Council - Regular Meeting

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[Music] Good afternoon. Welcome to Surf City. Like to call the meeting to order. At this time, I'm going to call upon Nick Adams is if he's here to lead us in prayer.

Here he is. If you would please stand. Let's pray. God, thank you uh for this opportunity to come together. Thank you for all these people in this room. Uh thank you for the people that uh step up to lead and serve. Dear Lord, I pray that uh in this meeting, dear Lord, that you would just give them clarity that you would give them wisdom, boldness, confidence uh to say and do what what needs to be said. And dear Lord, I pray that uh everybody in this room will remember that we're all just image bearsers of you and we have that in common, that we are all made in your image. And help us to uh just love each other in the way that you call us to. And I pray that uh you go before uh everybody that speaks tonight in this room. Uh and that you just give them wisdom, discernment, protection, dear Lord. And uh I just thank you for this time. I thank you for this community. Thank you for letting me be a part of it uh in any way and uh help us all to to remember how to be a part of it and what we can do and not what somebody else can do. And I just thank you. Love you. Amen.

Amen.

If you would please continue standing and Councilman Sugar will lead us in the pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. At this time, we have a procla proclamation to deliver. Um, it is fire prevention week and if I could have the fire chief and any other firemen that's with us tonight to please come forward. We'll wait for everybody to get up here. There we go. All right. So, Surf City, the office of the mayor proclamation. Whereas, the town of Surf City, North Carolina, is committed to ensuring the safety and security of all those living in and visiting Surf City. And whereas fire is a serious public safety concern both locally and nationally, and is the greatest from fire is in the home. Whereas educating the public to ensure they know how to handle lithium ion batteries safely is critical to minimize the potential risk they present. And whereas encouraging residents to buy only listed products that have a stamp from a nationally recognized testing lab on the packaging and products. and whereas advising residents to charge devices safely using cables that come from the product, purchasing chargers from the manufacturing, charging on hard surfaces, and avoiding

overcharging. Whereas reminding residents to dispose and recycle batteries responsibly, lithium ion batteries should not be thrown in the trash as they can catch fire. They should be returned to a safe battery recycling location. Whereas Surf City Fire Department is dedicated to reducing the occurrence of home fires and home fire injuries through prevention and education. And whereas the 2025 fire prevention week theme, charge into safety, lithium ion batteries in your home, serves as a reminder that you should be taken that care should be taken when purchasing, charging, and disposing of lithium ion batteries. Therefore, I, Terresa Bbat, serve city mayor, do hereby co proclaim October 5th through the 11th, 2025 fire prevention week to our fire chief.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Just a reminder, uh, we should practice fire prevention every day of the year and not just one week. Uh, but lithium ion batteries are very, uh, hazardous. there. It's a technology that we use every day. It's a technology that we need every day. However, there's a proper way to charge and dispose of those batteries. So, you really do need to look at that uh from the manufacturer of whatever device you're utilizing. Uh we're seeing a huge increase of fires between improperly charged, stored, and disposed of lithium ion batteries. So, please take take some time and and learn what you need to do with your batteries, but also your smoke detectors. Time's going to be changing here in about a month. Make sure you check the batteries in the smoke detectors. Thank y'all. [Applause] We'll give our town manager a moment to get back up. He's increasing the view on some doors here. Again, thank you for joining us tonight. Um, it is time to adopt the agenda. Can I have a motion to adopt the agenda?

Beautification first. Beautification. Oh, beautifification. We forgot beautifification. Beautification. Oh, there's Sandy. Hello, Sandy. You already have your plaques. That's why I forgot you. I'm sorry. which is a very important part. So, please proceed.

Thank you very much. Um, tonight I'd like to start with our be our business of the month and we have Lorie's Ace Hardware. And is Lori here in the room today? There she is. Come on up. Hi, welcome. And this is um Lorie's Ace Hardware is one of our newest businesses in town and they put forth a lot of effort to make it look really nice out there on our main corridor as it comes right through the center of town. So, we're very thankful for all that you're doing. And if you'd like to take a moment and tell us tell everyone just a little bit about your business and what brought you here.

Sure. Great. Uh, thank you everybody. I hope you've all been in the store. Can you pull that mic down? Can you get the mic close? Sorry. That's okay. Plus, I'm short.

So, thank you very much. Um, if you haven't been in the store, please come check it out. It's 12,000 square feet of of beauty. Um, shout out to ANA Builders. They were our construction uh project manager for this. And we did have to put a lot of lipstick on the building. Uh, we had a whole new facade. We took rooms out. We put rooms in. We did new flooring. We painted every wall. We painted the ceiling with new lights and on and on and on. So, um, it turned out really well. We're happy about that. Um, so yeah, if you haven't been in, please, please come say hello. We have everything for home improvement. We have lots of grills and right now holiday decor as well. So,

well, great. Well, thank you so much. Thank you. And this month's beautifification home of the month is Mr. and Mrs. Morehead. Allen and Gina, are they here today? Hi, come on forward. And they are at 1817 Southshore Drive. [Applause]

And if you'd like to say a few words about your living here. Yes, we love Surf City, so we'd love to say a couple words. Um, my wife and I, Gina, uh, met uh, when we were students in Chapel Hill about 48 years ago. Um, after a few years of marriage, we we moved to New York. Um, and most of our vacations when we were in New York were sort of far away places, but we hit our 40th anniversary in 2019. And we said, let's go back to North Carolina and maybe South Carolina and let's do beaches for a couple of weeks. We had no life planning in mind. we were just going to have an innocent vacation. Um, our last stop of about eight beaches was Surf City right before going to ILM and flying back home. And I swear within 15 minutes of being on the beach, we looked at each other and we kind of giggled and we said, "Why don't we just quit and move here? This sounded great."

So, in any event, we love Surf City. Um, CO slowed us down a little bit on that move. We did a little due diligence on Surf City. We were very impressed with government, infrastructure, services, everything. And I don't know if Chief Wilson is here or not. Um, but I have to give a shout out to Chief Wilson. I just wrote an email randomly to the fire department with a couple of questions about fire service for insurance. I get an email back from Chief Wilson and I thought this would never happen in New York City. So, you know, it was like immediate love before we even got here. We love building our house here. We love having our home here. want to thank Sandy Monroe and the beautifification enhancement committee very much for this uh uh encouraging uh gesture and we aim to be good neighbors uh and good citizens of Surf City for many years to come. So thank you all very much.

Thank you so much. So, if you are out and about in your neighborhoods and you see a one of your neighbors or a home down a street that you um really think is beautiful, send an email to beautifification at surfcnc.gov and do the same thing for one of our beautiful local businesses and let's show them some love. Thank you. Thank you, Sandy. All right, this time, can I have a motion to adopt the agenda? I'll make a motion to adopt the agenda. Second. Have a motion and a second. All in favor say I. I.

All oppose. Same sign. Motion carries to adopt the agenda. Can I have a motion to uh approval of the consent agenda? I'll make a motion to do that. I have a motion. Do I have a second? I'll second. All in favor say I. I.

