County Commissioners - Regular Meeting

I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

Screen will you come and pray with us? Our dear heavenly father is once born again God. We come and call upon your holy and righteous name. Lord you told us in your word whatever you need ask for it. And God I'm asking you tonight to take control of this meeting Lord in the name of Jesus. Lord we ask you to bless one each one of our county commissions and our lawyer and our secretary and our manager. Lord bless them Lord to the utmost. And we'll be so grateful to give thy name. You praise God and bless everyone here tonight. Lord, you sit high. You look slow. You know what each and everyone standing in need of tonight. Lord, I ask that you grant it to them. Let your will be done. Not my will, Lord, but thy will be done. In Jesus name I pray. Amen.

Amen. Thank you, Commissioner Hunt. Tonight for invocation pledge. Mr. Chairman, before you get started, sir, I want to make a statement. Okay. Um, on last Thursday I had a medical procedure done to my head and uh, as per my doctor's instructions, I got to keep it covered for the next three weeks. So, I'm not trying to make a fashion statement, Mr. Jim Davis. I'm just trying to be safe. So, I want nobody to say anything, Miss Leandro. This is this is Dr. Henderson's instructions. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. So, you paid him obeying.

That's all right. Do we have do we need to add anything to take anything on agendos? I have it. Thank you. Mr. County attorney. Our first item is public comment. Miss Rose Hedge.

Okay. How are you doing? Good evening. Good evening. Do you time me or do I time me? I'll save you.

Okay. Thank you. Uh, good evening. My name is Rose Hedgepath. I'm familiar with most of you. Um, I appreciate what you do for our county and for our town. So, I say thank you for that. Uh tonight I'm here with a vision uh to open up a new school in Hope County for the 2026 27 school year and that would be Rayford Christian School. And so I am asking the county commissioners for help with that endeavor. Um, if there's any grants or public funding or any type of financial aotment that you have for nonprofits, uh, we are registered as a 501c with the federal government and the state government. Uh, the school plans to begin as a kindergarten through 8th grade school here on Main Street and then we would like to expand to become a K through 12 school eventually with a full athletics program and a full fine arts program. Um, I am a previous public school teacher for Hope County Schools. I also taught with Sand Hills Community College. I graduated from UNCC Pinbrook and obtained my teaching license from NC State. I have over 10 years in uh, business, banking, and financial uh, experience. And really, I just have a heart for the Lord. And I really just have a heart for the kids in Ho County. Um, I have a heart for the students that I previously taught and my own children that are of school age and I'm asking the county for help as I try to establish a school where uh biblical curriculum can be taught from a biblical perspective. Um, there are a lot of Christian people in public schools and they're great people, but I feel from my experience that sometimes your light seems to be dimmed in all the darkness of public schools.

Um, and I do think that our our workers, our teachers, our staff for Hope County Public Schools really do a great job. Um, but I do think that we have a growing county and schools are overloaded and so I would like to provide another option especially for Christian families and Christian parents and so I would appreciate your support with that. Um, and I have given everything to Miss Smith um, which also has my email address. Our full website is up and running. Um, we have 24 students currently registered. We have five full-time teachers and six part-time teachers and applications have not even begun. They don't open until January 1. And so I do foresee this being a great project for our county and um you guys do great things. So I appreciate your support with this also.

Thank you. Thank you for coming. Informing us, Mr. Michael Hedgep. that council. Good evening. Good evening.

I think at one time or another I probably had a chance to interact with all of you and and I appreciate every second, but this won't take three minutes. I'm not worried about time, but I would like to tell you another bird's eye view perspective about what Rose was talking about. We look at this community and we got all these houses being built and we got families that are coming in that's going to buy these houses. Wouldn't it be more enticive to them to have an option for Christian education? Okay. So, it it would, you know, right now they got one high school. I know it's going to be build on to and that's that's great. It doesn't change the dynamics. So, by having another option, you know, the county and people just buying houses will be more liable to say, "Well, we have that. We'd like our kids to do this." And it's just another option. And further more than that, it's proven statistically that small towns, counties like Ho County, you know, we're not out in New York or anywhere. We're right here in North Carolina, that small counties that have a Christian education, raising K through 12 to be disciples in Christ, that the crime rate descends 12% each year. You might not see that K through eight at the beginning, but in the long term, this right here is going to help this county. And I just wanted to show you another perspective on this.

Sounds great. But I appreciate your time, but I will like to say this. In Isaiah 6, the Lord's asking, who's going to take care of this feet? Who could do it? And Isaiah says, "Here I am, Lord. Use me." And that's exactly what my wife's doing. This is something God put on her heart. you know, she's got a job that she loves and she loves the people she works with. This is a step of faith for her and so far we just had a interest meeting at the library and there's a lot of interest and there's already been some pretty nice donations but as you know land's expensive, children's expensive. That's right.

There's the we don't get government assistance. So, these teachers are going to be getting paid by tuition. And if you if you I don't know if y'all bought a new car lately, if you can go get a new truck and your payment be less than like 800 bucks, you you've stretched it out to Way out. Way out. So, so really this is a small feat with a big God. Yeah. Thank you for your time. Thank you for coming. Appreciate that, Mr. N. Mr. Chairman, let me say something, Mr. H. Yes, sir.

Uh, I think it my mind is coming and going, but I think it was 1974 when the uh United States government took a prayer out of the schools and there was there was a trend from 1974 to now of crime increasing. Sure. So, what you're saying is absolutely correct. Yes, sir. Absolutely correct. Uh, and we do need prayer back in the school. Yes, sir. We do need it back. That's exactly right. Can you imagine what that would do to the household? That's right. As time went on, you would see less and less single parent families. It's a plus plus. That's right. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Leandro. I know y'all don't know why I'm here tonight.

Why are you here tonight? So, I'll have to tell you. I'm sure you've forgotten. Um, the animal shelter. I don't know who the committee is that was supposedly formed to see what it is. How many of y'all have been out there in the last two months?

