue continue to explore as we come back with recommendations on individual sites. Um, you know, historic character is viewed as an asset, but not an obstacle. And it was interesting kind of evaluating feedback we got from leadership, elected officials, what we're hearing from the community, and then what our on the ground assessments of the properties are looking like. Um and and of course as you kind of dig into a building you realize that you know while it would be neat to reuse it might not be practical to reuse it. So that's a tension that we're going to have to kind of struggle not we're going to have to reconcile that as we move forward um and kind of level set expectations um with respect to adaptive reuse. But there are some opportunities there and there might be some interim opportunities to reuse some of the existing buildings on the site in the interim if it doesn't look like that a full redevelopment is sort of viable now. there might be an opportunity even if it's vacated to use that space for

something in the inter room and then you turn it into something more later. So interim use is also on the on the sort of broader you strategic uh list of strategic options from the sites. Is there anything else we wanted to say about this one? Yeah, just real quick. Um, you know, one one thing that I would add is usually when you do a project like this and you go ask the community what they want to see. Almost everybody says that they want more parks and open space and green space and so we heard that loud and clear and there's a way to satisfy that and and have mixeduse development that finishes out the downtown as well. And that would be the second thing that we heard. people seem to have a really good understanding of that of the ability for these sites to continue building out the existing fabric of downtown. So, um this is sort of the structural variables and areas of attention. um when you'll note that the market analysis does contain the highest and best use um analysis for each of the properties and I think we talked to everybody talk to you all the first time we we presented you know there's highest and best use from a market perspective and then there's highest and best use from a community perspective um you know when we're talking about highest and best use from a market perspective we're you know trying to maximize the financial viability of the site you know through current conditions but again the as as Alan just said the public definition of highest and best use may be different. It may be may focus more on civic cultural and preservation goals. So just to be clear when we say highest and best use we are looking at the highest and best use from a market perspective and then we have to reconcile that with what we're hearing from from a public perspective and that that's an important point to keep in mind and we're actively you know that's factoring into all of our conversations. Um again this is a tension we've already mentioned it. We there is a tension between what the mark analysis is showing and the fact that we have employees leaving downtown for the new county offices. Um you know again we're pointing out that

you know the 500 plus employees represents 12.6% of the local employment based downtown. So that's not a significant a number of of folks that are moving just to kind of give you some idea of the the relative importance of that downtown um base of county employees across all the sources of input that we we received. Um commission you know the commissioners all ranked elect officials ranked the central courthouse um as the highest sort of priority site. Um and then again, community engagement generated the greatest input in that area as well. What you would expect, it's essentially located downtown is sort of the the um the center of activity for the downtown. So, everybody's very concerned about what's happening in that in that county office complex. Anything out there?

This just a reminder of the map of the sites. And then now we're going to pull up a map that kind of in a very very simple way kind of starts to point to the potential uses. Um, and forgive the simplicity of this map, but really this is just a prompt discussion um to just kind of indicate how we think some blocks are better for some uses than others and and begin to sort of paint the picture of of of what these individual sites can hold. And

so the best way to walk through this, Alan, do you want to go through? We could just we can go in order. And so you see the legend on the side. It's pretty straightforward. Civic community uses, green space, park or plaza, uh community, sorry, commercial, and then we lump that in with office and retail. So your commercial uses. Uh we separate out hotel because there's certain uses or certain sites that lend itself more to hotel than others. And then of course residential. Um and going from, you know, it's a little chaotic. So bear with us here that we go to A through F. Uh we again we we already kind of assume that everybody knows where all these sites are and we're familiar with the clustering. Um A is the county administrative complex. Um and we think that a great that might be a good use for a boutique hotel. Um that is essentially located. It's easily accessible. It's visible. Um and it provides uh guests who may stay at that hotel with immediate access to the surrounding fabric. I.e. that that's your customer base. that can start to support the existing and future bars and restaurants that are right in downtown. Um, we also think it's a great use for residential. So, would you have both of those in the same site? Probably not. So, that's kind of where you get into your choices. It's a great site for residential for the same reasons. Folks could live right in the heart of downtown. It's a big enough block to be able to accommodate a healthy amount of residential. So, a development deal would make sense economically and you can also achieve the right amount of density at that location. When we study height and density at that site, we start to think about how we might want to back some of the height off away from the historic courthouse, how we might want to segment that block in order to provide a maybe a midblock pedestrian connection between the two courouses. Even after you do all of that, there's still enough room to have a a hotel or residential complex with parking in the middle of the block. What's great about that parking in the middle of the block is that you don't see it from the surrounding streets. It's a it's just a good efficient way to lay out the block.

So, that's why I'm talking through all of that at that level of detail. And of course, it's a great place for green space, civic space. It's centrally located. It's the heart of downtown. It's where people naturally want to gather and it's most people really want to see something happen like that. Does it need to be a 5 acre park with ball fields and things like that? It can't be first of all, but it doesn't need to be too big is the point. It just needs to be a place that's more of a civic square. And then commercial, of course, anything you do there, especially if you do an open space, you're going to want to line that with uh when I say line it, you mean basically having uh features along it that that that basically spill out onto it. So, a bar or a cafe that has tables, uh, ground level retail that has transparent windows that people can see in and out of that essentially activates the space. So, that's where that commercial component comes in. So, I'm kind of verbally painting a picture of how that may unfold as we think about these simple squares and why we made some of those decisions to kind of follow up on that. I mean, it's it's good that you kind of went into that detail. We're not going to do that for all of them because we don't have time. But ju just to give you an idea um of sort of the complexity of considering options for these sites. Um we've been focusing well I've been focusing on the past few days just on the fire station site which is site C down for those along Sanford road south Sanford road. We've got a civic community facility or commercial identified for that site. That is two small pieces of property. It's on Sanford Road. But just considering everything going on with that site, there's an existing building there now. There are and it has it has high ceilings and it has potential reuse. Um there's limited parking on site. There's kind of limited parking on street. There's conflicts with adjoining um adjoining residences. There's sort of the frontage issues along Sanford Road. There's there's a number of things are actually going into just the analysis of two small site two small parcels on one on one side of the building. We're having to work through that. There's

there's different several different development scenarios for that. Um well, first of all, one major impediment is that the town doesn't control it and the county doesn't control it. It's owned by the fire department. So, there's an ownership issue that we'll have to work through at some point and that'll have to be you again, we'll have to figure out what happens to the fire station. Does it need relocated? How is it paid for? That's all going into this consideration of one site here. Um, once we kind of get past all that, getting to the point of what do we do with the property, you know, if the if the town does get control of the property, does it just sell the property and try to control the development of that property through an entitlements process? Does it ground lease or develop the property with a private developer? Does that private developer tear it down or does it reuse it? What's the preference of the town in this specific situation? So, there's there's three or four options to do with just one small site with one building on it. And and part of the challenge of this task is it's great to have all this property, but now we've got to multiply that by, you know, 22 and we've got to come back with an analysis that that gives you gives you some parameters to consider potential reuse and redevelopment of these sites going forward and and kind of taking that in in context with what you're trying to accomplish on the site from a civic perspective and from a land use perspective. Um, it's it's it's a pretty heavy lift. We're we're kind of working through these. This is kind of where we are right now. how we've identified potential uses for the sites, you know, targeting where we think the best the uses should lie among sites in relation to each other. Um, but then as we move forward, we're going to dig into individual sites and assemblages and come back to you and say, look, so here's the impediments. Here's when we think this could happen. And then even when it can happen, you still have additional decisions to make in the future. um based on an updated market analysis based on where you are from an occupancy perspective. You have to decide whether there are civic and community facilities that are going to be incorporated in the project. Um we have to decide whether green space is going to be incorporated as well. So there's a lot going into the sort of analysis for these sites. But

yeah, and that's a great point Jeff and so you can imagine what Jeff has said and I kind of repeat it is that each one of these clusters comes along with its own complex conversation. Um, and you know, we could we could go along and I'd like to kind of continue going along and very maybe more high level than I did with site A. Just kind of let you know why we put certain squares down and we didn't put others down. You know, Jeff already touched on C. I mean, the reason why we we don't have residential on C is because it's generally not a great place for residential in terms of the amount of units you're able to achieve to make a development deal work. And also it's you know there that that fire station especially since it could that be adapted reuse really lends itself to other things. So could be a community center could be some some commercial. Um you know initially we were thinking brewery but you know that just you know keep that in the back of your head as you're thinking about what things you might want to do with that with that building or even that site if it's redeveloped. Um B just up the street the ABC store it's actually smaller and tighter and more challenging. uh if you want to redevelop that, you're probably going to have to solve a lot of complex parking issues because if you want to park that on the site, you're probably not going to have much room left over for a building. And so on a site that's that tight, but also centrally located, you're going to want that to kind of be more like the neighboring downtown buildings and figure out an alternative parking solution.