All oppose. Same sign. Motion carries to approve the consent agenda. This time I'll look at Carla Citarelli, our town clerk, for public comments. Rich Lair, [Music] Rich Lair, 581. 581 Atinson Point Road. Uh, town manager Kyle Brewer said the 30% tax adjustment is primarily driven by the need to maintain and improve essential services for the 34% population increase since 2020. He is exactly correct. Studies state, including one from Pender County, that new residential developments are net financial losses to municipalities. The opposite is true about adding farmland and commercial developments. They can generate substantial financial gains for municipalities. The crazy thing is that Surf City Town Council is making every effort to more than double the town's population at horrific expense to the town's taxpayers. So, if a 34% population growth bumped our tax payments up 30%. Just imagine how much our taxes will increase if the population more than doubles. In 2005, the s our surf city elected officials decided to expand our sewer system in order to accelerate the massive residential growth they wanted. They bought over 2,000 acres of nearly worthless land in the Junifer swamp for $4 million. The state refused to allow

that swamp land for sewer growth. The taxpayer got stuck with the bill. This year, the town is started soliciting bids, hoping to hire some entity to manage the swamp. Guess who will get stuck with that? Utilities director David Price, whom I believe to be very accurate, explained to the town planning board members that the town will have another 400,000 gallons coming online in three years. Price stated that this was enough to service up to 2,666 additional houses. If we average three occupants per house, that means that the surf that the town's population will grow from 5,373 to over 13,000 in under 15 years. The expan the expansion of the sewer is budgeted to cost an additional 40 million. 34 million of that money will be borrowed. Your rising property taxes will pay the principle in interest on those loans and that amount would more than double the town's revenue neutral budget. So, how can we derail this? Well, I believe that David Price has come up with a solution. David said sewer makes buildable land buildable. If we do not provide sewer, they will have very little incentive to annex into Surf City. Let's not sell out Surf City to giant tracked home built developers or replace our mom and pop coffee shops with Starbucks or our family restaurants with giant chain restaurants. Keep Surf City Beach a low-rise family beach.

Thank you, Richer. Steve Dutton.

Good evening. Steve Dutton, 804 North Topsel Drive, Surf City. And uh we've got a great turnout tonight. It kind of accentuates one of my first points here is people who actually show up. They show up because they care. They love this town, right? and they and they love this community and they're trying we are trying to steer the ship from the icebergs here and please understand that speaking for myself anyway that any data points that that may sound critical or like we're criticizing it's nothing personal just trying to communicate our concerns I'm thrilled to see so many people here um thank you Rich for all the research you've done on this uh I'm going to build a little bit on it in getting back to uh the the concerns we have. What we're trying to do as citizens of Surf City is we're trying to help avoid the mistakes that we've already seen Pender County make for which we're paying already. And so here's just a few things that building an annexing of new residential communities does to existing municipalities. First of all, more school bonds. This is just a reminder here. Pender County already passed a bond for $177,770,897. The next bond bill that gets passed will be to pay just the interest on the last bond. So that it just becomes an endless Ponzi scheme. It leads to higher property taxes, higher property density, big city traffic problems on limited road infrastructure, crowding out and pricing out families who have lived in the area for years. Out of state people moving in and taking over the town and county politically is a concern by people who've been born and raised here, lived here many years.

Newcomers shifting political agendas away from existing residents and instead nurturing their own investments. The cons of unmanaged population growth cannot be overstated. Resource depletion, environmental degra degradation, and overcrowding are just among the pressing concerns. As Rich mentioned, the town already spent 4 million on a beautiful but otherwise worthless swamp. Now, the town is giving 3.6 6 million to a big developer to build a housing development that will negatively affect the town financially. Blowing 7.6 million of tax mayors taxpayers money on projects that will only serve to overcrowd the town and drain the town financially. And that might not be what's in the best interest of Surf City. Thank you for your time tonight. Jill Miranda [Music] Greetings all. My name is Jill Miranda and I live at 1102 Terrace's Lane. What you did cannot be justified through rationalizations or dis dismissive explanations using dimes and pennies. You did this an hour away so no one could see it and then offered little communication about it. How can you be trusted after you're shown a willingness to do things behind people's backs and then demean those you call out that call you out? Your attempts to minimize and make excuses only adds to our distrust of you. I don't think a tax increase was necessary in the first place. I come from the land of living within your means, no matter what those means are. I ran my business that way and I run my home that way. But since you lacked the ingenuity and creativity to figure out how to do that, wouldn't it have been

kinder to do it incrementally over a few years rather than all at once? It's not like you couldn't see that growth was booming. You promote growth. You claim you are robbing Peter to pay Paul. Then why for the sake of all that is good and holy did you give a five figure raise to a staff member with another one to follow sin? You should be cutting everything non-essential to the bone. cut out tourism promotion, travel dollars, retreat dollars, shift employees to the state health care program, lobbying dollars, raises, and the list goes on. That 12 cents you tried to rationalize in your video turned out to be $468 for me. Not a big deal. I can handle it. But what about the 90-year-old widow living on a fixed income or the 78-year-old widow who had to take a job to keep her house? What about young families now selling to find cheaper places to live? What about landlords who won't be able to meet their rent their properties because they've got to charge more than the traffic will bear? What about our small businesses who will have to raise prices to pay the higher rents? Why is it almost every town in our vicinity can work with less money than Surf City? Why can Writesville Beach do it for 6 cents and we can't do it for 43 cents? My fear here is that this you won't be satisfied with this 53 cents. You're going to want more and you're going to want it soon. In a recent candidate survey, one of you stated, "I am committed," and I'm quoting, "to implementing a revenue neutral budget for the 2627 fiscal year." I commend that. Pursuing a revenue neutral budget is a crucial forwardthinking step for our town. I challenge you to put those words into actions tonight. Make a motion tonight during the regular meeting to adopt and vote for a revenue neutral budget. Don't say you can't do it until you see the property. Re-evaluation numbers, they don't matter. You can't make that an excuse to postpone. If you truly mean what you say

and you are genuinely dedicated to this community, then act tonight and you'll be heroes. And if you don't, we'll all know where your hearts really lie. Renee Rhodess Good evening. I'm Renee Rhodess. I reside at 70197th Street. I've lived in this town for 23 years and have had the pleasure of serving on the planning board for the past seven years, which has given me a real real inside look at how our town operates. not just what's posted online, but how decisions are actually made. As election season approaches, I've noticed a lot of division and frustration in the community. Much of it based on information that's incomplete, taken out of context, or simply not accurate. I understand why people care so deep deeply. This is our home. But too many are forming strong opinions without ever hearing the full story. I hear frustration about taxes and spending, but many of those frustrations come from snapshots posted online. A post gets shared, a comment circulates, and it spreads quickly. Yet, very few people come to meetings, ask questions, or take the time to understand the why behind decisions. And honestly, you can't get the full picture by looking up averages or comparing us to another town. Every town's finances are different. different funding sources, obligations, and rules. Without understanding how those numbers are structured and what they represent in practice, those comparisons can be misleading at best and damaging at worst. As a banker, I spend a lot of time looking at numbers. Numbers matter,