I would two of you. Okay. This is something big for Hope County and and I don't know what's going on other than what you you know people working here and there. It's been 15 months now. So, our animals made it through the very hot summer without a decent place to where they need to have to live. My attic is so full of blankets I've been buying that my husband's threatening to kill me. And these animals are going to get cold. And then I was told there's no plans for anything for cats. Well, guess what everybody throws in my backyard? Cats. You know, I have a 35 pounder that someone threw in my backyard and he's a sweetheart, but I have to board him when I go somewhere, you know. And so we need to, you guys need to kind of if there's not enough funding to do that, then something needs to be added for cats also because that's what people throw away. You know, people will adopt animals. It's difficult to get people to adopt cats unless they're cute little kittens, you know. So, please, if you guys take it under consideration, and I would like for y'all to form a committee and maybe let us know every month or let the newspaper know how things are going, stay, you know, I can't go tell J and K what to do. You know, I'm just the girl lives down the street that raises cane all the time. So, I need next to him. So, I need uh you know, you guys need to step forward now. It's been 15 months. We need to get it ready for the winter. It's coming on pretty quick now. You've got a wonderful staff out there. I don't know what y'all would do if you lost even one of them. They're the most wonderful people I've ever dealt with. And they're very popular all over the state. I don't care where you go. If you mention you help the animal shelter, they'll say, "Oh, that Hope County, we we hear about them. They hear about them. People in Raleigh hear about them because I have to deal with those people in Raleigh a lot." And they hear about them. You know, they've got a great reputation because they really take good care of animals. And I understand

ambassador for animals just Selena Norton just got raised enough money to get a commercial washer and dryer because the one I got a couple of years ago blew up after so many you know small that's a lot of work and that was a lot of money and she's just a citizen and she takes care of hospice animals and all kinds of things. But y'all need to form a committee of yourselves. You need to go out there. you need to report back so we can get them moving because that's your responsibility and it's not anything I can do because I'm just the girl that lives next to the man that won't plant his ry grass yet. But I planted mine today by the way. Mine's up.

I know. Only reason I'm getting it is because I told John, look, he's already got grass. So, uh, please please form a committee and check into it. I know that you all are busy, but that's one of your jobs is to go behind. and you go behind the schools, you go behind the courthouse, you go see what's going on and you need to go out there and pat those people on the back because I do not know what they do, how they do what they do, but it's sad and he's always calling time on me. You're just like my husband always tell me that. But anyway, please form a committee and keep it going and keep it moving and and give reports and maybe let the newspaper know. And I owe him two minutes. I guess you're the chairman of the chair of the committee and I'm depend you promised. Yes.

I'm really hoping you respond. I did. Yeah. But she's not on a new watch. Thank you so much. Go. That's it. Thank you for the minutes. Thank you. Sounds good. On your committee, Mr. You have any more? I love that. Yeah. That's it. Ready? Thank you. Percent A through F12. What question? He's fine. Any any um concern with A through F12? If not, I'll take a motion to approve. I'll make a motion to approve. That second. Second.

Motion second. Time to consider with IO. I have it. Thank you. Uh Mr. Clerk. Uh yes. is requested for a resolution accepting the offer of a bid on certain property location. The total cost for that is $6,300.

All right. What's your to accept? Oh, do you mind? I move to accept a second. I second. All with I have it. Thank you, Mr. Jane McQueen. Here tonight. I'm sorry. I jump one. I jump one. Miss Ken. Mr. Ken. I jump one. That's my fault. Yeah. Come up tonight. And you say nobody will hear you. So, we're going to hear you tonight. You say you been everywhere. You can't get answer. I'm going to get you answer one or the other tonight. I appreciate that. I really do. You know, I've been in front of all of you once or twice. Yeah. Now, tell us what it is that you want us to

Well, give a as quickly as I can. I'd like to give a little bit of quick background information about this this these two parcels.

Before I even contemplated putting them into a subdivision, I reached out to Randy Wright um and asked if it had capacity in the two water lines, one from Athen Lane and one from Pharaoh Court to service the the locks in this subdivision. His response to me was just as long as you loop the the the lines together, run it through your subdivision, loop it to Sparrow all the way through to Aftton. So that's what so I bought that property and in the process I've had Michael my engineer you all know him uh put together the plan which of course went through planning and zoning went through I'm assuming the utilities commission went to the fire department fire uh uh fire marshall's office got that back showing you know we had a flow test for the hydrants that flow test showed that there was sufficient water for that subdivision. Um, additionally, I had um Michael do a calculation. If all 76 lots were loaded, would we still have the appropriate pressure that we needed for fire hydrants? And we do. So, that was submitted to the board of com board of commissioners to y'all and it was approved with public water, hydrants, everything in place. So, Fast forward, I have I have email after email after email. I've got 20 to 25 calls in to to Mr. McQueen after I was told again March March 10th I apply for my water for my 76 lots. Mr. McQueen says, "Well, they're in they're in question now." Now, when my plant was approved, I felt pretty comfortable that y'all approved it with the allocation and it showing

water and hydrants on it. But I'm thinking, okay, how do I minimize my impact on Hope County and try and do the right thing? So, I started looking at maybe doing wells. And I thought, well, you know, even though I've got an approved plat showing public water and domestic water, maybe I can do wells and and not have to push the issue with Ho County. This is very critical to me. There's about a $850,000 swing that if I have to put pipe in the ground for fire hydrants and can't offset it with public service to the lots, that's an $850,000 lick that I can't afford. The last subdivision that I did in Ho County was was in 22, I believe. And I actually lost money on that subdivision. And it's a beautiful subdivision. If you've ridden through it, you'll say, "Wow, this is nice." I lost $2,000 an acre. And that was not a paper loss. That was a CPA loss. So, there is potential to to lose money here. So, let's go back to the well issue. Okay, let's not cause Hook County any problem. Let's look at the well. I had the water and uh uh excuse me, the utility committee met June the 24th, three months ago, the 10th. Okay. At that meeting, I said, you know, I've offered y'all well sites in my subdivision to help your water situation. I've I've I I've actually asked at that utility meeting, Mr. Lee, you probably remember this. I said, "How about instead of 76 lots, let's mitigate this. just give me 50 lots or 60 lots, something that'll pay for the pipe if I have to stay with the hydrants. So, at that time, Mr. McQueen said, "Well, you you don't have an allocation. Now, I've got an allocation." He said, "You don't have an allocation, so I'm kind of stuck." And this is again close to $800 $850,000 swing. This is very

important. This is worth fighting for. So, I'm here to ask that y'all under your own 2025 subdivision ordinance, article 4, subsection 2.4 very specifically says if Ho County, the provider being Hope County, cannot provide water for three reasons, and they're listed in that ordinance. Do do you know what they are? Because I do. None of them's financial. If Hope County can't financially afford to to to give me water, make the infrastructure approval to give me water, then I'm okay with whales. But if you don't have the water, how could you possibly expect me to spend $800,000 to put pipe in the ground that has no water to go to it? So that's the basis for my request. I'm pretty much here to say, please give me the waiver. I'll do the wells. It's the less impact.

What you want us to wave? I want you to wave the requirement for water pipe and and hydrates if I use wells. That's under that's 4.2. You want to wave you putting in some fire hydrant? That's correct. The pipe for the fire hydrant is called that's called um public water. Lots are called domestic water. So that specific ordinance says I can wave I can request that you wave. So there's two two problems that you that you can wave the requirement for that. Do you have the ordinance with you? Let me see. I'll read it to you. Have y'all read? No. No. We're not there. But you asking us to raise something that's not safe. I'm sorry. Okay. You actually asked us to raise a fire. You got a problem. That's right. You and I know that's not safe.