And again, the ABC controls that site. Yep. And they're operating a store there.

So whatever happens on the site has to happen later. Now just kind of pause. We're gonna continue working around. The other thing that we're we're we're taking into consideration here too is you know as Alan said there's parking considerations there considerations on the individual sites. There may be opportunities in the future to expand the developability or enhance the developability of the sites by looking at joining properties. So the fire station ABC store are the obvious examples of like well you know what would happen if the public acquired maybe an adjoining site and that that changes the conversation a little bit or what if the the town or the county decide to put these properties out and say to a developer hey if you acquire the adjoining property then this this could look different. So, you know, we're focusing on we we have to focus somewhere. We have to kind of cut out some of the whatifs. We'll never finish this process, but there is a contingency or there is a um there is an eventuality where the developability of the sites could be enhanced by the by acquisition or, you know, connecting these sites to join properties. And that's a good segue into site D, the uh pop-up park. When you think about the pop-up park, and I think I explained this last time, the pop-up park is a is a unique site and that if you think about the changing gray between Harris Street and Salsbury, um that you know you can do a lot with that in terms of tuck under parking, having a multi-level development complex, but also you really want to try to achieve some ground level activation or ground level commercial on uh to the towards the south where there's already this sort of side street of businesses happening. uh you know where the artistic crosswalk is, it leads to city tap. Uh there's a couple of businesses there. So you really have something of a of a small micro district that's starting to emerge there that that site complement. And again with that changing grade, one of the things we're likely going to recommend is a is b a high lot coverage redevelopment and to see if we can explore structured parking options as part as our ability to take that take

on that grade change. It's also not a bad location for a hotel. Um, it's it's close enough to all of the downtown action, but it's just off the back. It's be a great place for to accommodate visitors. And when we say hotel, we're we mean hotel that's calibrated to the market, right? Smaller in scale, more boutique, matching a Pittsburgh's vibe, those kinds of things. Um, on to site. Uh, site is a very special place as well. I say all these are special, right? But like they are in their own way. Um when you think about site, that's the IT current county IT building and the um the bill pay drive-thru and um the uh West End kitchen that's right there. We're not redeveloping West End kitchen, but it adds to the the mix and the vibe. And of course um you know, Freeman Park just being just to the north. Um that really lends itself to a smaller scale phased development. Um you know, certainly a civic use, but a great spot for commercial as well. Um and that site the role that that plays in the overall scheme is to keep people walking from east to west, right? To to be that bridge and that small I I said this micro district to to kind of again fill that fill that perceptual gap. Then we get to F. F is huge. F is obviously our bigger site in terms of geography and it's got a ton of potential and this is really where we see the most density happening in terms of mixeduse development opportunities for uh commercial to take advantage of that visibility that you have along west street. Um there's some grade change there that lends itself well to multif family development. Um, and again, just like with site A, parking in the middle of the block so that that buildings can conceal that parking and so you put your activity out onto the street and the parking in the center. You can accommodate all of those things. And especially when I think about AB, when we think about the need for and the the calls for additional open space, there's already open space on those blocks that could be improved. There's surface parking as part of the school that could

be improved and contribute to the site. the city, the town just made an investment in the old Rafi building. The site, that site could be improved and integrated into the overall development. So, we're thinking about the the the collection of open spaces and civic uses that are already on the south side of the blocks and then the potential for the north side of the blocks to transition over time. This is where we have two adaptive reuse candidates. Uh the main one being the old uh school gym. Uh we sent our architect in there. The it's in great shape. It's got a lot of potential for adaptive reuse. Is a beautiful building. If you can get the other building out of the way, you could really see it. Um, and it's it's situated on the site such that you could have parking or open space around it and it could be beautifully celebrated.

Again, I tell any of these for hours. And I'll try to stop there. Jess already tried to hold me back a little bit, but um, you know, I just want to let you know we're thinking about all these things. We are we're zeroing in on you know primary program and we're uh currently uh pursuing all the various development scenarios one might imagine. We'll just mention I am glad to hear that the OGM is very structural sound because it is a brick building. I was actually I actually played ball there in my younger days and uh it it I think it would be an asset to the town and our parks and recck.

Thank you. So we'll we'll pause there. There was a question about finance you know financing options that you talk.

Let me say one more thing. So as we are as we're developing these scenarios these con conceptual planning and programming scenarios the reason we are doing all this we we are leading this all to if we were to put an RFQ out or procurement out tomorrow for a partner what do we need in that document? what do we need to put in the document? What do we need to know before we put the document out? You know, what questions do we need to answer before we engage begin that engagement process with the private sector? We're identifying all those issues, all those questions, and um we want to make sure that we're putting out the highest quality procurement to attract the highest quality developers from around the country, quite honestly, not just North Carolina, but we we really want to attract the highest quality developers and identify what we want them to do on the site, what we need them on the site, and we want to make sure we get the right developers to who know how to do specifically what we're asking for on the site. So, it is it's kind of like all a funnel. all this information is kind of getting funneled and we're we're trying to make sure we ask all the right questions now kind of get the right level of design and programming to populate that RFQ so that when a pro a pro perspective developer looks at this um from anywhere in the country they're like you know what they've really thought about this um their expectations are realistic they've got a pragmatic approach they understand that there's going to be a public commitment to some of these sites um they don't just expect us to do everything they they've really programmed this out that's how you attract the best developers that's how you know, basically maximize your potential for success when you're working with the P3.

So, the scope of your agreement with the town right now is that you would be looking for and recruiting screening developers as well. And right now, our scope takes us to kind of getting all of the sites ready to do that. Okay. And there's a there's a second phase where where we'll have a conversation which is okay, which one do we want to move forward with? And that would be a next phase of engagement where we would do that. But we're getting to the start line and trying to figure out right now is like what would be the first line. Yeah.

Um and then we could and what I would suggest is particularly in this situation is that we would just pick one and quite honestly it wouldn't be af to kind of set up um quite honestly just because of the timing of occupied these buildings are occupied already. we've got to get there's a lot that has to happen to move some of these sites forward. So, we're looking for sort of a a simple a simpler one to to go through that process. It the process itself informs and educates the staff. Um we provide you know we'll kind of lead that process but it it leads everybody through sort of the way I like to think about the right way to go through a public private procurement. Um and then once you do it once then you just start replicating it over and over again. Um and and and again you get more complex as you go and everybody wants to start off with big fancy ones like well let's let's kind of get a

learn first. Yeah. Okay. Obviously the trick with these is you know to attract the kind of developer that you'd want to partner with who sees the your town for what it is. Um again is not going to want to come in and land land the spaceship, right? Uh and then the other is to find the balance of being overly prescriptive versus flexible to be able to achieve the to allow the right developer to achieve the amount of flexibility but also deliver on some of your essentials.

The programming is key. Once you once you get the right developer, you the bricks and mortar is just the tool. They're trying to deliver experience. We have to define that experience. was that experience being to the town and the county and so that's what's critical you know the the what and why is so important and then how you know and what gets built it's just a vehicle for that can I talk about the format of our report no let's say yeah actually I would like to hear about the format of the report because I wanted to comment on Sure stemming from your question what what do we feel has to be in that RFQ a question

no I'm just laying the table here. Go.