but numbers alone don't tell the whole story. If you don't understand how they step off the page and into the real world into infrastructure, recovery, safety, and growth, you end up with idealistic plans that don't hold up when reality hits. Take the town's reserves. I've heard people question why we have so much set aside. What many don't realize is that after Hurricane Florence, the town had to front nearly $17 million for recovery. everything from repairing infrastructure to simply clearing sand off roads so that residents could return home. It took years for reimbursements to come through. Those reserves weren't extra, they were essential. That's why I want to say thank you, Mayor Bats, council members, to our town manager, Mr. Brewer, our town attorney, and all of the hardworking staff. Your work is difficult, often thankless, and rarely understood. You make tough, responsible decisions every day, and make yourselves available to anyone willing to ask and listen. That matters. And to my fellow residents, before sharing a post or repeating something you've heard, take time to get the facts. Come to a meeting, ask questions, engage yourself. We all play a role in making sure our conversations are based on facts, not fragments. This is Airtown. Let's lead with honesty, curiosity, and respect, and support the people working hard behind the scenes to keep it strong. Thank you, David Osley. Sorry, I'm here. I signed into

Okay. Uh Patty Gilbride. [Laughter] Patty Gilbride, 813 8th Street. Um, I just have a couple of notes with a few things that I wanted to mention. Um, as always, thank you, Madame Mayor and Council, for giving me an opportunity to say what I'd like to say. Um, actually, what I want to say is not really directed towards you. It's directed towards my neighbors and the other residents. Um, I don't believe in um saying everything I have to say on Facebook because everything just gets all over the place and twisted and turned. And I do believe the people that show up at the meetings are the ones that truly do care. I love what Renee had to say about um fake news on Facebook. Um, regarding the taxes, um, which is obviously a huge topic right now. Um, obviously I I I don't want to pay more taxes. I can safely say that nobody in the room wants to pay more taxes. Regardless of how much money you have, you never want to pay more taxes. Um but as uh you know, I've heard a lot of people speak that uh they wish that the taxes had been spread instead of 30% over in one shot. Um that 3% over, you know, 3% for 10 years would have been a much easier nut. Um, and even to prove the point point, the Jill Miranda, our council candidate, um, had mentioned that same thing. But I don't know if anybody's actually looked at the basic math of compounding interest. I mean, if you if you open a savings account, you want to compound interest. In this case, if you actually did um raise your taxes 3% each year for for 10 years, you would have had a 34% tax increase. So, you'd all be paying a whole lot more. Um, again, I appreciate it's a big nut all at once, but that is a really poor

suggestion that it should have been over 10 years. Um, I want to mention um bring up Kyle. Um, I I know Kyle, uh, not really personally, but I know him professionally. I've served on boards and committees with the town almost as long as I've lived here, which is 10 years. I've known previous town managers. Um I a lot of folks have uh decided um have based their opinion of Mr. Brewer on strictly on his compensation and they've decided that he is not worth his compensation. I don't know how many of you have any idea of the number of uh grants that Kyle is able to successfully obtain from the government. Um, if you all think that he's getting paid $50,000 too much, he has more than covered. Not just that 50,000, but probably his salary. I don't have all the facts. If you if you're interested, I'm sure you can reach out to Mr. Brewer or one of your council members and you can actually get that information from somebody that has the information. Um, I real quickly, the last thing I want to say is regarding the election. I've heard a lot of people say that anybody that voted for the tax hike, they want to vote them out. Um, I just want to remind people that if the council has done 99 things that you agree with over the last x number of years, and this is the first thing they've done that you don't agree with, keep in mind that the person you vote in might do 99 things that you don't agree with. Thank you for your time. [Applause] Any craver? I probably won't need this, but anyway. Okay. I've signed up to speak just in case I wanted to. And I said, "Well, I'll go ahead and do something." I didn't really prepare anything, but I've started doing some research and I looked up the other night. Oh, Penny Craver,

306 Blue Fan Street. I looked up the other night at what the town manager for Wilmington makes and with their population, I divided it. They pay $2 per person to their town manager. Based on our population and our town manager's uh salary, we pay $32 per person for his salary. And nothing personal again, but that's just the way it is. I've also found out that one, two, three, four, five of you are you work in the real estate or you you're a property managers or you develop or you're a broker or you have real estate uh you know and I I see that as some serious conflicts of interest. Yes, I do. And so I um I I just you know you're whether you intend it to or not, it's feeding your pocket. And so and I come from Charlotte. I spent 37 years in Charlotte. I've seen development. Oh my god. But I moved here because this is a small beach town. And even I believe when you were running for mayor, you said that we have to develop uh or adopt the idea that we're becoming a bigger town with a beach. And I don't think people moved here to be in a bigger town with a beach. I think we moved here to be in a beach a a cozy somewhat ever growing beach town, but not all at once. And I know in Charlotte, because I ran businesses for 35 years in Charlotte, when you uh develop something, you pick up the cost of a most of the development with your infrastructure. And here I I think we're picking up the cost of most of the infrastructure. So I think this is bad idea. And I don't know. So

anyway, I I think that everybody, at least in my neighborhood, is opposed to this. And those of us who are retired and on limited incomes, we can't we can't afford these kinds of tax increases. We just can't. We we just can't. So, at any rate, thank you Dave and Denise Blanken. Michael Hill. Is there another Michael that signed up? And I No. Okay. Trevor Dusty. My name is Trevor Dossi. I live at 918 North New River Road. First of all, I want to thank everybody that's on the council and everybody in this room that led prayers to me standing here today. Uh my doctor stated that I had the the double the worst midline shift ever 5 months 21 days ago that they ever operated on. So, it was a true miracle. So for everybody in the council and everybody's room that prayed for me to be able to see my daughter and future grandchildren, thank you. I'm here because I know there's a lot of stuff going on the community and stuff said, but I'm really here to just say thank you and I'm praying that the council stays the way it is because without you all I wouldn't be standing here today. So, thank you

Ann Stewart.

Hi, Ann Stewart, 204 Sound Drive, Surf City. Um, I not I don't have prepared remarks. I just wanted to make a couple of comments that the taxes uh since uh 2013 when they had the last tax increase have increased by 29%. It's true almost 30%. The CPI on the other hand from that same period until now has been 43% at the same time that our population and I don't know where the other population figures came from. I was just doing an estimate so mine ours is accurate but um from 2015 uh people to 4,961 which is 146% increase. So asking for a 30% increase to deal with the demands of 146% increase in population probably isn't out of the ballpark. That said, I don't have I hate taxes. Everybody does. Nobody wants to pay them and I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop when my assessed value comes in. I haven't even bothered to look at it yet because whether I look at it or not, it is. Um, so the value on my house is going to increase. Obviously, the assessment from Pender County and that'll mean my taxes both for city and county will also increase. The one thing I I don't I don't think there's anything to be done about the the city t the tax increase the 29 30%. I think that is well within your all's needs um to keep this uh the services that you have our police our fire and uh a very much needed path for uh for safety reasons um improving the sidewalks now. So, having said that, thank you for