Well Well then give me more water that that that was agreed with this commission. You're not It's not safe. I don't disagree with that. For us to weigh water hygiene. Okay. And you go out there and have a fire and the truck can't fill up with trucks and all. You know, you say you couldn't get an answer, but anyone you even you admit that no way possible for us to raise five fing.

Well, I don't disagree with that. But what I'm But what my contention is if you can't do that, then do what you already agreed to do. Direct the utility department to give me 50 lots of the 76, 60 lots of the 76. I've I've done everything that I can do to mitigate this. Uh, Attorney Hunt, you'll see that I've offered well sites. I've offered uh uh um to to wave it wave this because of the of the of the well issue. I get you can't wave the hydrants if you don't want to. That's just no way. Okay. We can put those folks in that condition in a way of hiding. What was the that's unreal.

What was the response when you um talked about the whales? Well, when I Well, the response from who? You you said uh you you had offered that as a option. I offered that uh at the at the water utility meeting. Yeah. And the what the what was said there, Mr. You might remember, is we're going to see if there's a waiver and we'll talk to Mr. uh Brian Marley about that. And if there's not, then we'll see about a waiver and we'll let you know within a week or two. Um and it's three months now. I think he responded. And Mr. Marley responded. Who did? Mr. Marley, the fire marshal. Yeah. He said he couldn't wait it. He said he couldn't wait it. Well, that's right. And he responded. So, it wasn't all this long time. You saying Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You're right. Responded at all. Respond.

Well, I said he did. Yeah. You're saying you talk like it's been a long long It's been 7 months. Not since he responded when he after he responded after that meeting. Seven months, but but but let's go to stage two. I He's He responded before the utility meeting. That's what I know. So, so you knew that coming in. That's right. which is why I said but then do wealth I've done I've mitigated everything I can do I and I will share this with you when when I spoke with Mr. Lock with Mrs. Lairle with Felicia Lleair. Yeah. Her response was, "We need we need the commissioners to move forward with your with your water." That was her response.

So, all righty. So, I'd like I'd like you go ahead and direct the utility commission to give me some form of order since you cannot wave the the fire hydrant issue. I mean, this is this is serious to me. This is Mr. Chairman, can y'all help us out on where we are with that so we have an idea? We should do six first. Is that what now? I'm sorry. I think me clean address some of this. Item six is going to address some of this as well. Uh let's let's Mr. McQueen, use here. Good.

Yeah, super tell us a little bit about where we might be on that item. Okay. So, basically what Ken is talking about is he's in the PWC zone. Yes.

So, in that process, what we've done is we created a sewer and water allocation ordinance. In that ordinance, it says when you get to 70% of your capacity, then basically what we do as the director, I can actually limit the amount of water that's actually being sold. See, part of the problem is there was an assumption made that we had more water in PWC zone than what we really have. But you guys know this as well as I do. In that process, there's a limited amount of water that you can purchase from PWC based off our contract. And what we're trying to do is we know that subdivisions are coming online that's going to actually basically pull down all that allocation that you currently have and then you're going to have to renegotiate the contract for PWC. What Mr. Attorney is asking is in this process. So what we did was we looked at the availability. He signed a whole harmless agreement. And that whole harmless agreement that you guys decided to put out basically says that when you come to build your subdivision, if there's no water allocation available, then you will not get meters.

That's what the ordinance actually says and that's what the whole harmless agreement said. So that's where we are. He's trying to right now go through the process of putting in wells. And if he want to put in wells, we have no issue with putting in wells. But part of the problem with that, we can't connect his wells because they're going to be private wells to a public utility. That's never going to work. So in that process, we got to make sure that we're protecting those citizens that's on that water on the PWC side. The private whales are for the individual lots. They're not the when Mr. Turner was talking about offering the whales. You know, I've done some projects where to mitigate the limited water on the western side of the county that we've actually provided whale lots for future future connections into it into the public infrastructure. But the whales that he's talking about are individual private whales for each individual lot. So the issue is here is um the fire department we had talked to them and they said that um you know we approved this plat with hydrants.

Yes.

Which the commission approved with the hydrants. Uh so what we were looking at was well if we've got to provide hydrants we got to provide water lines that are going to be a basically a double cost. And I explained this in the commission's meeting, a double cost for the developer that he's putting in waterline and he's also having to get a credit credit for the wells on each lot. So the financial hardships there that he's having to basically put double infrastructure in for the project. Um these are 20,000 plus square foot lots uh that exceed the building setbacks exceed the fire code requirements for separation. So based on that uh from a safety factor, we're requesting that we uh waiver the hydrants and that was talked about in the utility commission that we would go back and talk to Mr. Marley about it, which I did and m Mr. uh Turner did. and we talked to him and he's like, "Well, I would like to wave them." He says, "But my fire code leaves me here. However, if the county is willing to wave it in their um in their a waiver to their ordinance, then I would be acceptance of that. I would accept that." And I know that there was some discussion about, well, what's the county's liability if we provide a waiver? However, not every house in Hope County has a hydrant within 400 ft or 500 ft. Um, which is the requirement of,000 ft separation on the hydrant. So, what we were willing to offer up if we needed to, we could do an amendment to the plat provide more separation at the building setbacks, but we're already over and above the 10-ft separation that's required by the state just by our zoning for the property. So, as far as safety

concerns, we're meeting the fire code, but the um you know, each each uh county's marshall bases it off of their their basically their process and everybody goes back to that national fire code, but the National Fire Code doesn't necessarily say that you have to have hydrants unless it's it's you're putting in the water and it's available. And what we've got here is we have hydrants on both sides of the development. And I know that the county has the ability to to pump or to tank water to sites. So it's not a far-fetched ask for this project to have hydrants not inside. And one thing that Mr. uh that Ken had had said was we could provide a hydrant within the site but not provide hydrants with throughout the site. You know, some type modification of a waiver or the requirements in the ordinance. We just don't want to put a full infrastructure in that is no benefit other than the hydrants to to the project. Um so you know if we can find some middle ground we're and the reason we laid on the waiver and have requested that is that was our only option to come to you guys and it was a process that was allowed in the ordinance. So what we wanted to do was get before you have this discussion about how do we come to a common ground and the timeline that Mr. Turner is talking about is nobody really wanted to make a single decision. So we needed this group, you know, to look at it and help us make a decision on what we need to do. We're not we're not asking to get out of it, but we, you know, it's detrimental to him. And we always, you know, I've done a bunch of these, we always tiptoe around the cost, but when

it comes down to a business, if your cost exceeds your profit, why why are you doing it? You know, and that's what we're trying to figure out here is it's not we're trying to get out of something. We're trying to figure out how to get a process here where we can give the county what they need from a safety standpoint, but also leave some money on the table, for lack of better words, for for them developing this piece of property. That That's why I kind of jumped in there and said, "Just give me 50 instead of the 76." What's the size of the lots again? the individual lots 20,000 plus square feet 25 okay let me ask you this question okay

from if we were measuring it from and this doesn't I know each one won't be the same but I know there's probably approximately a distance from one house to house not the setback set yeah from one house to the other house what's the what's the distance between them we are looking at least 50 ft 50 ft okay they'll be a little bit closer obviously in a culde-sac, right? But straight tangent lines. Is it 50 ft between house or is it between the houses? Between houses. Yeah. Yeah. Cuz we got a 100 foot lot, a 50ft house.