So, typically when um it depends on the level of detail that we can get out of out of the process, what I like to put in the RFQ is a is a very clear um programming statement and kind of program at the beginning. Um if possible, you know, just being as specific as pos as possible about those potential uses. um if there's a public component involved in those uses, very clearly defining what those public uses are and how they will be funded and who's expected to pay for what. So, not just putting in there, yeah, we'd love to have a fancy park um and we expect you to pay for it, you know, realizing on the front end that there's a proforma attached to this project. What is the public willing to commit to that program from a programming perspective? Then there's an infrastructure component where I really do like to kind of build into it, you know, you know, saying water's available to the site. That's great. You know, when you go out there and try to connect to the water, we know that we don't have to tear up two miles of line to actually accommodate that water. So that that's always an issue. Sewer is another one. Capacity both at the line and the treatment capacity. We nailed that down. electricity, telecommunications, working through all the um the infrastructure components, laying out what we know, what we would expect, and again, if we can say, you know, and and the town or the county has made commitments to improve these things, we've got it in our CIP, so even though it's not fixed today, we expect these are going to happen in the future. Um from an infrastructure perspective, from an entitlements perspective, you know, we kind of highlight, we say, what are the entitlements now? what we expect the entitlements to be. There's always a conversation about whether the land is reszoned before you put the RFQR out or not. Um I I would always suggest I think we would always suggest to kind of do it after you get the developer on board and have start having negoti kind of conversations with them so you don't prematurely reszone and then have to go back and reszone it again. So entitlements is always a is is always a

major component. Um from from a governance perspective, it's very important for the private sector when they see one of these projects to know that they are you know they are they are talking to an entity that has considered governance control and process. So who are we talking to in this process? Does the town manager speak for the board of commissioners? Um what what is that process? when when are we going to engage the board of commissioners? How how is that process going to work? And are we going to design something, you know, kind of in concert with staff and then be told six months later that they have to start all over. So understanding that governance process um is is very important and that process can be whatever we want it to be, but we just need to divine define it as much as possible. Um I like to provide as much information as we can about the property ahead of time um in an appendix so they can see everything we see. Environmental is a big one. um obviously pointing out environmental and conditions if we're talking about existing buildings putting condition reports in over there in there and everything else. So you know kind of providing as much information as possible but you know if you have existing plans I mean the Chattam County and Pittsburgh have wonderful transportation plans and everything putting that in there is fine but defining its relevance to the site is more important. So you know it's it's critical for this site to you know integrate with the fabric of downtown. What does that mean? you know, we expect this to be a, you know, high value site. It's going to connect to the street. Um, and kind of putting some urban design parameters in there as well. We, you know, we can put concept plans in there. As as Allen said, we want to care be careful about putting conceptual plans in there and and and suggesting that those are what it has to look like. What what that's really doing is communicating when we put those plans in there if we're putting any masking diagrams or anything else. It's communicating to the developer that we have considered high, you know, high intensity use of this site and we are

comfortable with that. We are comfortable with buildings about this tall. We are comfortable with these types of uses, right? And we're comfortable with this type of density that that that those concept plans and everything. Again, you're not you're not tied to those, but we've considered this. And that's where a lot of RFQS and RFPs really run a foul is they put too much specificity in there, and it scares a lot of developers away. Parking is a big one. Um, when we'll have conversations about that, how much parking do we expect on site? What accommodations is the town willing to make on parking? How much is off street parking available? Is there a shared parking conversation? So there's a lot that can go into these and quite honestly it's a loading question because I got it's about six pages of questions. It depends on how much information we have available to put in there but usually the more the better. We try to keep it not prescriptive. it's informative and it's guidance, but at the end of the day, if you do it right, um, anybody that picks it up and says, "Yep, they're ready to move on to the next step and I'm not going to spend the next three years, you know, you know, the the worst meeting is when the developer comes on their first day and and that the public turns to the developer and says, okay, what do we do?" And they say, "Well, what do you want?" It's like, we don't know. What do you want us to want? You know, and that's that's the worst conversation. So, we're trying to get to this to a starting place where when we had that first conversation, um, everybody's hitting the ground. That's not to say it won't take a long time to get a shape of a developer, but you're starting at a much higher level of conversation than you would in most cases. So,

yes, thank you. And and I want to riff on your your phrase uh not prescriptive. So rather to be informative, one thing that leaves to my mind is on site D that we should make sure that whomever is reading this RFQ uh has access to the plans that the town paid for and considered and decided to table uh for a town hall there. Because my understanding is that our lesson learned from that was that uh the two-layer parking uh idea uh uh was stymied because it would have to be custom or poured on site, custom fabricated concrete on site, uh which drove up the cost. And so if it could be modular parking, then I think maybe there's greater feasibility there. But whatever. Um, point being that there's information there for people far more experienced that at development than myself to consider. Um, the other piece of information, not prescriptive, that I would like to be included in this RFQ is the existence of the North Carolina commercial property assessed clean energy policy, the CPACE policy. Um it is a way for commercial developments to pay for uh I'll just say clean energy infrastructure uh integrated with the building um off balance sheet.

I just closed the second exploit state. I didn't hear you but thank you. I need to private but no it's a it's a unique program.

I didn't hear you. What did you say? So CPACE financing, it's a it's a it's financing available to private developers to create high efficiency or sustainable um add sustainable features to their their projects primarily uh mechanical and engineering. Um and that that CPACE financing provides you favorable rates and loan terms to make those enhancements to the building. So it's a it's a um it's a unique it's not unique. Well, I guess it was unique. It's a unique way to to basically to build more sustainable projects. to incentivize more sustainable projects as part of a capital set. It's a it's a and that again there's only been two in the state. Yeah, it's a novel way.

No, but it's it's it's a it's a it's a great way to do it. Um Yes. And and specifically, I think North Carolina is maybe in somewhat of a minority and having authorized the uh the tool for use with EV charging infrastructure as well. Uh, and I think there's only about half the states that have done it allow that. Um, and uh, yeah, I mean it could it could allow a developer to put rooftop solar plus batteries to back up the whole building depending on the site and the design of the building. So,

so sustainability is another important one. One thing I mean I almost forget about it sometimes, but like is there a lead requirement? We're kind of getting away from saying there's a lead requirement, but we're saying like lead. Um, so we'll say, look, we don't you don't necessarily have to pay $100,000 to get silver lead or gold lead, but we want those types of, you know, on the site. Um, so sustainability and environmental considerations are are huge huge pieces of it. A precedent policy that could be cited to that question is the hotel incentive. I don't think we want to do that again. But the fact that that hotel incentive was not prescriptive as to the energy assurance uh method, energy efficiency assurance method.

So, one of the points I think is important to make too as we go forward is again the we're identifying potential uses for these sites. Um you know, the conversation about the parking there is perfect. It's like, well, we want a parking deck on the site, but we can't build a parking deck on that site or we're going to have to spend, you know, millions more than we thought. That's why it is it is important to kind of get to a baseline expectation for what we want to this project one for these projects and then engage with the development community. As soon as they start you starting with development community they're like you know what that sounds great but I can't get steel right now. I can't get steel for 18 months or if I get steel it's going to be this and so we really need to go in this direction or that direction. Um and and and it really it literally will drive projects sometimes how the projects are designed when it's built. Um, and so those having the developer as a partner in the conver in that in the conversation about what's going to be developed is so critically important. So when we're looking for developers, we're looking for developers who've not only delivered projects in the past, but have demonstrated the the ability and the capability to work with public entities and work within those processes. Yeah.

To deliver those projects because those are two completely different things. Um, building a private project without public involvement except for entitlements is one thing. building in concert with the public is is very different.

Yeah, we like to pick a developer who knows the word shred. Um but yeah, uh the um the other piece uh I I think I'm hearing you say the answer to this question, but I'd like to ask the question at what point should this board and this community be asking itself things like do we want to reconsider parking requirements? Do we want to uh examine our height requirements? In what other ways can we incentivize the kind of development that we need in the 21st century in this town to, as you said, continue the fabric of the downtown? Should those conversations happen now or once the developers on board?