uh just having a 30% tax increase. I think that's what I'm trying to say. Um, I will however uh and I've already uh I've already spoken to one of your members about this that I would be saying this and it's not going to be popular with you all, but given that the offsite that you had in Wilmington has caused such consternation, I'm asking if each of you would refund to the town the cost of your lodging and your meals. Thank you. [Applause] Marty Ororton. Good afternoon, Madame Mayor. My name is Marty Martin. I live at 1825 North Two River Drive. I'm here tonight to address the mayor. According to the first amendment, if any of you up there have read it, I doubt it, but it says I have the privilege to say free speech. anything I want to say. I spent 50 years of my life protecting you people and the people behind me for you could have free speech to say what you wanted to and to who you wanted to and what you wanted to without being ugly or derogatory toward your towards them but to get your peace of mind across them. I've put down a plenty of people for it, for not doing it, protecting this country. I'm not ashamed of anything I've done in the past to

protect this country. And I've done a lot of bad stuff. And I don't regret it. But what I'm asking this panel to do is to read this first amendment. It gives me the right to address the mayor first, then I can address anybody up there on that board. Check with your lawyer. I've had other people to read it. I've read it four or five times and make sure I know what I'm talking about. And I'm sure if you check with your lawyer, and if he reads it and if you read it, you'll see where I'm coming from. There's certain things I can't say. And I understand that. I'm not going to be rude to people. Never have been. But if I want to call out somebody, I can. As long as I go to the mayor first. As long as I say mayor, madame mayor, I can go to Hugh, Trudy, any of them, and say what I want to without being told to sit down. If you don't believe me, read it. And the only reason you did that is because of the man next to you. He don't want people talking about him and calling him out at the meetings. That's just the way it is. If you don't believe me, read it yourself, which I doubt you have. Thank you very much, [Applause] Don Helms. I only have a couple comments. One of them is

you can you state your address, please?

Oh, I'm Don Hams. I live at 105 Bunchberry Court, Dogwood Lakes. uh you folks on that get on Facebook and say things uh about the mayor, the council, uh Facebook's not the place to say that. Uh if you want and say something to your mayor and meet with the mayor, that's fine. But don't get on Facebook and threaten people and say things that you don't know what you're talking about. Uh the my taxes went up just like everybody else's here. It wound up being $244. Uh that's a lot of money. I understand that to anybody. I'm retired uh and I have a fixed income. That's a lot of money, but you got to understand what things cost. I was on this very council and I was on the fire department when we bought that ladder truck. We bought that ladder truck for $7 and not exact figures, but $700 and some,000. Now, that same ladder truck would cost you over $2 million. Same thing with engines. We bought engines for the fire department. They cost us $30ome,000. Now, they probably cost right at $100,000 a piece. Everything in this world has gone up. Not only real estate, not only taxes, but everything.

Some of us that are my age can remember we bought gas for 12 12 cent 129. Now what is it? Gang. Yeah, I know it. Doug, you're older. You're not as old as I am, but you're close. But folks, you can't. These people are not doing it out of making money because I was on this council. You don't make but about what do you make now? $300, $400 a month. What? Oh, I said, "Woo!"

Yeah. Uh, most jobs out here play a whole lot more than that. And people don't realize just how much work you got to do during the month that you neglect your family and you're up here doing things for you folks, the taxpayers. And look, we went from a little beach town over in Surf City. I was here then. Teresa was here. Doug was here. And now you've got about every amenity that Wilmington's got. So don't criticize, be pleased with it. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you for your comments. um are going to move forward. So, at this time, we have no public hearings. We have no old business tonight. We have no new business tonight. We do have a manager's report. Cal Brewer.

Good evening, Madame Mayor and Council. Yes, I'm trying to uh speak as close to the mic as I possibly can without drowning everybody out. Um my comments will be brief. I know we have a um large agenda after this. Um, I did want to give a couple of updates. Our facilities expansion project, uh, clearing and demolition has begun at station two. Uh, you will notice that the building will be stripped down to the existing metal structure over the next couple of weeks. Uh, most of the trades and subcontracted work for that project as well as station 25 uh, have been determined and prices have been favorable for the town. So, I'm happy to report that uh, the work session, Dr. Reynolds, the town's contractor, will provide a project update as well as a financial update on on those two projects. The Southshore Drive and Seahorse Avenue stormwater project is essentially completed. I went by the site this morning. Um contractors have have worked really hard over the last month to get this infrastructure project done. Uh they have some material and equipment to be removed and then we'll come back to seed the areas. Um, as a reminder, this was a stormwater project to capture roadway flooding, uh, to divert that to infiltration chambers along Seahorse Avenue. Um, the town did not just go in and and put, uh, brick pavers in there. There is a a engineering function to that and that was uh, completely funded through grant funds. Uh, the sidewalk project that's been ongoing um, has been drawn out a little longer than expected. Uh, sidewalks are completed. However, crews um have experienced issues with the striping machine to add additional crosswalks uh throughout the island town center. That is coming. Um they are working with two property owners now to pave driveways uh to reduce debris conflicts in the roadway and highly utilized pedestrian area. Uh the trash and recycling uh cart change out is part of our negotiated contract with GFL. Uh they will be

replacing all trash and recycling carts throughout the town. Uh the project is expected to begin early November and preliminary planning indicates uh that they will follow their service routes when they do that change out. Um just taking two weeks to complete each each section. Uh we're also taking this time to complete a complete cart audit uh to make sure accurate uh accounts are up to date. Um so please be on the lookout for additional information with that as we continue logistics and u putting that change out project together. So, everybody will be getting new trash and recycling carts. Um, just a real quick I wanted to update um take this opportunity to update everybody on on some ordinance changes that uh just went into effect. Um, our solid waste ordinance uh was modified to address some items concerning violations um and specifically providing objective standards for what determines uh when a lid is open on a cart. So, there's been some concerns over the past summer. Um people are getting warnings or citations about having trash cart lids open. Um the new ordinance defines this as being considered closed uh up to 12 in. So you can have a 12-in gap there. Uh code enforcement staff is not going uh through measuring these things, but but egregious items that they can stop. They can take a measurement. Um but to follow up with that is that the enforcement process process will will start with a warning prior to any sort of violation being issued and that process will reset on an annual basis uh determined by any sort of initial warning or citation. So, not on a calendar year, a 12-month year, 12-month uh process, but if you um have a mistake and you get a warning or a citation that is documented, you're that resets uh 12 months after that uh initial contact. Uh we have not uh really advertised too

much um just because we didn't want to uh confuse anything but um the town is going to be hosting a strategic planning session um on October 29th from 6:00 to 8 in this room. Uh we will be seeking community input to help identify guiding principles, guide the decision-making process, participate in a in typical SWAT analysis, uh pestl exercises, um with the community to gather that feedback, uh that will go into the update to our strategic plan. um I will carry that information, work with department heads and then um ultimately with town council um to to let them understand what priorities are um so we can make that uh update um here after uh January. So um just that was some brief comments that I had. Madame Mayor, um I will be out for the next work session as just a reminder. I do have a conference that I'll be at. Um so just letting letting you know.