I got you. And I'm saying house from the actual house to the other house. Yeah. So you're talking about on the table to, you know, to protect. So it's almost 25 ft set back from the property line from each side. From each property line to the house. It's 25 ft on this side for this house and this other house would be 25 ft, right? Yeah. Okay. It can be like can be up to that fire. Yeah. I I know what the fire Yeah. We I talked with the fire marshall. Yeah. So, like I said, you know, the only place that we would have we're not getting that maximum distance is we have a couple culde-sacs, but if we need to adjust lot counts to to meet the requirement that I mean it's that substantial,

we'll do it whatever we need to do. Right. as expressed. What What was the response of the fire marshall? What exactly did he say? Did he say that only this board could make that wave it? What he told me? He didn't have the power to do any waving of any sort. But did did he give any recourse? Did he just say it can't be waved period? No. What exactly is this? What was the response it to the fire code? B what he's governed by the fire code. He said that he could he couldn't wave it but he would be okay if the county decided to wave the ordinance requirement of having the hydrate spacing of thousand.

Is there a state fire code or so? So, so let let me for the audience this is not typical, you know, because we're not prepared. You know, the the the amount of questions that you're asking uh the things that you need uh for me to feel comfortable making this decision on this, we can't just on this board from my perspective just blindly make a decision, right?

Because we don't have the information. uh you know number number one I I say I I definitely can understand uh the liability that you're you're discussing about the fact that uh you know you put all your all the project and of course you do it to make money and you don't want uh to feel like things are going the right way and get to the part part where you're ready to start and find out this major issue. I I get that and I definitely feel for you and if there's a compromise to be made I support that compromise. Me too. you know, but but at the same time, I don't want to say I support that compromise being a newspaper tomorrow and then in six months whenever you put those meters in, your neighbors down the street, they don't have they don't have water. You know, I I don't know. Of course, that's a worst case scenario. It it is,

but but we don't have the information at this point to be able to just overrule a utilities board. you know, you know, you make a a very strong and valid statement based on the words that you've said to me, you know, and I support exactly what you're saying, but at the same time, I have to trust the utilities board and utilities director. And so, if there's a compromise to be had from my perspective, it should take place on that level and not not with this board uh simply just overruling blindly because we don't have the information. We don't have the state fire code uh that says what the minimums are. We don't have the ability to say that our ordinance is more stringent than the state fire code. If we were able to show that that our ordinance is more stringent, you're able to provide me with a map that shows the closest fire hydrants exactly how close they are to each one of your homes. You know, we we have some ability to make a decision, but we don't have we don't have that information.

Could I add one one thing?

Yeah. The reason we're here about the waiver is that was the decision that was made at the commission's meeting that if we could not get if the fire marshall was not okay with not requiring the hydrants then we could look at doing a waiver and it was even discussed that we may not even have to come to the commissioners for an for an answer but nobody was sure and Jackie was present she's like I'm not sure we'll have to research it and basically what we've asked for to get on this meeting tonight and I hope I'm not speaking for you, but if we can get a positive decision, we're willing to table it tonight for a positive decision once you guys had a chance to look at it. But we felt like, and this is what Mr. Turner was explaining, we felt like we were kind of getting the runaround because nobody had been presented with this problem before, so they weren't sure how to answer. So, you know, we're not asking for any special treatment, but we need a we need an answer. We don't want to force y'all into an answer tonight because what's the easy answer? No. So, we want you to be informed of what what we're asking for.

Yeah. And I I get all of that. I get every bit of it. But it kind of goes back in my opinion. Please forgive me if I'm wrong, is I've got a an initial approved plat looked at by the utilities commission, looked at by the fire marshall, approved by the board of commissioners. Um, and Mr. McQueen says there's water been allocated moving forward. Well, then should I be part of that border moving allocated moving forward? Did you sign a waiver? Yes and no. Yep. Yes or no? Did you sign a waiver? That a waiver? Yeah. Hold on. Yeah. Do you sign that? Uh, yes. But Okay.

The one that was sent to me was not not was not filled out properly. I just want to let you know. No, but did you sign it? Yeah, but it wasn't it was it was about So why you sign something I'll probably fill out because it didn't impact me. Yeah, it didn't impact me. We found out about hydrants after the fact. Take a take a look at that whole homeless agreement, Mr. Leech. It says very specifically cuz see I looked at this cuz I've looked at this from every angle I could look. I agree it's not worth the paper's own. Well, I'm not going to say that, but I am going to say drag the board to that paper was filled out for somebody who was building houses. is a general contractor. It was not filled out for somebody developing a property.

It very specifically says for me building single family residences and I'm not doing that. I'm putting together lots. I'm trying to emphasize that that there's a lot that I've got in this that goes back a long way that I fall back on since we can't get the waiver. Then please do something about the lots the the allocation. So you were allocated in this 76 lots. That's correct. And if we could as a group and maybe not tonight, but like you said, go back and look at it. Maybe allocate maybe 30 lives or 40 lives to give you something where you can begin to do work. Uh that would be something you can consider. Absolutely.

Because I can agree with something like that. I can't agree with not doing fire hydrants and and and I'm okay with any of that. That's what I've been trying to share. I would I would love for us um um to get together and and and talk about no matter what and but not not down the road. I'm talking like the next meeting. So you got we're not kicking the can down the road. Uh we need to we need to kind of resolve it. You got about a million dollars out there of of of a loss and nobody can can take a loss on $50,000 less a million dollars. Yeah. But um but at the same time we got to make sure that the current citizens water is maintained where it needs to be as well as we're going forward. So I think we're all on the same

but I think that we we can we just got to communicate and and come to a resolution. Yes sir. Uh Mr. Chairman, I I would like to table this maybe to the next meeting. Um if that would be enough time for us to kind of get where we need to be and and actually maybe meet with Mr. turn and and Michael before the next meeting on your um gladly.

