City Council - Regular Meeting

Police served the Cabarrus and Rowan Counties for nearly 30 years. Whereas Betty and her first husband, Army Air Force Sergeant Garrett Ballard, raised three sons, including Kannapolis Police Officer Joe Ballard, and today her family includes six grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. Following Garrett's passing, she married the Reverend Hoke Ritchie and faithfully supported his ministry throughout the Piedmont. Whereas Betty has continued a lifetime of service through substitute teaching, volunteer work with Cooperative Christian Ministries, and faithful membership at Kimball Lutheran Church, her memories of Kannapolis from Cannon High football games and Saturday evenings at the Sanitary Cafe and the gym theater to appearing in the H. Lee Waters 1941 film of Kannapolis reflecting a life woven into the very fabric of our city's history. Whereas Betty's century of faith, service, resilience, and love for Kannapolis embodies the values that have shaped this community and serves as an inspiration to the generations of citizens, now therefore the City Council of the City of Kannapolis, North Carolina does hereby recognize and celebrate Betty Ritchie on the occasion of her 100th birthday, honoring her extraordinary life, her enduring commitment to her family, faith, and community, and her lasting contributions to the city of Kannapolis. We extend our heartfelt congratulations and best wishes to Mrs. Ritchie and join her family, friends, and neighbors in celebrating this remarkable milestone. In witness thereof, Mayor George Douglas Wilson, on behalf of the Kannapolis City Council, it calls the great seal of the city of Kannapolis to be affixed this 10th day of August, 2026. Congratulations, Betty, and happy birthday. Could I ask City Council to come down here, please?

Congratulations.

City Council's going to come to you. We want to all congratulate you, okay? Thank you, ma'am. Come on through here.

Thank you. Thank you.

And again, happy birthday to Betty, 100th birthday. And thank you, family, for letting us...

Yeah.

We have another very special moment now. Most of you were, or a lot of you were here earlier this year when we dedicated the bridge on MLK to this wonderful Miss Cannon. And she's back with us again today. And we may have mentioned at that time where we're going to do something about the roundabout on Highway 3, and we've done it. So Miss Cannon, we're just glad to have you back here with us again. It's good to see you, all your supporters. Mr. Melton's put together a really special film I want you to all watch before we come down. Yes, sir. All right. Mr. Melton and I are going to come down and give you a facsimile of what that is, and we'd like for Donald Gray to come join us, if we will.

Ms. Cannon, it is an honor to have you back with us again this evening, and I wanted to present to you a miniature replica of the Legacy Garden that was done in your honor along Highway 3. We truly do appreciate all that you've done for the community and the area. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Come on. Amen. Come on. We can do better than that. Come on. Let's give this lady. We are honored tonight, Ms. Corrine, to tell you tonight that we love you. Those of you who don't know, my grandfather married her sister. And I'm going to leave that alone. She'll tell me about that. But what an honor it is to honor this lady. She called me this morning, and she gave me a history, and she began to tell me that in the 60s, that her family was integrated, was the first one to use the restroom when it went from all colored to where she integrated the restrooms here in Kannapolis. Not only that, this woman of God was the first black woman, the black woman to work at Cannon Mills. And we're so honored tonight for this lady. She called me on this morning, Jerry. And she told me, she said, I'll be 107 years old. And she began to count down, tell me how many months, how many weeks. She told me. Come on, let's give this woman to God as she comes and say something.

Well, I don't have anything to say, but thank you. I've seen cannabis grow from a baby. So, The day to look out and see all these people here, and quite a few of them came because Corinne Cannon was coming. It's never been but one. When we woke up this morning, after a good night's rest, closing our right mind, we had a lot to be thankful for. I thank God that I have seen Canaveras grow. I was here in the first meeting when we decided to have a... And I was friends to those people. And to say goodbyes, they all knew me. And I knew them. And we grew up, but you know, we were drinking colored water. And we had a bridge that we used to walk with all the water until it was muddy water. So God had something to do with us being here this evening. All our plans were made. Somebody, the Holy Spirit was in somebody's mind and said, let's do something different. Now, you've never had anything like this before. So be surprised what I said, what I heard, what I tell you, because it's different. I think everybody here ought to give God some praise this night. And if anybody else is here in the audience that's older than I am, dang. God has let me see the bottom coming to the top. You know we all need changes, and we got to change. That bridge I used to go over to Buddywater or underneath it when everybody was looking at each other, passing by and not even speaking or looking. Now everybody has a song in their heart and a smile on their face. Don't you thank God for that? I brought a lot of my church members. I got people here from Belpage and Covenant Presbyterian Church. Because it used to be when you went down the road on them other bridges, if you went west, you were either going to Fishertown or Frog Harbor. But we come out of that now, we're all with y'all. We're everybody together because we're all God's children. So when the people from Bethpage and Covenant is standing, let's praise the Lord. This is the first time this is happening.