Thank you. Thank you. All right, we'll move to Brett Dilms. Our Nothing to report. Nothing to report. Okay, we'll start with Alicia.

Um, we don't always do this, but I'm going to take a couple minutes to address some of the stuff that was brought up in public comment. Um, one thing specifically is annexation of properties. We are in Surf City. There are lots of pieces of land within what you may consider Surf City that is not Surf City right now. So if we have a property owner that wants to do something and developmentwise with that piece of land and we don't annex it into Surf City, it's then left to Pender County for them to do whatever they want. And I would probably say they're going to allow more dense neighborhoods and communities there. Whereas if we actually annex those properties, we not only have the ability to set the zoning for them so we can do a lower density zoning, but we also then um those become taxpayers for us that help pay for our roads that they're going to use anyways and all of the other utilities, park services, and everything else. So keep that in mind when we talk about annexation. It's not just the town trying to get extra money. It's us trying to help manage the growth that we all keep hearing about and learning about. Um, let's see. Um, the when we did went to the retreat, we all left with the general consensus that we were not going to raise the tax rate. So, don't think that the retreat meant that we all went and we hid from you. Um, we all left that day 100% planning to not increase the tax rate. We were then brought numbers that just made that not a realistic goal for us this year. And um, while some of us do have real estate here, I have rental properties. I've got one in Holly Ridge. I've got one in Surf City. And I've got one in Hampstead. I had all of those before I came anywhere near town council. And I promise that increasing the tax rate costs me money not once but twice because I own two properties in Surf City. We are a small community. We are limited to what your town council members can do as a living. So keep that in mind when you think about stuff like that. Um we don't get the choice. We you're going to have people come up here

and run for town council. If they have a job, that's their job. There's only so many jobs in Surf City available. Um, we talked about budget rates. So, you can talk about your tax rate for different cities and we can compare it. That does not equate to what their actual expenses and their revenue is. So, just to compare the tax rate doesn't look at the whole picture. So, please keep in mind again tax rate is one thing, but it's based off of a lot of different pieces. It's a percentage that we get the revenue from. It's not something just to compare. You can't look at the wages of our staff because we have one person that does HR for the town of Surf City. That's it. That's our HR department. So, when you're looking at some of this information that was handed out earlier as well, please go back and look at the budget and look at the actual wages of some of our staff members and also look at the size of the departments and the number of staff we have in those departments. We operate off what I feel like is a very minimal um staffing here and our town staff from the top all the way through to our summer camp counselors are amazing and they come here and they work here and they care about this town and unfortunately a lot of them don't live here. They don't get the perks of Surf City but they come here and they work here and our police officers and firefighters put their lives on the line every single day for this town that they don't even get to live in. Um, and I think that's it. Thank you all for coming. There's lots of good information coming as well. So, you know, take the time, ask questions, and that's all I got. Thank you.

That's great.

I guess that's just saved me the same not the same amount of time. I wouldn't be as eloquent as you were, but uh it basically hits the nail on the head. I will say this. um the council. Yes, these people are homeowners and they're business owners. Um I am a homeowner, but I don't own a business. I retired here and this is my job. This is what I put my time in, and these are the things that, you know, the meetings I go to and the things I do are all based in the town. And I try to get to every meeting I can to try to understand as much as possible. Thank you all for coming tonight. I hope some of you will hang around and listen to the people that know exactly the dollars and cents, the percentages of what is in that back room along with Kyle. I think after his explanation, I think it hopefully will clear up things. Uh I'm not a social media person. I don't like social media. I don't like Facebook. I just don't do it because to me it's the devil's tool. It just spreads uh discontent. It spreads bad things because people don't check or back check. Just like the last few months we've had meetings, we've had people come up and they Yes, we recognize free speech in this country, but when you start to talk to somebody or talk about somebody or at somebody and you don't use decor or you don't use respect, that to me cuts the line. You know, I'm sorry that uh I that's how I feel and thank you very much, but that's all I have and thank you for all coming tonight. Thank you, John.

Jody.

Okay. Okay. I'm always happy to be here. Um and I there's not a single person up here at this big giant desk that I don't appreciate and have a lot of value for. Um I've really I've worked in a lot of different corporate situations, um small nonprofit situations. because I've done a lot over the years and um I really love this team and the way we we all bring something different to the table and I think there are some folks who get um questioned on that and I love questions. Let me say I love questions. Let's have good questions. So, thank you. I'm really thankful for Mr. Dutton commented about how look how many people showed up and I agree. Thank you. And you said they showed up because they care and I was like yes, let's do that. I wish it was like this every month. I really do. Um it's been I I was around town today and having conversations with people and someone commented said I heard someone over say I overheard someone say something like well don't talk bad about council because there's one of our council members over there and I said no no no let's do all of that like that's why I need to talk to you like because you you know sharing it in a different manner is not very helpful and we're not having a good productive conversation about it. So, um I think some of us have really good platforms to be out in our businesses and be connected with some folks in the community. I love that. I'm actually a little bit jealous that I don't have a little local business like that that I can sit there and be available. Um I try my best to get out and plan as many meetings as I can. Um I'm very um I'm on staff at one of the local churches here. I'm on the Topsel Turtle Project. I'm a coordinator. I have 50 people working under me at Topsel Turtle Project and I'm on the beach all the time talking with them. I love some of my turtle people who are here tonight. Um, we have just a really crazy, wonderful, awesome community. And with this growing community, we're all connecting in the best way that we can. And I love that each of us are connecting with a section of the population in a different way, whether we live in different neighborhoods or

we're in different businesses or whatever. Um, and someone mentioned, I don't know whose speech it was. I thought it was well because you guys come with your public comment and I love that. And you've I love when you've written it out and you're trying to keep it to three minutes. we get more than three minutes, but um someone said, you know, we want to take care of the infra, I think it was Renee, maybe infrastructure, recovery, safety, and growth. And I made that note and I was like, that was an very good that spoke to me. I hope some things spoke to you tonight. I hope you made some notes. Um that list spoke to me. That's exactly what we've been standing for. And in my opinion, for what I do in my job, I've done it in that exact order. infrastructure recovery, safety, and growth. And I know growth is a big thing. We think growth is up here at number one, and it's not number one for me. We have to respond to it, and it's happening, but it's not my number one endeavor. And so, um, so I I just really wanted to comment on that and I'm kind of doing what Alicia and John both did, too. We're kind of responding. We don't do respond to a lot to the public comment, but, um, I do, like I said, I value everybody here at this big giant desk and the these people, right? And I I know there's been some questions about Kyle, our town managers. um position and his uh his um you know the way he's paid and things like that and we we went through I wish that people who had decided to say something about that had done some homework on that and and and I know some people did and please you know but um we spent a lot of time discussing that not wanting to lose one of our most valuable assets we wanted to to recognize that we can't we really can't afford we've lost some people this year in our town employment um and some very good people who found better opportunities in other towns and then we have to come we have to find a replacement then we have to train them and and I I love our one department person of Lydia but she's doing the onboarding and offboarding like she's