And and one thing that we can do and and I know Mr. McQueen will appreciate this. What we can do is another flow test uh at the site and I can provide calculations of what what our impact is and when you know once we decide if that's the route we're going to go then we can come with a number and say well you know we can do 30 lots or we can do 40 lots or or whatever. And and that's kind of what our purpose in being here tonight was we couldn't get to that point with anybody because nobody was sure. Nobody's in wrong because I get it. It's it's a lack of information. It's not

it's not really anything else is it's lack of but if I could commissioner um I'd like to try for 50 instead of 76. Just Well, we just talking. Yeah. Not go to Mr. McQueen. Yeah. We got to talk. Yeah. That whole harmless agreement that I signed. You'll see that it doesn't say anything about developing. I'm not saying a number. Yeah. I'm not giving you a number. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just something. Yes, sir. Well, gentlemen, ladies, Miss Smith, I have to beat her to death with phone calls. Miss Edens, I tried to tried to share as much as I could with with trying not to be as anxious as I am about this because this is important. I want to make sure you could answer. Okay. You see running? I want to stop and run and run and get answer to you.

Perfect. I just Yeah, guys. I've held him back a lot. So yeah, man, as far as contacting you and I'm like, you know, we but we I kind of felt like we were at the point that we needed to talk to the group and this is the only way that we could we get answer to you. Let let me say this. I I would love to see a compromise. Uh I hope we're not tableing just to waste time, you know. So, so for me, you know, when when I second the vice chairman's motion to table, I'm tapering with the expectation that we can come to some level of compromise. But I will say as well, though, I know you're frustrated,

but but I I felt a little bit of tension towards utilities director and and I just I just want you to know if if he doesn't agree to it, I'm not going to agree to it. you know, so so as we work to a compromise, please don't think that that you can jump him and come to us and talk us into something that he's telling us not to do. And so please work together, you know, over that time frame. He knows me by Ken and I know him by Joe. Perfect. Perfect. I just want to make sure we're on a friendly. Full disclosure, we've had a lot of conversations trying to figure out what to do, what to do. Okay. All right. Thank y'all. Yes, sir. That motion table to to next meeting. that motion. I should you make a motion? Oh, I made that motion. Yes. To table it to the next meeting.

Second. Thank you, Mr. I'll have it. All right. Thank you, M. Thank you, Michael. All right. We get a lot more, Miss McC. Yeah, Miss McQueen. Everybody trying to build on wheels. Everybody be trying to build on wheels. If you give them the reason I ask you to come tonight, for two reason. All the other information we asked for, you've already passed that to us. I want to do a half a day workshop on that last report we got from Tillis. Yes sir.

So I want to look at you Cal and Stephen. Can we do a half workshop with Tillis report that include we can conclude this one tonight. Look at you call them do within the next before the next meeting. Do it next week hopefully one day. See what you gave us. Maybe next meeting. We might meet in this room. We might meet in this room. Yeah, yeah, we have to move there on the next meeting. I can't remember. Yeah, we don't we don't have to be here. Yeah, we don't have to meet here, but I just want y'all to Yeah. What's the date? The date is 6.

It's for the city, too. That's why it starts. How about Mr. Chairman? I could do the 15th. That's when that next meeting. The next meeting is 20. Okay, that's good time then. I mean, that's just a day I'm throwing out there. Okay. 15. Okay. Date date six. 15th. 15th. October 15th. Work for you. 10. Down. Just tell me. That's good for you. Either one y'all want to go. October 15th. Lunch time. Lunch time is 12. Okay. What you want? No, we can do it earlier than that. I got doctor's appointment at 8 right here in Hook County. Let's do it at 10. 10

10. So we're going to set a workshop for October the 15th. Recess meeting. Recesses meeting 10:00 a.m. to discuss the rest report plus we discussed what we talked about tonight. And then I let me ask another question, Mr. Chairman. Yes, sir. Um um the county manager sent us at my request u some information in regards to water uh reports. So I want to I want to know from what she sent us what's what's viewable for the public at at this time and what's not. So right now the graph till report won't be uh made available until after we meet on the 15th. Correct. But what about the other documents our county manager are they available to the public? They are out there. So one is the the water and sewer allocation ordinance.

So that's available to the public now and the well data with physical addresses. We don't put that out. That's We don't put our We don't put that out further. No, no, I'm asking because people are asking for information. So, I want to make sure that Yeah, we wouldn't put that out. Okay. That's We don't want people to see that. No. Okay. Okay. And then, um, the other one was the Hope County Regional Water Supply and the water store update, but not the RA. I know we're not doing the rack till Yeah. Okay. But I'm asking you, is it okay? The other things you don't have a We don't put our We don't put our wells and stuff. We don't want to ever put our location in. That's why I'm asking Yes sir. That's I'm asking y'all right now. The other stuff I don't if I or our water model

the nor that is you need a special computer to do our water model. That's proprietary. Right. Right. Okay. So these are the u the well data. No. And of course the graphillis. No. Yeah. And that Yeah. That's something that we did a survey on if you remember and they gathered all that information. But until you guys see it and talk about it, your capital stuff, you wouldn't want, you know, I got you. Okay. Now, I can dact the data for the addresses and just give you well numbers um and flows, but it's locations. That's not a good idea. Okay. No, no, no problem. It's just with the if the Yeah, he could. Public was asking for it and want to see it.

I want to make sure that we gave them things that one that we approved as a board, you approved as a director, and if it's not available now, we don't need to put it out. Yes, sir. That's what I'm asking. Yes, sir. Okay. Good. All right. So, so that date will recess this meeting until uh the 15 October October 15th at 10:00. Uhhuh. We do at the end of the meeting. Thank you, Miss Green. Yes, sir. Thank you, M.

Mr. Chair, make a statement while here on this um I I just want to make a statement maybe um so that the public, as Mr. Thomas was saying the public could be clear on some stuff is that when this board approves a plat or subdivision or a reszoning, when we do that, that's all we're doing. We're we're saying that you can reszone this property from RA20 to RA to R15 or or you can or it can be resoneed to commercial or whatever. At no time does this board give an allocation of sewer or water. We only pass uh whether or not a subdivision can be built or developed in that area to that developer. That's all we say to him from this board. Uh, and then when it goes through the process of going through all the different departments and everything and getting everything that it's supposed to get, one of the stops will be with the utility director to see if there's water in that location. Now, you know, public water to be serviced in that in that location. Just because somebody comes and brings us a plat, brings us a subdivision and says, "We want to get this reszoneed." You know, within our ordinance, if there's other subdivisions in that area and and you know, we don't have any uh a lot of opposition from it or don't have any reason why not to do it, then we reszone property. But just because we reszone your property doesn't mean that we've told you you got water. There's a process that it goes through. And these folks, I don't know why all of a sudden they think that because we reszone property for them that all of a sudden that gives them the right for us

to give them water. And we will give you water, but we'll give it to you when we get the funding to be able to put water in that area. And again, this all goes back to years ago when we could charge facility investment fees to sub to developers that just came here and we could charge them upfront when they filed for that. They would we would get facility investment fees and that money was going into our water and our sewer department and we were using that funding to build up our water. That's what we were doing. But the builders association of North Carolina went to the legislation and changed how we got facility investment fees. And now all we can do is charge people when they develop uh property like that is we charge them to install meters and for the sewer to in to give them sewer allocation. And the only time that that takes effect is when they get through with that whole subdivision is build out and they start buying meters. That's when we start getting some revenue off of it. And that revenue, we have been looking at our fees on our water meters. And I know some of our county uh residents are upset because they're so they've gone up, but they've had to go up to meet the demand of all the development that we have. that when you compare what we charge to what counties our size and that are having development uh uh the type of development we're having like Hornet County, we've raised our uh fees, but they still are lower than Hornet County. And Hornet County is getting the same thing that we're getting. We're getting growth from Fort