Praise the Lord, everybody. We've got to pray.

I just want to say this, that I want to give honor where honor is due. Back in November, Valeria and Amos McClure called me and told me about the starting of maybe naming the boulevard after Ms. Corrine. But I think what we got was just as good, and we want to thank the community and thank this board for what they have done. Thank you.

America. That ain't better than that. I bet that's the first time in history.

Oh, yeah. I'm going to have a gospel meeting here. That's okay. Thank you very much.

All right, we're ready to move on now, Miss Skaggs. I believe it's your turn.

Okay, we will now have speakers from the floor. When I call your name, you'll just come to the podium and you'll get four minutes. There is a timer at the podium as well as a timer on the table. The first card I have is Deborah Johnston.

Here I am again, Deborah Johnston, 2318 Beaver Pond Road, Kannapolis. Again, talking about my park. You know, in 2017, I told you that you all bought the land, 33 acres. In 24, the parks came out to charity and talked to us about this park and what it was going to have. It was going to have, excuse me, It was going to have walking trails, a playground, a dog park, splash pad, paddle boats, and shelters. I'm still waiting for the park. The city got a 500,000 grant for this park. Where's my park? It was supposed to start in 2025 being built. It's 2026. We have a gravel road with grass growing through it. Nothing's been done. I heard that you want to do a bond. The bond's not going to do any good. Every place in Kannapolis has a park except the east side. I am really asking for you to start that park. There's 10,000 people within one mile of where this park would be. There's 25,000 people within two miles. That's a lot of folks that would get utilized out of this park. We don't have the sidewalk on Midlake. That veteran is still walking. I see him every day. It's sad to know that we treat people badly by not giving them sidewalks and a park. How can we be a city of health? If we don't have a park for them to go to, the east side folks have to drive a ways to get to a park. And then it's hard to find a parking spot. With the sidewalk and the park, a lot of these kids can ride their bicycles to the park, walk to the park. That veteran doesn't have to walk in the gullies to get to the park. So I'm asking you. Let's get this park built so that we can say that every section of Kannapolis has a park. Because you can't tell me there's a park close on the east side. There's not. And it's very sad to know that I heard this in 2024, and nothing has been done. I've talked to several people who have kids, and they said that would be wonderful. But they couldn't come tonight, as I asked them to, because of open house. But there are some people here, and if you're from Eastside Park or Fort, would you stand up and show them that we do care for this park and we do need this park? Because if you stop and think about it, how can we be healthy without having some place close to go to walk, to be with our kids, our grandkids, and enjoy the park? These people wouldn't be here tonight if they didn't care. If there wasn't an open house, I'm sure there would be more because they have to go where their kids are. They're responsible. So you showed this to us. You proposed this to us. Now, can you produce it for us? Thank you.

The next card I have is Zach Irwin.

Good evening, Council. Zach Erwin, 903 Applewood Avenue. I'm here today to talk about consent item A, if you will take a look. It has to do with speaking rules for the speakers from the floor section. As you know, as I've spoken before from this very spot, I'm an advocate for allowing as many people to speak as efficiently and effectively as possible. Under this current plan to make a change to the speaking rights of the people, it would be proposed that no one can submit a card once the speakers from the floor time has started. my suggestion to you is to move this item from the consent agenda to the business agenda and at least give us some rationale as to why you feel that change is necessary i've seen it from my own experience from my own vantage point that there are some people who don't know the processes because this is their first council meeting and they have something they want to say but they didn't know they had to fill out a card to say it until this section makes it evident. And we don't announce it at the very beginning of the meeting that, hey, you need to turn in a card before this section. So my suggestion, again, is that you at least move it to the business agenda from the consent agenda and have a discussion about it and consider removing that rule change. Because I believe that if someone comes in and they've never been here before or they've never spoken here before and they don't know the process and they hear people speaking because they've turned in a card, they should have an opportunity to say, you know what, I do have something to say and I want to turn in my own card and say it today. So thank you for your time and I hope you will take that into consideration.