Probably better than later. So that you're we look better prepared if we had had that. Yes, those are implemented in policy. A lot of these can be achieved with the zoning that you already have in place or through conditional district reszoning. Um we don't see the zoning as a barrier to achieve what needs to be done on these sites. A parking space and a half per unit right now. What is it for downtown? I don't know if we have parking requirements. We don't we don't own key. So half of the sites are located within the downtown overlay and and half of them not. But again, but we need to get to what we want the downtown maybe. Yeah. Wouldn't hurt, especially on the fire station site. Yeah.

And and Pab is do is looking at that now. And it's it's C4 specifically that doesn't have them or setback requirements, but that can if we're allowed to do zoning still, u we can change that. So just conditional. Yeah, look at that. Most of the downtown projects less that I've worked on, they're typically the municipalities if um there are no parking requirements. That does not make parking question go away, right? It just removes one element of the conversation and you end up still end up you still end up with parking. Yeah. Right. But it's it's just not um

you're not trying to fight with with the town or the city about what the parking is on the private sector developer to make that best decision themselves. And then and then the other challenge is um you know sort of the well we want you know if the public builds us a parking deck then we can do this. If we if they don't build us a parking deck we can't do this. So you know we'll parking is always in what you know when we're talking about density that's why you know Ellen was saying it's like well we can't the parking in the middle here. We could put that's a huge statement. Um we can accommodate parking on these sites to support it. Um and I wasn't specifically referring to a parking structure. I just meant where parking would be distributed throughout the block.

And and by the way, you know, on A and F, you can achieve pretty nice development that would finish out the downtown without building a parking garage.

What do you mean by that? I mean that the some of the products that we're looking at in the conceptual scenarios can be surface parked and still be potentially a viable development option depending on the number of stories and the number of units that would be needed. And of course with the lower number of units it limits the developer pool uh because it limits the available capital um you and the feasibility of the development deal has to be able to achieve a certain number of of units to be viable. But more boutique developers can handle smaller units with various other trade-offs. So what what kinds of residential units would we be talking about? Uh for let's say just say F

F we're envisioning a mix that's I think that's the name of the game when it comes to F a mix of uses a mix of maybe a mix of incomes a mix of product types uh a mix of um you know open spaces and buildings a mix of pvious and impervious sorry and trails I chose my words poorly. What how much how many residential units are we imagining might be conceivable on that site? Oh gosh. I I don't have a number for you right now because we've investigated a variety of ranges. We're not yet into that spec the specific amount of yields. Um suffice it to say that it's relatively high. I mean, I would guess if I had the ballpark standing here that it could be easily 250

and that could that might include surface parking on the center of the build in the center of the lot. Yes, you can accommodate a nice multif family product that's got a mixeduse component and achieve some adaptive reuse and have open space uh on the south side of blocks all with surface parking. I think you have some examples of that in Chapel Hill where you have a five over two, right? You got five wood stories and then two steel structures with parking under underneath the five and you incorporate a commercial in that as well. Correct. And in some cases where you've got the grade to do it, um some tuck under under the building may be appropriate

on soils. And when it comes to unit or building type mixes, you may have multif family products that are um basically double loaded buildings and then you may have some town homes scattered throughout the site where you want to scale down in terms of density and introduce more urban grain. Chapel Hill is a it's unique that Chapel Hill is up the street because they have developed some unique products with some unique public spaces between the products. And so it's it's a great, you know, it's it's a great developer to kind of have available to you that's used to working in that environment in in sort of a small town complex uh context. Um but yeah, um there's lots of things you could do. Um, one one of the things we're always reluctant to do is to tell developers that you have to build a 200 space parking deck from the outset. What we want to say is look, we need to figure out how to we're going to accommodate parking on the site. Let's figure out what uses we need, what uses we want, then we'll kind of work the parking into the conversation, but parking unfortunately just drives drives everything. One of the issues we have in Pittsburgh right now, if you look at our downtown, most of our restaurants are open five days a week. Why? because you employ people for 5 days. So, uh because there isn't enough foot of traffic to keep those restaurants open all, you know, for six, seven days a week. So, you don't have you don't have that double staffing issue, right? So, what we need is foot traffic downtown. We need density downtown to stimulate all this. So, density downtown is how we save our downtown in my opinion. There's a safety component to that as well. More of people out on the street at different types of, you know, residents keeping an eye on things. Um, you know, not that you have an unsafe environment, but it doesn't hurt to have neighbors looking out for each other

through residents being in downtown.

Well, and and to that point, too, I mean, we've talked about it, but we're looking at individual properties here, and again, we're trying to keep our focus on the properties, but there's not a conversation we don't go by that doesn't provide. It's like, well, wouldn't it be nice with D if we could like also get the town to do this over here? And so, it is a it's a broader urban design and conversation. It's a um it is a broader downtown strategy um that you want this to plug into. Um and I think you all have one, but um we're, you know, none of these sites on their own are going to achieve all these things, but we just want to make sure that it fits into a larger program effectively. So what you know that's why we're looking at those other plans and everything to make sure that what we're proposing fits in in terms of timeline and sorry if this question was asked when I stepped out being that a lot of the county properties are going to be a little further down the line. Um the one parcel where the town parcel D, you know, we could put an RFQ for that tomorrow. Um so in terms of how we approach this, what what would you think from y'all's perspective? Should the town how to say that, but I think D.

Yeah, that that's starting to looking like the primary target. And your followup question was what we suggest be in that RFP. Well, I'm thinking would it behoove the town to go ahead and start this development process by going ahead and looking at parcel D as a redevelopment site in the near term rather than waiting on the county to figure out what the

we are we will so the final report will include a a product I want to say a sheet because it's more than one sheet on site D that will say this is what we heard this is what market analysis shows this is um kind of what we see as next steps any impediments that we see and timing related to that and this is what the sort of two or three options for site D. So we will immediately launch into that conversation and say okay look here's the three options for site D h how do we want to how do we want to kind of move forward with this so we're going to position you for all that conversation all these sites but um you we'll be ready to like next day if you want on site D say okay let's go ahead and move forward with this one and continue the conversation

just to piggyback on that we have what six sites there uh six sites so D is number one who hang let me just finish stop. So if if the county is uh going to do this orderly, uh they will be doing it in a process like uh the sheriff's department is have has to take longer. Uh so maybe we could prioritize each one of these so that we we can plan what to do. Yes. Yeah. And we're coming in closer on their plans.

That's what we're trying to do as well. I mean, ideally, what I'd love to give you is like a sequencing plan for all the sites where they show up in the next five or 10 years. Um, but a large, you know, at the same time, we also don't want to pin the county down and say, "You said you were going to be out by No, no, I'm not asking that." Um, so, so it's more like a range than it is a a specific timeline because they may move out of a building because they build something new and then move people right back into that building because they need the space. Um, because their needs are just as fluid as as ours are right now.

Growing. Yeah. And I think that with all of this too, I want to make sure we keep in mind the overall plan. So like if we said right now we can redevelop site D and housing is the biggest need. So we're going to put apartments there, but really that site in the grand scheme would be better for a theater or the southern terminus of the Montreal, for example. Um I I don't want to like turn up one of those sites for an early need, you know, in you know, just keep keep the whole plan in mind as we do that. I thought we were talking about a subway, not a Montreal. No, Montreal. It's Disney. They got to do a Montreal.

Oh, on a bigger picture at the Mr. Mayor, uh what you're saying is absolutely brilliant because uh we have we have a gift. We have a gift that that's coming and it's coming slow enough where we can plan and that's a wonderful gift that we have. It's exciting. Yeah.