Bragg. So when people come up and they talk about our water and that we haven't planned well, we went to LGC and I'm going to take up a little bit of time, Mr. Chairman. So

we went to LGC over eight years ago, almost 10 cuz it took a couple years to get it designed and everything to do a wastewater treatment plant. And we asked for I think it was almost three million gallons a day is what we were asking for. LGC looked at me and that man right there and told us we were fools if we thought Hope County was going to grow that much over the next 20 years. You don't need no wastewater treatment plant that big. We'll give you allocation for a million gallons a day. That'll keep you for the next 20 years. Ain't that what they told us? And they were hateful with it.

You know what? Yeah. They were hateful about it, too.

You know what we're doing right now? After what, seven, eight years of running that wastewater treatment, we're we're already at the stage to where we're having a plan to add to that wastewater treatment plant. Why? Because we were told by the local government commission they wouldn't approve our loan because they thought we were overbuilding. We didn't know what we were doing. But now we're sitting here in a bond because to upgrade that wastewater treatment plant now is going to cost us five times what it would have cost us back then. We we would cost us almost $20 million to upgrade it to where we need it to we built the whole plant for $15 million 8 n years ago. And you know why we would we they wouldn't let us build because they told you we weren't going to grow like that. But you know what's happened? We've exceeded everybody's expectations and development and growth has come to Hope County. Now we're not by far having water or sewer because anybody on the past board or this present board hadn't tried to plan. It's just simply been because nobody has anything documented anywhere that anticipated the growth that we've got. And you know why we've got the great that we've got? Because we've got the lowest fees around here. Our tax rate is the lowest when you compare us the right counties. It's way lower. We have military folks that are retired and stay in Hook County. You know why? because you got a clinic right down 401 and they they tell us when we retire the most important thing to us is health and that's why they retire and they stay here. So I'm tired of people coming up here and acting like that this board don't know

what it's doing and yeah I'm on my horse tonight because I am the chairman of the utility committee and I take offense to people saying that we've not been planning the proper way. We've tried to plan. The problem's been people in Raleigh has told us time after time that we would go up there, "Oh, y'all ain't going to go like that. It's just a spurt you're going through. It's going to go away. It's going to slow down." When the housing boom came and fell and everything went off the railroad tracks, Hope County didn't miss a beat. Not a beat.

Didn't miss a beat. Did not Not one beat did it miss. Kept right in the building. If you don't believe me, check the facts. Fact check it. I guarantee you if I'm wrong, I'll come back and apologize at our next meeting. But listen, don't blame this board for lack of planning. And we have done what we've needed to do in this county to have smart growth. And sometimes folks don't like smart growth because that don't give them the range to run around and do whatever they want to do. And as long as I'm in this board, we're going to continue. As far as I'm concerned, if I got anything to do with it, we'll have smart growth is what we'll do. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Yes, sir. Tony Hunt. Well, see you, my friend. Okay, next item. Dr. Adah Balden, Jr., come talk to Superintendent of Scotland County School. It say Junior. That what it say. It say Junior. That what it say? Oh yeah. Yes sir. We got it. Say Junior say pastor too. Yeah.

He coming in different capacity tonight. Say Bowling Junior. Tell us a little bit about why you here tonight. Oh, that's not the PowerPoint. You get the PowerPoint? I didn't get the PowerPoint. That's what I got. Same thing we have here. Yeah, but it's a PowerPoint. So, I'm going have to give you this whole packet. Okay. Yeah, but I'll talk to the You kind of threw me off there, but anyway. So, thanks for the opportunity to come talk to you tonight. Um, everybody good? We good? Okay. Yeah. All right.

You don't want the water, do you? No. No. No. I don't know about that. So, um, he's going to be asking whether your PowerPoint. He sent You just got it. Did he get it? Okay. Did you get it? That's what I got. Let's go and go. That's cool. We good? Yeah. But it the PowerPoint I can talk from it. Like I don't know.

So, if there's a hard copy over that you don't have to go through. This is mainly for you can look through on your own time, but there's an overview. a one sheeter and I wanted to come to you uh for the opioid education program that I I want to bring to Hope County about educating uh when you think about drugs and opioid it's a crisis all through America not just hope county but everywhere and we can do deal with it two ways you can deal with it with treatment or preventive and what we want to do is do it through education because that's what we specialize in if you think about if you read in 2020 22 opioard overdose deaths reach approximately 38 of 100,000 residents. It's up 11 per 100,000 over the last 5 years. So our program goal is to address that and address it through education. So what we want to do is to reduce it by informing students staffs and a train to train trainer kind of model. So we have no illusion that you can touch every child, every adult, every person. But anytime there's a low economic, low social status, there's going to be drugs somewhere. So our goal is to educate and train the trainer model that we will use different areas, the community centers, the schools, the churches, youth groups, and bring people and train them about opioids, how to prevent it, how to educate them. And one of the nicest things is how you put it into curriculum. So we want to bring in educators from the school on a Saturday morning. Bring them about four hours about four sessions and then train them on what standard because one of the critical things that we don't want to do is make a child too curious about drugs. So we want to do it at age appropriate. So we want to bring like third grade P teachers or third grade curriculum or and introduce that the right way just

enough at a perfect grade level so they would be understanding when they see it they would know what it is. If someone in their family was to overdose they would know how to give them nova. Um so that's the biggest thing. So when you do the train to trainer model uh we would take about 50 clients 50 people it could be anywhere from educators to youth groups and we want to pay them a stipen if you really want people to have buy in it's something that we call intrinsic uh rewards and exttrinsic reward until you can get somebody that's just good in their heart but most people need something reward to take it seriously. That's true.