overwhelmed sometimes because of some of those vacancies and trying to find the right people and um and I don't think we're in a position to replace a a town manager or a town uh clerk or anything like that. We've we've just we've finally gotten to a really good place and I've learned so much from them and I appreciate that Kyle went with me and um Brian Moxy the other day we went over to Newurn for the day and spent a day with the IEDC and learned about some um economic developments and things like that. But I mean like this guy shows up all the time everywhere and this um all the meetings we went and did the with the um uh Army Corps of Engineers and all the stuff we've been doing the beach reourishment. It's just been phenomenal. And so I I I really um regret that I haven't spoken up and said some said more about Kyle at every meeting. So that's my moment that I'm taking now. Um anyway um and someone commented that we you know a bunch of us own real estate and things like that. I actually have to own real estate to leave live here and to to be on council. I have to own a piece of property to to to to be on council. So, I have to live here, but um I do own a couple other properties and my mother lives here. And so, this again, like Alicia said, it wasn't easy to make a tax increase decision. Um I don't have bis a big vibrant real estate business. Um, I do work at one of our local churches and I have I daily pray about what God's allowed me to have and how to be a good steward of that and what to do with that. And I work very hard to love on our community, people who are without, people whose houses were flooded, people who um who were kicked out of their housing complex, people who are traveling through or whatever. And so I'm thankful. I'm not going to apologize for having some extra prop two extra properties. Um, I'm actually very confident that I've done exactly what God wanted me to do with those properties. I haven't been profiting and I didn't buy any property since I came on council because I had

some insider information and it benefited me in some fashion. Um, I've only done with what I had before I came on council and I would do it again and again because I love this community and I want to take care of the people. And that's what we've done a really great job at through the years. I've owned a house here since 1989. I grew up in Mount Olive and I love Eastern North Carolina people. If you're not from Eastern North Carolina, I'm really sorry. But um but seriously, we take care of our people. And if you've had the privilege of coming here and being part of this like Trevor and we've loved on you, thank you because I mean like that's you were brought here for a reason and we we needed to love on you and we wanted to bless you. and there's one day that you'll bless me and I appreciate that too. Um, and I want to ask you all to please come to the strategic planning meeting later in October because that's one of the things that we do we did ourselves as council and we're excited to like let you come you tell us what you want us to focus on. If I've got my four my four items of infrastructure recovery, safety, and growth, then you come tell me what your agenda items are and let's work towards that. Because if we're going to have tax dollars spent on something, which they will be spent on something, let's make sure it aligns with the majority of the population and let's make sure that we're doing it the way you voted us to do it. Let's do that together. Okay. Thank you. [Applause]

Short but sweet. Thank you everybody for attendance. This is great. This is great when when there's a lot of people in here. I say it quite often. Uh, thank you for the comments. Uh, I've heard some of them before, but thank you for being brave enough to stand up and say them out loud. Be informed. Be involved. Election day is coming up and I'm not trying to campaign. I'm a big believer in the process. Don't let somebody else make your decision for you. Don't let somebody else tell you something that you believe that you've not followed up on and done your own due diligence. Make sure that what you think is true is true. Don't let somebody else tell you what that is. Uh hopefully we'll see each other sooner than later and I'm sure everybody's going to stay around for our summary at the end. Thank you. I'm more than happy to speak with you individually if you like. Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay. because sometimes I think you see us different there. I'd like to maybe just take a moment and show you maybe that we're the same people that you are. Um you know um Mr. Dutton great way I love uh when I have my employees I always before I'm going to kick them in the butt I give them a compliment a little bit and I I apprec I appreciate that. You know, one of the things is uh I've always said uh to my family and to my children, my wife, my wonderful wife who's here u is that um you know, we are on this earth such a short period of time, such this just small window, we blink and it's gone. And we uh we have moments like this today where uh for example, like I I never write notes. So, I'm going to write some re write some notes because I want to make sure I'm specific with y'all and hopefully you can understand from a an outside uh spot. You know, Mr. Ralph sitting here been friends with you for eight years and I told you something and you said you didn't know that. Um, you know, I moved here like many of you do from from the north. Okay. Looking for a change of life which mainly was in uh climate. Um, never once did I think when I crossed that swing bridge for the first time that I would own several businesses, generating revenue towards our local economy and employing over a hundred people in our community each year. Then taking on this endeavor of politics. Wow. Um, stupid in some aspects. Um, it was an honor, but I never would have thought that this endeavor would be challenging. I thought it was local politics. You know, small town, you get

involved. Uh people like yourself, ma'am, get up and you you say, "Hey, we want this to be a certain way." And you think to yourself, "Okay, we I agree. I'm sitting listening to everything you're saying, saying, "Yes, I want to be that way, too." But at no time in the eight years of my public service have I experienced discord among our community as I do today. I came from a small town in Ohio just like this. I grew up on a horse farm. I cut firewood. I I told the the candidate forum. I planted p uh pine trees at 13 years old and I made five bucks an hour. Um I don't have a college degree. Um I I live my life by example. I make a lot of mistakes. My wife corrects me daily. Um I have six fantastic children. Five of them have graduated from Topppsel High School here. Um been here no not quite 20 years, but I'll never be considered a local. I know that ever. But I am vested here. You know, we should have the opportunity to exchange ideas. All of us. Agree or not agree. Freedom of speech should not be confused with spreading lies, hate, negativity, or untruth about any of us today with no consequences. I think about my children when they would say an untruth how I would treat them. I would talk to them about that. Or if they were negative in our house. We don't allow negativity in our house because it's not a negativity is not a welcoming thing because it doesn't make anybody feel good about anything. I look around this crowd. I could probably name twothirds of you by first name. That's one of the most exciting things that I've experienced from this council thing. It's like Olivia over there. I met you at one time. Now you put birthday signs in yards. I have so many stories. Mike Hill here. I met you Mike. Sandy Monroe. Mark Solomon. Adam Graves. Trevor Doy, Kathy Catrell, we can go around. Dick White even there. I

met you at my coffee shop. Whether you like me or not, Dick, I met you at the coffee shopping. Okay. And these things you can't you can't refer. How about Mr. Aifi back there? They complimented your building today. What you did Lory's. You don't want any praise or credit for that? And this council for sure does not want any praise or credit. You know, the tax increase has caused a divide. Would we all agree that? We all agree yes or no. It's caused a divide here. Okay. Now, you can't deny that because, for example, um if anybody doesn't think that I'm nervous to stand here or these council members are not nervous to be here, do not be mistaken. We're human like you. We get up, put our pants on just like you. Somebody says, "Well, you signed up for this." You're correct. I did sign up for it. I didn't sign up with all the consequences that come with it sometimes. I signed up to serve my community, to be honest, to have integrity, make decisions and make mistakes. That's what that's what I signed up to do. You know, community members have are overwhelmed our manager and our department heads by requesting documents, meetings, answering unwarranted emails. Hundreds of hours per week have been created much more weeks or to our town employees that can't do their day-to-day jobs. And it I don't think it's all over taxes. Can I have a bottle of water? Somebody. Anybody

here? Thanks.