And Jeff mentioned this earlier. You know, when we think about these sites, it's to not be and this is a pretty big tale that would wag the dog of downtown, right? So, when I say tail that wags a dog, there's a lot more downtown that needs to be planned beyond just these properties. But there's enough of these properties to begin to establish a framework that can begin to knit the downtown together in a way that can include properties that fall between these sites if that makes sense. So you know a streetscape or a bike path or a you know that it benefits more than just the subject sites that we're looking at now. And so being part of that whole vision of what the core of downtown becomes. And and to be clear too, the way I I I tend to think of things, it's not necessarily this goes now or six months from now or a year from now. It's this would go first, second, third, because I mean there's a lot of uncertainty in the markets right now. Um and you know, there's always a better time of year to release RFQS than other times a year. Um and we're discovering that there's better times generally to release. And so

seasonal it's seasonal. It is because I mean what it really is is it's just like putting out procurements for when you're putting out procurements for services or equipment. Um okay you know spring kind of like early fall but um the process itself the selection process um takes several months and that falls on holidays it falls on summer vacations and things like that. So there is a better time to put these out to kind of get more responses. Um and and not to put a burden on everybody just we want participation. Um and we don't want everybody to feel strained. So yeah, there is there there's sort of like two windows during the year. That's the best time to put these out.

I'm I'm wondering too I think this is more of a staff comment, but you know, we're focused on specific properties here, but it obviously impacts a lot of the other things and we have the downtown support area identified in the land use plan. So, I wonder if there's sort of a follow-on activity here of identifying more closely what the the in between areas would look like as well, particularly East Street where we don't have as much public property, but West Street and East Street in those downtown support areas what those might be. I mean, it would sort of be um assumed potentially from some of the the clarifications of this, but uh being more um I don't say prescriptive really, but being more forward about some of those those planning efforts for areas that are outside these specific parcels, but where we do anticip what I call the downtown ETJ and the uh in the support area.

I mean, I think that's always in the back of our minds. Um it would be nice to have the local control to be able to uh guide those properties uh with different you know zoning categories. Um I think without that now as people come in and talk about what they plan to do with their properties or what they can I think that's then our opportunity to kind of shape what that looks like and certainly as you mentioned these projects are going to help with that too. So site A um it really strikes me uh the the grade changes that we have there from the north to the south and it's a similar if maybe greater opportunity than D um for uh under building parking basement parking I

yeah the next iteration of this they they will see some massing. So you're you're already kind of hitting on what they've drawn for a

Yeah. Well, this was one of our very first conversations, Jonathan. Um my observation about that grade change and how from there to um the Horton school is basically unbuildable land and it would just be a marvelous view to the south for some penthouse uh condos that help pay for affordable housing below. Site site A has got a lot of potential for for a lot of different things. One of the site A is probably also one of the most complicated sites to develop. So there are additional conversations to be had about site A. We've talked about density. You're talking about height. Um I was involved help negotiate the loft hotel in downtown at Raleigh. I mean Hillsboro Street um in Raleigh. And I think maybe I mentioned to this group before, but one of the things that for the loft is it had to be low enough that you could still see the bell tower from Overland Road. It's like it's like a subtle requirement, but it completely limited the height of that. And so when we're thinking about the courthouse, um has that conversation ever been had? We we don't want to get we don't want to get threequarters of the way down a, you know, path with a on a development plan with a developer and then someone say, "Oh, wait a second. If you do that, you're going to block the the view of the courthouse from this direction." So that's a parameter for example that we want to make sure we kind of throw into the mix. Um and there's there's hundred of those. So I think site A we're going to present some things because I think that's going to be a conversation that takes longer.

Okay. And and quite honestly that's probably state this but from a community value perspective that site A is probably the most valuable to the community just because of its location and proximity to the other public uses. So you want to make sure you get that right. Um,

and while it's a challenge to develop and all the things Jeff said are true, there's also um, the way it's currently configured, there's a tremendous amount of opportunity to finish out the downtown and achieve something beautiful. Um, just I'm bursting at the seams to show you an idea, but we'll get there. Uh because just the way it's situated, the way the courouses are situated, it there's just a lot of opportunity to to make it great. really.

Although I was disappointed to find that we couldn't build a ramp without exit off of that to go through the middle of the site which completely throws off the circulation. But those are the things that we're uncovering during this process and that we need to continue these conversations because someone on the run will say, "Yeah, you can't do that." And then they're like, "Oh, well that changes the program entirely." Um the fact that you can't go out on that roundabout on that site is very significant. um and and is you know really affects the circulation on that site. So so I guess to this point we really wanted this to be like a roundt conversation. So the presentation part we were trying to keep the presentation where we we value this this conversation and this this interaction um and um appreciate the questions. Um Alan I think the next step is we're going to go kind of continue doing what we're doing. The ne one next step is that we're going to be giving the same presentation to the county board of commissioners.

Um and that g be scheduled. So now it's going to be on the 20th. Um and then the next phase of the project, we're going to be developing out what Jeff and I called site positioning sheets where we're going to put everything that we know and think about each of these site clusters into one document that we can then use to pick and choose the elements of the RFP from. And then we're also going to be, as Jonathan said, working through some or finishing out working through some conceptual development ideas that that we'll have some things to visualize some of the concepts that we've been talking about today. And yes, massing diagrams are going to be part of that because we really want to understand of where that topography change is, where the acceptable um you know, mass, scale, and height are located on the site. So this massing diagrams, will that be static not on a page or will there be the possibility of having something three-dimensional that people could sit at a computer and explore?

Given the scale of the study and what we're scoped to do, um they'll be static diagrams on a page that are taken from a view that we think best portrays the elements. But that that's a great that's a great I'm glad you asked that because on some of these sites you might decide the next step not to do an RFQ. It's like look let's flush this out a little bit more. And that's the urban design exercise that that I think you know we kind of talk about generally there's there's potential for these sites where you could do more and then not just looking at it from this site but maybe from another site as well.

Site site if may be a good one for that. Yeah, I think uh community acceptance is is really important and I think that kind of dynamic way of what I'm envisioning a dynamic way of uh exposing ideas to the community would be really really really important and we we we'll uh we do have a digital model that we'll be using to generate the massing studies and we're happy to provide that we will be providing that model as as a product so the town can do whatever it to do. Yes. We're just not scoped to conduct that level of engagement this current study. Thank you.

It's like all flesh money. What do we have with engagement with the county with these properties? Are we purchasing them or are we on a rental lease? Uh, I don't I haven't heard anything that the county has offered us properties. And I'll go back to what Mr. Bonnet said when we did that town hall plan numerous years ago. The county was to get two floors and we were to get two floors. But now they're moving uh their office space down. So, do we have any guarantee that uh this is a possibility? County understands that this is a huge opportunity for the town of Pittsburgh to shape the future of how its downtown looks. I think in terms of how properties are conveyed is something we're going to have to decide on. Um, but I think once we I think once both governments come to this kind of same agreement of what the property could be used for, then there's going to be some general statutes that we have to look at on how that property can be conveyed. And certainly I think if it's going to be a priv pure private sector conveyance where that property would be conveyed for a dollar amount, I mean obviously I think the county would want to keep that property and and control how that happens with our input. If it's affordable housing, then there's some statutes that, you know, regulate how that land is conveyed. So, I think a lot of a lot of it's going to depend on what what we all come together and decide that each parcel will be used for and then from there take the next steps.

And we have not had the conversance question pops up on every one of these two. Um, so again, it's ABC's, you know, the ABC board owns this one, fire stations, county owns this one. So we have ownership issues across the board. So you're there's going to be horse training that might have to occur or it's just a partnership. So there's partnership within a partnership. It's a public public partnership and then there's a public private partnership um that we'll have to sort out. One one thing that we have not had the conversation yet that we'll we'll dig into as we kind of move forward is it it would be very nice to reach some definitiveness about whether or not the county and the town on these properties wants to convey them or just ground lease them for 99 years that um I'm always looking to kind of like check off variables so that we don't have to go down multiple paths at once. So that's that's one conversation that we'll have and we'll come back to you on um but just having some definitiveness on that it helps kind of narrow the scope on how something is executed too.