So we want to take this and invest into our community to our educators. It's not a lot of money, but every session it' be about a $100 stipen. If you complete it, you would get preassessment, post assessment, and they would give a toolkit to take it back to their church, their youth group, their classroom on how to do it and earn a few dollars for their time. So, if a person goes through four sessions, they earn about $400. So, we requesting of the hund we requested $150,000 for the whole program. So 40,000 of it would be for uh the stipen about 80,000 would be for all the different staff. Then you have the other my PowerPoint had broke down a little better. I think it's 10 for miscellaneous for computers uh printing and I think about 5,000 for miscellaneous things like that. But the biggest thing is being preventive. We really want to get ahead of it before it lands at our house. you and I'm gonna I don't want to sell roof tickets. Some things you can get a return on your investment right away. This is not gonna get a return on our investment tomorrow maybe. But if we can prevent one of these 38 people and it doesn't hit your house. See those 38 don't sound a lot like a lot until it's somebody that you're related to or somebody that you know in your family. So, we want to make sure we can educate everybody and as many as possible on what not to do. And then maybe in 10 or 12 years when that kid goes from the third grade to college or go to the factory to wherever they're going to go, those numbers will go down. So, we're going to measure the outcomes by the number of contacts. So, you won't be looking to say we got 100 people off drugs this week. But what you'll be able to measure is the number of contacts that you have x number of people in facilities getting treatment. But you

also have x number of people we're educating. And it's a balancing act. You'll be able to go and we'll be able to go to say as many people that's going to treatment. We are trying to touch as many people that's not don't have to go to treatment. We would have documentation to make sure everything's accountable, everything is going to be tracked, everything would be above board. Uh we would do uh quarterly reports to the county commissioners letting you know how many people we've contacted in these three months and how many kids we've touched. Uh things like that getting folks off of drugs is helping everybody. Correct. The whole community, whole family. So any way that we can help to do that to help families and young folks to get off drugs that give them a great opportunity of a good education, they may stay in school and get a good education and continue off to college. So it's a great opportunity if we can save two or three off drug. It's it's you never go wrong trying to get them off.

Mr. Chairman, I got I got a question. Thank you, Dr. Balling for coming out, being with us. Um we we all know that uh drugs don't have no color. It doesn't have no color. Doesn't matter to touch everybody. Um you you you want to target on the youth, but do you have any anticipation or um idea about maybe working with the adults as well? It could our target goal is the youth but with the right traininee traininee model like if a church or any group want to send them or by recommendation we would take whoever. Okay. Um, so it's not limited to that. Okay. Uh, and once you know something, you know it.

So like we may do they may start off with a youth group at a church or in a social club and then go to the adults. Right. So I'm hoping that stipen will get a lot of people who will take it serious and want to take it back and use it. Okay. Thank you, sir. Mr. Chairman, I have a question. Um, Dr. that one. Um I I get maybe I can ask this the right way. Um within the uh funding that you're uh asking for, do you have a a goal as far as the number of people you're going to try to reach within that one-year period?

Yeah. Uh our goal is 50 educators and 1500 contacts with students. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. 50 educators and yeah, 1500 students. 1500. Okay. Thank you. Which shouldn't be okay. Hard to obtain. Okay. Okay. Thank you. I just wanted to put that. Okay. Thank you,

Mr. Chairman. I wanted to clarify that 38 people helped. He mentioned uh he's not saying this program is going to help 38 people. The documents that we have here shows that 38 people die. 38 people died due to drug overdoses uh per 100,000 residents. Um and so we definitely don't want that to take place here in Hope County. Um I want to clarify that that uh that these are not uh Hope County uh dollars that they were taken from tax coffers. uh these funds that he he's requesting are are funds from our opiate uh settle set settlement fund, a national fund uh where Hope County is receiving funds uh to fight uh this terrible epidemic. Uh and so I I don't want people to think, oh, we have money to help with everything. This is money that has to specifically be spent u to fight uh this epidemic. Uh drugs are are issue that destroys families. Uh I I definitely know that. uh firsthand. Uh any opportunity we have to to try to make sure that we're able to fight this, I think we have to take we have a few programs that we're funding. I want to make sure we continue to fund those programs because they are more specifically targeted towards people who may be dealing with uh uh drugs currently and this is a great tool to help fight uh this from the prevention uh uh perspective. So I think both of them can work hand in hand. So, I want to make sure uh that that that we as a board uh support both prevention and the cure. Uh we can do both, fight it, uh as we continue to receive these funds for the next few years. So, uh thank you for stepping up, being willing to help. Uh this never crossed my mind of being able to uh work towards prevention through the schools. Uh we we do know that that young people are experimenting with different drugs. Uh my son's school had three people rushed to the the hospital

because they were uh ingesting uh what looks like gummy bears. Uh but it had drugs in it. And once your your children are eating those things, they don't know exactly what's in it, you know. So there's it's never too soon uh to start talking about something this important because a parent could have got a phone call that day to change their life forever. And so we we have to do everything we can uh to fight this terrible plague that's taking place in our community. You're speaking about two lang. And if there are three, we need to use it. Yeah. So, um the thing that scares me as a educator is the amount of drugs that's being used for middle and high school kids. The gateway, if you're starting to get high in middle school, then you're going to get bored by the time you get to high school. Yeah.

And your curiosity is going to still need to be fed. And if we don't have a plan, if we don't educate them, they're going to try. Dr. Bob, I'm glad to see that you going to utilize the community building as much as possible. That's taking it to the community and that meeting that child where they at. Yes, sir. Cuz most time most of them may not have a way to get to you by having community pill in about every township that's taking it right to them. And most time when you take it right to the kid or whoever, most of the time they'll show up and participate. Yeah. Tish, what do we need to do from here to go?

You guys need to approve this um so that I can bring a budget amendment back. Um Okay. Meeting. Mr. Chairman. Yes, sir. Could Could we do this since we've got a call meeting next next Wednesday? Can we uh have her to look into the funding between now and then and then bring back to us what the impact that would be on our opioid money and if we decided to to take this on I would hate to tell Dr. Bowwin yes and then we get some conflicting you know results of from our financing you know to do what you ask me to do need a motion and what else we add that to makes add that to workshop

yeah Mr. Uh we can just add that when we uh come to our meeting on the 16 next Wednesday. Yeah. And and just so we're on the same page, I I personally want to give a tentative head nod to this program. Uh and I want to find a way to be able to do this program and the programs that are currently being funded uh to help fight people who are currently on drugs. So I would like our staff to work towards that. So we don't get to the meeting next week and we're still under square one. But let's let's make sure we can find a way uh to be able to to work from both perspectives and I'm sure we will.

Mr. Chairman, we've we've set up a meeting for our manager to meet with Trillian um okay who provides funding for our area for mental health and those different types of things. She's going to meet be meeting with them Wednesday. So, we're hoping some good things are going to come out of that meeting also. So, she'll have a lot more information for us next week. It's all good. Bring it to you. It's cash. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Baldwin. Thank you, sir.