Oh, there you go. I only wish that the tax information that has been presented could have been pre represented more accurately instead of by confusion or misrepresentation because no doubt about it, no doubt about it. Everything's a telephone game nowadays. You hear one thing, somebody else hears another thing, somebody else hears another thing. We've all experienced that in life where I can tell you something, you whisper to her, you whisper to her, and before you know it, we we have a complete mess on our hands. We, you know, this is something that I've said and uh it it's like I almost feel like we dismissed a little bit. I was talking to Mayor Medlin out there in the parking lot last time about we had 15 a combination of 15 public recorded meeting announcements and public posts referring to the budget. The budget book sat in the lobby for 3 months. In the future, we'll have to find other means of notifying the public because that we thought that that was it. I thought that was the right thing to do. I thought we we did the right thing by doing those things. And then after the fact, I found that it wasn't adequate. Would I have known it wasn't adequate? Would this council have known that it wasn't adequate? Would we have known, hey, 15 times is sounds good, right? I yell at my child 15 times. He doesn't take the dang trash out every upsets me. I keep reminding him. Okay. So, I have to find alternate means to get him to understand that. Prime example, I told him not to park on the street. My HOA does not like when we park on the street. He has a parking spot. Okay. And yes, we have a house we own across the street. So, he gets to park in the house in the little side driveway. And I come home the other day and his car is parked on the street. Now, would you think that's a simple concept for a 17-year-old? Yes or no? I would think so. So, he left while he was upstairs. So, I went and got his car and took it down around the block and parked at the pavilion. So, he came in and said, "Where's my car?" I said, "I don't know. There's a tow truck driving around towing cars in in HOA." down. And then he's like, "Oh." Runs outside. Comes

back in, says, "Dad, they towed my car. My car is gone." And I said, "You shouldn't have parked on the street." Of course, my wife said, "It's your dad." He put it around the corner. The point was it got his attention. It got his attention. Sometimes we have to we we need to get our attention. We sometimes you have to get your attention. You know, someone recently says this is someone recently said to me, "Why don't we raise a little each year?" here. You know, I know that was mentioned. There was a guy named Cindy Kennedy lives on James Avenue that I met and um if any of you are from the James Avenue and it's kind of funny. I uh she had printed off this unique it was this is really first class that would like to see it's first class. Um, and what did I I text Cindy. I said, "Cindy, you came to my office and we met about raising taxes, the tax rate, and she says, uh, her taxes went up." She said like $184. And and of course, I'll get to that also, but it was neat because she said, "I did a some math on 3% increase since 2012, and it would cost me $1,600 more dollars if I had done a 3% increase." So, I didn't have those numbers. So, I texted Cindy and she said to me, "I'm on a cruise ship." I says, "Can you can you get me those ma that mask?" She goes, "I'll I'll print it off my computer real quick." She hand wrote it to me on a cruise ship, took a picture, and sent it to me. I think these are the things that I want you to know is when I got on this council, the members before us have worked so diligently on keeping taxes low. How low? Since I've been on council, there has been no operational tax increase since I've been on council. And prior to that, there was no operational tax increase. I know Mr. Medlin, I know Mayor Bats, every one of these people have always wanted to keep taxes down because why? It affects us as humans just like it affects you. Um, you know, my taxes went

up 15 $400 this year on my tax bill in Dogwood Lakes. Am I happy about it? No, not at all. I'm It irritates me. You know, we're well aware the expenses have gone up dramatically in our personal lives, in our businesses, the groceries. You can't walk out of the grocery store without what's what's 50 bucks get you to the grocery store nowadays? A bag, right? And so, we have fought not to raise tax regardless of who's sitting at this city council. It it doesn't change the outcome has that we not kept up or get out. Here's the deal is remember this. Now, you've been led to believe the city overspends and we pay too much for employees. That's what you've been led to believe some people. Okay? So, let's take our town manager and I want to go over some facts for you. Now, first of all, you all understand that town managers, please, and I'm not. So, if I'm ever coming off like I'm scolding, I'm trying to educa, inform you. Is that right? Cuz everybody wants facts. That's what we're here for. So, Mr. Brewer is hired by this council. That's we hire the CEO of this city. I want to make sure everybody understands that. We hire three people. We hire the attorney, we hire the manager, and we hire the the clerk, wonderful lady over there who nobody says anything about. She just sits over and puts up with us. Okay. So, this is who we hire. So, here's Kyle Brewer. His contract was getting ready to come up and he is the CEO of Surf City. That's what he is. Can you show show hands if you have any interaction with Kyle Brewer in your past? Can you raise your hands? Okay. Now, let me ask a question. Do you, and if you don't mind, does Kyle Brewer go over and beyond what he's supposed to do? Yeah. Raise your hand if he does that. Look around. I think he deserves a hand for what he does is my opinion. I I I just want to say this. What I did was I took some numbers because we talked about comparing and and one of the things we did as a council is, okay, this guy's paying $138,000 a year as CEO of this town. He's that's what he's

being paid. Okay, we had our attorney. So, we contact the attorney. He said, "I need you to give us real data." Is this right, Mr. Dilms? On managers pay in surrounding communities equal to that of Surf City. Is that fair enough? Now, it can't be just population because there's many variables. Some cities don't have sewage, water, beach nourishment. So, there's a lot of things that our manager manages different than other towns. We bring up Ritsville Beach, but you know, listen, if Pender County did our beach nourishment, that would be awesome, right? But we don't we don't we we have to pay for beach nourishment. New Hover pays for Ritsville Beach Nourishment. Their tax they get three and a half cents times more per property value. Why in Riceville Beach? Because every home's worth $2 million. So there's the tax base is larger. No doubt about it. So when you have these things, it makes a lot of sense. Okay. Now, and plus too, can you imagine if can you imagine this? This be a nightmare. We collected a million2 million 3, whatever that is on parking. Okay. Riceville Beach collected 6.8 million. Would we have to raise taxes if we were getting 6.8 million for for parking? So, they don't have the the issues we have. So, they have different revenue streams. So, their manager, for example, and I have this here, Ritsville Beach manager makes $174,999 a year. So we had our we had them go from Carolina Beach at 196, Emerald Isle at 177, Leland at 243, Oak Island 168, Onso County 195, Pender County 180, Sunset Beach 141, and Wilmington 257, Riceville Beach 174. So why didn't you put in Topppsel Beach, Holly Ridge or North Topppsel? Because everybody knows they're not at our level. You can't compare what our manager does to that manager. We have a different It's a different ballgame. Okay. Be I get you. Yeah, but the the bottom line is you have this you have this where we want to

compare properly. We're looking for a CEO. So, he's being paid. He was 58,000 less than the average of this. You elected us to find the best CEO for this town. We did that with Kyle Brewer. And I and I am proud. Somebody said once I had puppy love for him. Not really. He's a nice guy, but I can tell you this, okay? He's the best for our town. He's the best for our town. Now, as I get close to wrapping up here, because I'm I'm sure you're tired of hearing me because you want to give you facts. That's what I was here for. One minute, Jeremy Sugar.