Can can you speak a little bit about maybe I've asked you this before but um what are the the benefits or detriments of um uh like say a 99-year lease versus actually selling the property. So, in both cases, um, if you're dealing with a private developer, the the public has to get fair, you know, fair consideration. They have to get consideration for the property. So, you just can't give it away. Um, if there are the the value of the property can be measured in dollars and in programmatic value. So, there's there is public value that can be achieved. So, you you can justify adjusting the the the price, the sales price depending on kind of what public value you're getting out of the property. So in either case, you've got to get consideration and how that consideration is measured. Um it's, you know, it's there's some flexibility built into that. Um the the reason that ground leases um are attractive um to public entities is because these properties that the public owns now um will never be available for public purchase again once they're given away. Um, so when you look at individual properties, you're saying, for example, site A, it's like, you know, this is what we want to happen on it today. If we give this property away, we'll never get it back. Um, so looking at sort of the long-term value of the property um is is the most important consideration considering ground leases versus um because you can always take it back. I mean, a 99 ground is financable. You can develop on it. And the conversation does actually does not come up in 99 years. comes up about 50 years um when the two parties actually say, "Okay, let's figure out if we want to extend this for another 50 years or something like that." So, it's kind of an ongoing conversation about the property, but if for some reason the public ever wants to take it over, it has the ability to do that. Um the the benefit of a ground lease to a developer um is that they don't have to come up with the acquisition cost up front. They don't have to include that in the financing. So, it's a little bit of a financial, but they still have to pay for the property, but they can do that through

ground rent payments as opposed to coming up with an outlay at the beginning. Um, other than that, I mean, for all intents and purposes, the ground lease is turning control over of the property over to them. Now, the other the other big advantage to the ground lease for a public entity is once you give a property away for a public private development, and this this has happened too many times to count, if they don't execute the development, you can't get the property back. And people I mean I see towns and counties all the time trying to put reversion clauses in and trying to you know execute one of those is it's nearly impossible. A ground lease they don't execute. You terminate the ground lease and you get it back. Um or you terminate the ground lease and you're probably working with a lender um to find a new new purchase property but you maintain control over the over the property. So just to be clear, it's not as easy as just terminating the property because what happens is you get a lender involved, you default the developer and then you're basically negotiating with the lender to figure out who's going to come in. um but at least you still control the property as opposed to just conveying it. So um there are there are advantages to doing ground leases and um in the northeast I mean like most of New York City is ground waste um by the railroads. Um the railroads actually on a lot of that property um grounds are very frequent in the northeast. They haven't become um prevalent down here. Centennial campus at NC State was the first one to really do ground races down here. Um and then um we've been kind of expanding them throughout the southeast um as time has gone by. Is

there detriments to uh uh local tax revenue as a government entity? I mean, is there more or less of any of the various revenue streams that comes from versus a the use is it's the use that's taxed. Um and so once the private use is on the property, the use is taxed. Um and it's taxed the same way as it would be taxed if it was a private private ownership. So the building would be taxed, the equipment would be taxed, and the sales taxes. Everything's taxed on it. So there's no there's no um Yeah, it's treated. Yeah. The tax office is like a privately owned piece of property. Thank you.

They they're a little more complicated um than just kind of turning the property over, but um at the end of the day, the risk the sort of the riskreward is um definitely worth something worth considering. Um, it also, um, in my experience, you tend to get the the the more sophisticated developers because the more sophisticated developer will say, "Yeah, we're not worried about that at all. We've done that 100 times." The ones that come in and say, "Well, that's a deal killer." Well, on to the next to the next. So, um, you do get smaller smaller pool of applicants at the end of the day, candidates. Okay. Well, we'll we'll talk about that part. Um, and we we haven't really kind of dug into that at all, but that's something we'll have to work sort out. Thank you. Thank you.

I think an important thing to to be thinking about between now and their final presentation is what you all think about how we proceed with this process and specifically with parcel D that the town holds. How many acres is that? like three three slide somewhere that I don't have. So I apologize. I should know off the top of my head, but I don't sorry looks like less less than three is less than three. I think it's 2.1. I think it's 2.72. If you combine Paul the law office next to it, it's three.

It's 1.25. Thank you. including the laws. No, think maybe it's two with the laws. 175 with the Have this memorized. May GIS G. All right. 1.75. Thank you. Thank you. Good job. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you, guys.

All right. Um Um, up next we have discussion. So, we kind of cut off the budget part to get to this and we'll we'll circle back to it though. Just kind of general discussion um on the budget and the thoughts and the uh maybe the cleanest way just to go around the table. Uh, is there somebody that wants to start?

I don't know. I still had a I have a question I didn't get around to. Um, and uh, don't get me wrong, I'm not against the market, but uh, I'm concerned that 52 days out of the year is considered a special event. Um, I don't think so. This is public and I mean this is town land that we bought with taxpayers money and we're getting no refund, no revenue from it. Um I feel like that's setting a not maybe not a different president but uh I believe in our Monday packet we have something regarding for an an alcohol event at the same time.

Yes. So, so in the in the agenda packet for Monday's meeting, the farmers market is wanting to be allowed to have alcoholic vendors um on Thursdays. So, they need the permission of the board to do that. Um so, that's what's on in the Monday agenda packet. Okay. And uh this vendor is going to be on site at no char. He's not going to pay any kind of fee.

He pays a fee to the farmers market. market has fees for their vendors. Those fees are used to pay for um their the farmers market coordinator. So, they have a position that that those fees pay for. Um but they will not be paying any fees to the town. I have a problem with that and I'm sure a lot a lot of our local taxpayers will too because uh we're given a spot that the town owns for people to make money. And hey, I go to the farmers market. They got a better location where they are now, but they're not paying the town a fee for the use of our land. How often does that um pop-up park get rented

for actual money? Yeah, probably never. Very often always it's always a town sponsored thing where we we do about 52 times a year. We never had anything rented. We have food trucks that we charge. You don't really have food trucks there. No sir.

No. So, so any of the on Thursdays, any of the vendors that are there between 3 and 6, they are part of the farmers market. So, whether it's a food vendor or whether it's a farmer, you know, vendor, they're all they are all paying fees to the farmers market, not to the town of Pittsburgh. um similar to um for Sundays, any of those vendors, those are not paying fees to the town of Pittsburgh. They are paying fees to the PBA um any of our other events. I mean again they're not paying fees to the town but the idea is that we are assisting in the um usability the the drawing people to downtown which is the benefit to the town.

Yeah. I disagree with that a little bit. I don't dis I disagree with the uh the payment plan. I don't disagree that brings people to Pittsburgh by no means. I mean, um, but I I really think some kind of fee should be paid for the town because we put barricades up, uh, cones out and that cost the town. Mhm. And I'm not beating the bush on the farmers market because that's a great thing. Great thing. But, uh, I just think it should be some kind of arrangement to the town. M we

we if we remember about a year or two ago we had a coffee trailer that wanted to come in there and rent space rent ground at the town own and I forget what the charge was but it was uh he backed out on the count of the charge that we were charging. Correct. It was like Monday through Thursday

like $800 or something. So, so with the vendor for the for the for a coffee truck, we had to do it we had because we're a municipality, we needed to do an RFP to solicit um vendors. That coffee truck never submitted when we when we issued the RFP. Um and the only vendor that we had was the alcoholic vendor that wants to go to the farmers market, but we didn't want they also thought it was going to be multiple food trucks there at the same time. And when we when we said that there was only going to be one one slot because on a daily basis we do not want the whole parking lot taken up with food trucks, we just wanted to have one spot available.

Um and they were not interested in that if it wasn't going to be multiple food trucks. So what required the RFQ for that but then doesn't require it for like the farmers market to rent it once a week

because they have their process. So the so because we have a process for sponsoring events. So they so the farmers market applied to us for sponsorship of of their event. They they have their requirement for their vendors. So we don't dictate that just like we don't for first Sundays or um any other event that has vendors or booths. We like um street fair, you know, we don't we are sponsoring the street fair, but we're not dictating. We don't get fees from the vendors. Those are collected by um the Rotary. Yeah. The coffee that was a permanent well semi-permanent setup. Yeah.