Uh before Tish, before you come, I want to thank the board, the commissioner for last meeting. I think they made a very good decision on giving the money back for the machines that was in the stores. We had to give up 115K, but we did it. And I certainly want to thank the board for giving that those dollars back. I know you wanted to cry, but it was the right thing to do. So certainly thank the board for giving those dollars back. Uh last day I think we done the right thing. What do you think? We did. And one recommendation that was your recommendation that this board give it back. Yes sir. You know we cried but we gave it back.

So the board did give that back. So thank you Greg for that for recommending that and we follow through. Did a good job one night. Alan. Thank you. All right. Tish report. Um I just um have a update. We are um currently, you know, we're working on the audit. Um I just want to we we did have an update from our auditors that we are waiting um we got an update that um we are still looking for how can I say this?

Say it. for the single audit um counties. Um we have not gotten our auditors have not gotten the information on how they are going to do federal grants this year. So we are still waiting for the the notification of how they are going to tell us how to do any federal grants that came in the fed side. Yes, on the fed side. So that has us in a hold on that part of our audit. the financial side is going well, but we do want you guys to know that will be a hold up to our

until we get that information from the feds. And you know, we have several Fed grants with DH um um Department of Social Services, our hats department. So, they have to test those. Until they tell us how to test those, that will be a hold up with And the thing about the Fed, they'll make you late and then penalize you for it. So, we just want the board to know that. So, that is my update. So I'm I'm being open with about that because those we're getting notifications. So we want the board to know that when you call us to be late and they'll be

the state to hold you up and then penalize they will penalize those fees. So we're telling you guys that um now um and so but we're working diligently towards that um and um we have everybody on board um working towards that. Okay, sounds good. I just want the board to know that. Mr. Vice Chairman.

Yes. Uh, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just want to take a minute. I one I just want to thank the HFest for coming and presenting what they what they want to present to Hope County. Much needed. We we need some more Christianity, some more love in our county at this time as as well as across the country. Uh, I also wanted to take a moment to introduce Miss Angela McNeel. Uh, let's say reintroduce Miss Angela McNeil to Hope County. She's a native of Hope County, but she's coming back home to uh start a business here, and I wanted her to come and let us know what she's doing.

Yes. Thank you. Thank you so much for allowing us to speak tonight. Uh I am Angela McNeel. This is my healthcare administrator, Miss Roxan Henley. We've been friends for years and have worked together for years. But I'm here today because um because of my love for my county. I um graduated from Hulk County High School. I went on to Burlington, worked for five years, but then later I decided I wanted to enter healthc care. I um went to St. Hills Community College, Hope, became a nursing assistant and I later increased my education or I um upgraded. I became a registered nurse. I've been a registered nurse for over 20 years and I further um increased my education. I became a BSN or MSN and now I am a family nurse practitioner. and I've had opportunities to work in other states and I declined those opportunities because for sure I want to serve my county. I am the owner of ADM Drug Alcohol and Testing Center. We are located at 632 West Prospect Avenue, Raford and uh we do expect to expand, but I'm here today because like I said, I want to serve my county. Currently, Hope County sending their drivers and all of their other county employees to Cumberland County. And I I just feel so kind of weird about that. We should be able to serve our county. We have the education. We have the people here who are ready to serve. And not only that, but we have people who have proven that they will give back. I am the co-founder of Hope County Alumni Association and we give back every year. 2,000. I mean, we give back anytime they call us for um supplies. We're giving we give out scholarships every year. Uh we started that association with like eight board members and I've been able to be

on continue to be on the executive board just to see that that association grow and I think many of you have heard of Hope County Alumni Association. But today um I am asking that ADM drug alcohol and testing center can provide these services to the county um our DOT drug testing as well as our DOT physicals. I just want to say that whenever I look at the uh competitors and you guys are sending your um your services to currently well to the simple clinic and I looked at those prices and for sure we will beat those prices. I tell you, I'm not in this for me. I'm in this because I serve and I believe that God has sent me back to serve. I um spoke to I had a gentleman to come to me last week. He came for a DOT physical and he was in Fyville. So, because he was in Favville and he could not get the physical until like late October. Someone told him about me. Do you know this gentleman lives like three miles from my clinic, but he was in Failureville to get this done? And I just I know that we can provide these services to our um citizens here. The other thing I want to say too is whenever you whenever we provide these services when it comes to our citizens like currently now I am working with Hope Transit and I love it because I do random work screens. What that means? That means that I'm going to Last Friday I was at uh transit at 5:00 a.m. providing those random drug screens. That means that your citizens or your grandmother or your mother, whoever has appointments, they're not delaying their appointments because I'm there. Whenever the drivers come on the uh scene, I'm getting those re getting these drug screens and they're going on to take our citizens to their appointments. The

other thing is I spoke to one of our drivers um who drive um school bus buses and and now whenever you do your screenings you're at Turin. She says about roughly about 50. She says she's spending about an hour there and they're only sending one collector. I plan to be more than just one collector. Uh and not only that, but a lot of these drivers are dual roles in the community at the schools. Correct. I think so. Some of them some some Oh, but some of the um some of the drivers have dual roles. So, what I'm saying is if they're spending like an hour, they're already on the bus driving and if you're pulling them from um their other row that, you know, it just delays, you know, and it's it's lost time on the job is what I'm saying. and um just hope you find it in your heart county commissions to allow ADM to pro provide you those services. But I am here to serve. I am a retirement nurse from the VA. So like I said, um it's not about me, it's about serving.

Thank you. Thank you. It's good to have you back. We do try to stay local as much as possible and staying local, we do all we can. You might even pull Scotland County. You got super gun here tonight. Thanks. We'll take them. Thank you. Thank you for coming. Thank you, sir. Thank you. I love man rooms. That's a good thing. We need to increase them. Increase them. I love it. Quit living right. All right. Um Mr. Attorney, we have a close session. Yes, sir. I make that motion. Um, Mr. Chairman, I make a motion that we go into close session

um for the purposes of consulting with the attorney retained by the board in order to preserve the attorney client privilege between the attorney and the board pursuant to North Carolina General Statute 143-318.11 A3 and to establish or instruct the county staff or negotiating agent concerning the position to be taken on behalf of the county in in negotiation one the price and material terms of a contract or proposed contract for the acquisition of real property by purchase pursuant to North Carolina General Statute 143-318.11A5. That motion. That's my motion. That second. Second. Motion 7 time. All in favor would I?

I need you. Miss Mercy

I picked the plate. You good? You good? All right. You have that motion, Tony? Yes. So, Mr. Chairman, I'd be glad to give you a motion uh to recess till October the 15th at 10:00 a.m. A second. Second. All in favor would I? Hold on. Good night. Let me put that on my calendar. Good night.