Okay, you'll get it in a second, ma'am. Madame Mayor. Okay. We've reached new levels from people from our community verbally attacking my children and my wife, council members, family members, and the family members of council members. You know what's been said. hanging nooes around their necks. These things have been said. Threatening people, our our our council members families that's being threatened for what? How did we get to this place? How did we get here? You know, I make $16 a day as a city council member. That's what I make. Is that good or is it bad? You may say you you volunteered for this. Yes, correct. I'm not complaining about the pay. But please, please, if you do, do me a favor, don't complain about it. Also for us, leadership is not about life. It's not about title or designation. It's about impact, influence, and inspiration. Impact involves getting results. Influence is about spreading the passion you have for your work. You have to inspire citizens and guide them through very tough times and difficult times. That's why it makes me being a surf city councilman humbling. I want to close with this, okay? Uh, one of the benefits of being a father of six is that you get a lot of perspectives when you deal with your children. And uh, several years ago, one of my children came home from Toppsville High School and she said to me, I was told that there was a student being harassed. She said there was being and they were being picked on and mocked. And I asked her what did she do? And she answered the quite quick questioning. She said, at first I joined in because they were these kids were mocking this kid. So I as a normal kid, I kind of joined in. Then I didn't know even what they were saying was true. So you taught me to think for myself, be respectful and get the facts straight from the horse's mouth before you pass judgment. So I stopped everyone and said, "I don't want to be a part of this." And if that's what how that's if that's how you would feel if they treated you that way, you're all acting like sixth graders, not seniors. She said, "Everybody quickly dispersed." Sad thing is it only stopped temporary because people seem to

struggle with thinking for themselves. Isn't that amazing where you can gain perspective from your children? The things you teach them. Take a lesson from the young, seek advice from those who have knowledge, and honor those who have wisdom. And always leave the door open with those that disagree for reconciliation. No part of me wants to raise these taxes. And I'm going to tell you that you have my word. Once these evaluations are done, we will re-evaluate our tax rate. Okay? This council is not onedimensional. We're committed to continuing improving our work in the community. and thank you for allowing me to serve you as a council member and being respectful to these council members. Thank you. I appreciate it. I want to say first of all, thank you for coming tonight. Um, we have another meeting that is actually starting in 10 minutes, so I'm going to keep it very brief. I would I would love to call several people up here right now and ask them a few questions to to kind of like um fill us in some gaps on what was said.

The three complicated things just give you a history. The council knows my history, but I've been here 20 years. Most of the items that you mentioned fell into my leadership role over the last 20 years. Uh the Juniper Swamp purchase was a $4 million purchase. It is currently being used for spray irrigation. That is what has helped Turtle Creek, original Turtle Creek, Saltwater Landing, uh Highway 50 up to um Food Lion, James Avenue, JH Bats, that is what allowed those developments to happen. If you live there without that purchase of land, your home would not be here. Um you know, it is being currently used, but unfortunately due to changing regulation, we had to change the use. It is still being used partially for why we originally bought it but the regulations have changed. Every four years our regulations on environmental gets tighter and tighter so we have to adapt. Uh we are now seeking another use. Uh it was mentioned the current contract. Uh Mr. Brewer is um he's very big on us finding alternative sources of revenue that do not come out of surf city pockets. Um, for example, like I said, uh, $35 million worth of grants he has achieved since, uh, he has been here. Another source of revenue which he encouraged is successful is the forestry service out of Juniper. Since we are not using all of that land, we have 3,000 acres and we had such a bad problem early on with u forest fires. We decided to go ahead and turn that risk into a revenue. We cut down a hundred acres a year to the tune of a quarter million dollars into the enterprise fund to help fund and keep your water rates low and your sewer rates low. That is the current forestry contract. Now you are it is correct the person who manages that for us does get 5% of that for maintaining digging ditches building roads and handing the bid out and the

lumber count to make sure that surf city gets every cent. Uh was also mentioned was the next expansion. It said that it was going to cost uh 48, excuse me, 40 million and is going to come out of tax dollars. That is uh unfortunately inaccurate. The enterprise fund cannot take tax dollars for any reason. We are paid for out of fees, uh your water, sewer fees, these other revenues, these grants. Um it does not affect your tax rate whatsoever. It will cost $38 million of which $20 million is paid for from a grant that Mr. Brew got for us. Anything else, Mayor?

Thank you, David. Thank you.

My next question for the town attorney. Can taxes be repealed?

There have to be an extraordinary circumstance. So if you were if you had um unexpected revenues that were unanticipated or if you had a disaster then you could change it right you can the statute does allow that but you're talking about like it was enacted that the statute because of government easily at that time I believe was withholding some revenues from local governments and when those revenues became available to local governments the governments were able to claw it back but in the situation we're talking about for this town we're not anywhere near an ability to repeal at this time. You set that tax rate every year though, so this council next year will have the ability to do whatever it needs. But you have a budget. You've already sent out the taxes. So absent some extraordinary circumstances, I don't see a reason or way for you to repeal the tax. sir. So every January, February, March, April, May, we go into budget season. Next year during budget season, we will vote again. The rate gets voted on every year after Pinter County comes out with their evaluations. We vote on the rate every year just so everyone understands that. My next question, how many of you have h heard of Rosewood Development in Surf City? Rosewood Development. Do you know where it is? No one knows where it is. It was 87 home sites that I purchased. How many home sites are on 50 acres of property? Three. Everybody judges me because I'm a

realtor. Because I want to develop. I have three homes. Myself, my mom, and my aunt on 80 on on a development that was laid out for 87 homes. That doesn't exist anymore. The map doesn't exist at all anymore. It's gone.

When I when coming coming into fall, it reminds me of how thankful I am for my family and my friends and this community. I know what this community can be and will be be again because once the election is over, we take care of each other. I know right now everybody's like there's a division, but I am very thankful for the residents here. I'm very thankful that you invested here. I am very thankful for every business, every small mom small mom and pop business, every commercial business, every franchise that has decided to develop in Surf City. I hope you all had a super successful summer. I am very thankful for leadership on all levels of government on our county, our state, and our federal. They continue to have a vision to protect our oceanfront, our infrastructure, our tourism, and all the lives in Surf City. Surf City remains resilient and I am very very happy to say that we are a healthy thriving community. We have a very healthy budget. We can sustain. We are resilient. At this time, I want to ask every town employee to come and stand in front of me. Every town employee that's here. I want you to come and stand in front of me.

Come on down.

Come on, Carla. Stand up in place. Stand in place. Carla Kyle, stand in place. Keep on Come on, Amy. Move down. If you are a volunteer in this town, I want you to stand up. I want you to remember that we work every day to serve our community with honesty, fairness, and respect. And not every decision we make will be popular. However, decisions are made with the best interest of Surf City's future in mind. It is our responsibility to protect and to strengthen Surf City for generations to come. I want to encourage all of our town employees to continue to do what you you do, providing safe streets, strong services, and a resilient community and to be proud of everything that you do. And I am super proud that all of you that are standing I consider to be very ethical, very valuable to this town. and thank you for all that you do. [Applause] [Music]

There's nothing else. Can I have a motion to adjurnn? I'll make a motion to adjurnn, madam. Second. All those in favor say I. I. All those opposed, same sign. We are adjourned. [Music]