Where their trailer was going to be parked five days a week connected to water and sewer using bathrooms. I mean, it was a much different. Whereas the farmer market comes in twice a week, they set up, they're done, they they close down, and they and the parking lot's back open. Do they use our bathrooms? Yeah, the bathrooms are open. And that's part of the fee that they they're But the bathrooms are right now they are open all the time. We haven't been locking them. So, can you describe the uh first was it first Sundays? You said uh there are fees being paid, not fees, but they donate to the uh Pittsburgh Downtown Business Association,

I believe. I don't totally know how that is structured, but we sponsor First Sundays. We sponsor the street fair, which also uses you sponsor, but there's no fees collected. Correct. I don't think we actually sponsor it. Do we? The street fair? The first Sunday? First Sundays? Yes, we do. Our Sundays is handled by PB, the Pittsboro business association, but we do so because they were holding it at the pop-up park for a while.

So it sounds to me that if we were to charge a fee for the farmers market payable to the town that we would then therefore have to do it for first Sundays and they would have to pay us as well. It would have to be across the board to anything that we sponsor. And the money that we make for First Sunday and for everything that that the Pittsboro business association does goes right into community events. So we're not making money, we're saving money to put it towards summer and the tree lighting. Okay,

that's fair. Um, Commissioner Frell, I'm sympathetic to your concerns and I I can imagine hearing from folks also uh about their discomfort with allowing the use of public facilities for free. Um, my uh my own reckoning with that is that uh I have a pretty deep understanding of how you can't get blood from a turnup, especially a local farmers market turnup. Um and these are really marginal enterprises and uh family businesses that uh um well you know my my family my mother sold cheese at the farmers market in Carbor and then moved to Carbbor and Durham and then Carbbor and Pittsburgh. But um it's um direct marketing is really tough and it's uh it's a lot to ask of them to pay their market fees just so that they have somebody to run and and promote the market, the farmers market.

Yeah. That's where their market fees go to. Yeah. I mean, I'm not going to I'm not trying to put words in Commissioner Frell's mouth, but I don't think he he really he wants to be fair. I think that's what we're we're we're talking about, making sure that we're we're being consistent and fair. Yeah. No matter what we're doing. So, and I think this was more of a clarification. Right. Now that now that we know that

I think it's really just opening up more people to want to use the pocket part at no fee. But that's just my thought. But I I'm not I'm not against the market, don't get me wrong. Not against that little farmers or nobody else. So, but it's going to come back to us one of these days. I may get me a alcohol truck and put down there on Thursdays every Thursday. Who knows? Does we need to clarify what we would sponsor like what qualifies as an event that we could sponsor so that what you're anticipating doesn't happen.

You know the only thing that and it's not that but this is considered a special event but I don't call 52 times a year a special event. The tree lighting once a year the Yeah, that great. They're special events. They're yearly. So that I'll leave it at that. That's that's all

I think two things on that too like we have to anticipate we do approve things as they come to us on an individual basis where we don't often see like a slate of this is the stuff for the year and I'd like to get to that point where we say this is what is coming for the upcoming year particularly in light of budget conversations but um you know I think we have to think about what's going to if the Saturday farmers market says we would like to move from the mill to downtown I don't know if they're paying mill, but you know, we could save X by moving downtown. We want the same deal as the other farmers market. What are we going to do about that? Um, and then more particularly in the light of the Bolton Mink presentation we just saw, if we advertise next week in RFQ to get rid of that site and start construction on it, then how many local events are putting out that have started to rely on that space being available too? Um, so I mean I think in that way it's a it's a temporary solution um for them and so there's you know a a cost to that. Um but that's going to be another uh I think barrier to redevelopment of that site now that that is um being more used which was the goal of the pop-up park too in the meantime to use it. So, um, it's it's complicated. We're we're doing that like we do nonprofit, like we're doing it kind of ad hoc now, but as we grow, these things are going to have to be more policy driven than um just throwing it on an agenda because it came up as an idea.

And then once the policyy's in place, then you all will get calls because that policy is going to restrict people from using it the way they want to. It's our burden. So, do we want to would you like staff to look at this and put some constraints?

Uh, no. I mean, I guess we can talk about this on Monday, but special event and social district and like how those interact and like Yeah. what it's like some other topics like if you do it once it's not a thing if you do it 10 times it's a thing you know so what that threshold is but I've heard a lot of feedback from people who've wanted to rent the pop-up park and they haven't because of how expensive it is. So there's that too. I mean it's pretty expensive to rent it.

Yeah. If you if you were to rent it for like a your kids's birthday party, it's I it's expensive, but so are most places that you rent for those type of things. But if it's a community event that's going to draw people into downtown and support businesses in downtown, that's I think that's typically where we're like, okay.

Right. and just related to the fees. So the so the way that we reached those fees was by looking at the market and and other what other municipalities charge for rentals of that space um and for what they're able to do there. So, same with community house and the the different structure, you know, the um at night farm park, those rental fees were all by looking at the market um to see how various other municipalities charge for similar type spaces.

Let me ask a question on that if I can. So, I guess I understand you're looking at the market of other towns and so on and so forth. Um, but I'm just kind of thinking like real estate, you know, you can look at a market and you can price your house to sell, but if nobody's buying it, that's not the price. Are people, and I'm hearing that people are not renting it, even though we we did a like almost a CMA on it. Are our fees too high? And if we lower the fees that people can actually rent and utilize that, would that bring in more money for the town? Um, I I've heard from people that the community house is too expensive um to rent. So, I'm wondering how many times that gets used or rented in a year and are fees preventing us from actually making income on that.

Um, I can get numbers on how many times. I mean, the comm to my knowledge, the community house is rented frequently. Um, our shelters are rented a lot. Um, the the pop-up park is not rented as much. So, we can look at the pop-up park fe. Yeah, I think the community house fee is if you live in town, it's it's very I think it's very um $100 an hour. Is that But we will be adjusting the fees because we now have to set a flat fee. Not we can't have a resident and non-residential fee per our per our grant that we get from the county. We are going to have to have one fee that is um for all.

Which grant is that? It's the wreck. We get a wreck grant from the captain. How much? 20 approximately $23,000. That is more than we get in fees. Yeah. It require Yeah, it requires us to treat everyone in Chattam County equally because the county I'll just make if it was not the farmers market, what would the town be doing? If it was another organization not charged, I mean for 52 days a year, what would the town do then? Sleep on that if it was not the farmer's mark. What would we be doing?

I would be asking Pab for a recommendation. Yep. I would do listen. Yep. Good. I think with the rental fees, too, like we want to be, you know, there's probably less clean up at the pop-up park than at the community house, whatever. We obviously want to cover our fees or our cost of, you know, use and then but have people use them, too. So,

contract for the uh use of the popup or the pocket park for the um uh what do you call it? Um for the farmers market or can we terminate it should we decide to develop it? Like is there a need to give them a certain amount of time to find a new location or there's not there's not a contract. They applied for sponsorship. So, they currently have sponsorship through the rest of this fiscal year and they will have to apply for sponsorship. So we couldn't develop it until the end of the fiscal year because we have that sponsorship agreement. Well, the sponsorship agreement is not necessarily. It's just it's they are applying for sponsorship from the town. So

when we're we're doing budget now, we're in April. Like when do they reapply for July? Uh they they will be shortly I think from their perspective. Yeah, I want to do that too. So we have a sponsorship. We also have uh when we rent it out, we have a lease agreement for the pocket. They did. Yes. And they did fill out an agreement with the park, right? It goes I believe it just goes through this fiscally zero.

So we're doing two things with one space, a sponsorship and and leasing once. So we so the so the sponsorship is covering the le like they're not paying anything for that lease of course the sponsorship is covering that there the two things that we are doing for that one event you have your sponsorship and then you have your special event application those are two separate things

so the sponsorship that is something that is approved by the committee of Jonathan myself and Teresa based on funding that is already in the budget for sponsorships and we did a budget amendment for it when we brought it to board. The special event sponsorship, if they are specifically asking for alcohol usage, has to come to the to the board for approval, but it has to be a special event application in order for them to request um alcohol to be at the at the event. Yep.

And the farmers market is open to the public, so people can still go in there and park. They can go play on the playground. They can use the bathrooms. They can sit at the picnic tables. If you're going to rent the pop-up park for a birthday party, you are assuming that the bathrooms, the playground, all of that is yours to use. So that's why it's a little bit different also. Okay. Yeah, that's I get that part.

Same like if we were having a community engagement event at the community house, everyone's welcome. And if the county wanted to use the community house for like a community engagement event, you know, we might say sure because it's open to the public. But if you rent it for a baby shower, you know, you're not going to want people off the street coming into your baby shower. So, it's it's a bit bit of a different approach for each, right? Um, and we have it on the agenda. More comments, but I'll just like

Well, we have it on the agenda for too for that specifically, but uh any other budget comments? uh capital thoughts.

I have one. Um I would love to see a downtown event coordinator. I see that it's out of the budget. Um but I think it's really important. Um as Shadam Park is growing and getting so big, we are kind of getting smaller and it's the time is like right now to to be downtown Pittsburgh. We have a small group of people doing events and I think if we had more help um it would just it would be great. I have one more budget wish list. Uh I would like to see in Pittsburgh, it doesn't have to be this obviously this coming year, but consider an arborist a tree authority that could help us with a tree ordinance for downtown. Um most growing cities have arborist, tree arborists, and I think it's time for us to consider that. you talking about that as a town position or like a contract?

Uh that's something we can discuss. Uh I think it's maybe the first year uh a contract and then a paid position after that just to see how much work is available and what is necessary. We have money allocated for contract. Yes. Contract work. Tree service work. Yeah.

Tree service. And that's still that's a little bit Um, that's kind of what I what I want to see is more tree preservation as opposed to tree processing. There's a difference. So, I want to see uh Oh my gosh, that tree was cut down. It shouldn't have been cut down. There's no reason for the tree to get I' I'd like a professional opinion. I don't I don't say we don't need to to have somebody cut down trees, but I want to see somebody that's defending our trees as a uh as a good conscious of we we have these beautiful trees in in Pittsboro. We should keep them. And we need somebody with some ex experience with that very thing.

Mr. Fully, I I I uh hear you loud and clear and um I'm very sympathetic and um I would prefer uh I I would love to have a full-time arborist. Um, I think we probably do have enough work for a full-time arburist, somebody to look after and care for the trees rather than just cut them or

practice surgery or um um however I think that I'd rather we focus our attentions or ask staff to focus attentions on the tree sitting designation because it's going to get us in that direction. And I think there's some things that we need to do as a municipality. We've already taken some steps towards tree sitting designation. Um but there's just a couple more things we need to do to get to that point and um the arborist will happen in due course through that path.

Yeah. Um I need to apologize friends. Um I I have to I have a 3:00 work appointment. Um so I'll be stepping out in just a moment. Um, I don't intend to interrupt the proceedings. Um, Commissioner Thurber, I I heard your proposal and and I want to uh speak a little bit about this. the um the downtown event coordinator is something that I have you've convinced me about it and as I think more about it and how tight this budget is, I'm really struggling with it. Um and uh I don't know if I have time to to express this the way that I want to. I think what I would like to see is for us to strive to reassess this in July or August after we've passed our budget, after we start to get a sense of revenues and business flows through the town, whether or not we could do that um later this year. Um, and I I think we had this conversation that I'm also uh maybe more supportive of the idea of some part-time help. And uh, Commissioner Huner, you've mentioned several times, an idea that I'm very fond of because I've taken had great advantage of working with students, student interns, um, even graduate student interns can be tremendous engines of productivity if they're um, allowed to be unleashed in a direction

of their enthusiasm. Um, and uh, so these are all just ideas. Um, and again, I apologize that I have so little time to continue the conversation. Um, but to wrap up, I mainly wanted to express great gratitude to staff for this budget workshop. Uh, I think it was very effective. Uh, I went into it kind of skeptical because I couldn't find the numbers in the documents, but I think that the the way that it was structured really helped me have a very solid understanding of where we've come from, what we still have yet to do, and how hard staff are working with so few resources. So, deep gratitude to the whole staff for that. Um, in a similar vein, I'm just going to put this out there very briefly. After triaging all of my interests and concerns and things from constituents, again, I will say my top request is the idea of a fiscal impact analysis so that we understand what it is we're getting ourselves into long-term. We're already struggling this hard with continued operations uh and and challenging ourselves not to increase taxes despite all the many requests for additional funds. And we know that sprawl is going to increase our taxes. We know that it's going to force us to increase taxes to take care of the streets, the sidewalks, greenways, and um Jonathan Franklin, thank you very much for a recent email that was very informative. I noted that it is only revenues again. So, uh, if Chattam Park

delivers another thing that they seem to call a fiscal analysis and it doesn't have costs and liabilities in it, I think I might lose my lunch. Um, and I know we can look at the whole picture. I know we have the ability to do that. There's going to be lots of caveats and qualifiers to the numbers. These are guesses. These are estimates. But we have to put something on paper that gives us a balanced perspective of what we're getting out of development in terms of revenues, but also what it's going to cost us. And it's not just about Chattam Park. I would suggest that it's about all of the entitlements that have been issued to date um in town. And um I was very very excited to see um Commissioner Thurber, you shared with me a piece of work that uh Terresa Thompson had created that I embarrassingly had missed in her work plan, which was a three-dimensional map showing um like in a heat scale the tallest reddest pieces where those new properties where land has been developed in such a way that generates lots of tax revenue. It's a very very helpful, very uh you know, a picture conveys a thousand words, right? Um we just need to get those costs in there, too. And I think it's the kind of thing that staff could do inhouse. So, I'm sorry Jenna has left, but um uh I understand that she's quite talented with GIS and I'd love to see another attempt at that map that Teresa created a year and a half ago that attempts to convey both costs and revenues.

Yeah, we get that from the um Main Street State Main Street office. So I think we can get that at any time including costs costs. No no we that would be based on again priorities of service you know how much service do you want to provide? Y and so again that's a board priority decision. Um

comments if you have any other comments about the budget please feel free to email me. So, I will be um obviously updating this for the May meeting. Um so, if in the next couple weeks, anything that you can give me, that would be great. Thank you. I think um I mean, I've got a little more time too, but I think overall we started in my recollection, we started this maybe this list kind of in-n-out list when Chris Kennedy was around or something, but like

this is the most outs I've ever seen on it, you know? And on one hand, I want to kind of thank staff for figuring this all out, how to get to this balanced budget and and this, but you know, recognizing there's a lot of cuts to current things, not adding things that we need and, you know, green infrastructure, stream repair, storm water, um, and and even spreaders and snowflowers and and stuff like that that like we, you know, we have a level of service that we've kind of committed to and I think we're sort of backtracking on that a little bit this year. Um so anything you know to move from out to in is a tax increase or taking something out of the budget and I don't know where else we do that moving state on healthcare. Maybe we you know we can do those things but um to not do a tax increase this year it's a lot of um I think it's a it's a step backwards in the service that we're currently offering. um and making it harder on staff doing more with less doing you know so um that you know I think we all also too have to be more careful about what we ask staff to do um in in these times are going to be more strained less benefits potentially um and so we're going to have to also kind of step back on what we expect out of staff although they're all very hardworking and very good at their professions. There's there's limits. So,

but I don't want you all to be too worried. I mean, we really are looking at this as just find the baseline. Let's work through it. Let's see what this year looks like or next year looks like. And that's going to give us an eye to the future of how we need to budget, what we need to look at, how we need to plan, and then how we stairstep those projects that everybody wants to see. Our advantage is we're growing, right?

That's that's our biggest advantage. I think this was a great exercise to look at what department heads want to accomplish, what that costs, and then what we can actually afford with our current tax rate. Um, so I think just in general is a great exercise to to have this come together the way it did. Um, but the good news is you've already got money allocated for a lot of park projects and some other things that are going to get done next year. um because we just don't have the manpower to do all of these things as fast as one would like. U so it's almost like a catch-up year as well. Any other comments, questions? Make a motion to adjurnn.

Motion second. Motion and second. All those in favor say I.

All right, Jay, be good.