The next card I have is Nancy Rutledge.

Thank you, Councilman and ladies, and Mayor Wilson. this opportunity to speak tonight. My name is Nancy Rutledge. I just recently, in the last five months, moved to Concord 271 Thrivemore Northwest, Concord. But the last 56 years, I have lived in Kannapolis. That's where my home is, it's where my heart is, and that's where we raised our five children, and this is home. But what I would like to say tonight is, please don't vote for the GO bond. We can continue to move forward, with the Eastside Park without a property tax rate increase. And Eastside Park is needed and promised. Let's live up to our promise without a property tax rate increase. Thank you.

Thank you.

The next card I have is Jim Rutledge.

I've spoken to city councils before, but it's probably been a few decades ago. And I probably shouldn't even speak, but I was dared to by my wife. Actually, maybe I'm not even entitled to be here, because after living here for almost 82 years, I moved with my wife four and a half months ago, and I live in Concord now. But living in Concord in what's a new retirement village, we didn't need the house that we've had to raise five kids in. We needed a smaller house, so that's how we got to Concord. So in all these new people that we're meeting, so many of them don't know a thing about Kannapolis. And I'll get them. I'll come up, bring them to the gym theater. We'll come up someplace to eat. We'll do things together. One night, I drove up here and drove to the top of the parking garage over there six stories up and showed them you can get up there and look down and see all around. And it's wonderful. But just about in every case, people have shown surprise. They are delighted and impressed to see Kannapolis as we look today. And while everybody, even Concord people, are showing envy of what we've done in Kannapolis, what we've got done here. We look good. They've made some changes in downtown Concord that look good, but not as good as they think we look. We've got Main Street opened up now, and you can come down right there beside the Dale Earnhardt statue, that park, and you can see that that's all opened up now. It's nicer downtown than it's looked that I can remember. It's nice to see all these people, but something... We still need parks, and parks are very important. I watched a program one night on how New York City is so well ahead of most cities, and that's one thing that's made New York a great city was its use of parks. Let's not forget that Kannapolis needs park on the east side. Now, we've got a lot of taxes that we already pay, and I don't want to pay any new taxes, and I'll bet there's not a soul in here that wants a higher tax than what we're already paying. So let's defeat this. GO tax that's going to be kind of a catch-all for a lot of things. And let's support the one, though, that we've already got $500,000. That's a half a million dollars that came from a grant that if we go ahead and build that Eastside Park, we won't have to return it. Let's get that done, make that much better a Kannapolis by having done it. Thank you.

Mayor, the last card I have is Violet Elaine Mitchell.

I just saw you the other day. I'm Valerie Delaine Mitchell. My address is 415 Linden Street, right off of Southland, Texas Road, Kannapolis, North Carolina. And I did ask for two more minutes, but I see it's not granted, so... Anyway, y'all know what happened the last time I asked for minutes, and it wasn't granted, but I ain't going to go off on you tonight. Okay, the first thing I have is about the North and South Little Texas Road sidewalk project. I've been told a couple of different versions. The right of ways had started, and the guy that was doing it, he... He quit doing it, then somebody else took it over. Then I heard a version about Duke Power had some issues and they had to start a right-of-way acquisition all over again. So can y'all bring me up to speed as to exactly what's going on with the sidewalk project?

We don't talk during this time, Mr. Mitchell. Oh, okay. We'll respond. Mr. Melton will talk with you later.

Okay. Okay, and the next thing that I have is the lines need to be redone where you're turning from Dale Earnhardt at the QT onto Concord Lake Road or Highway 3. It's a traffic hazard. It could result in turning into oncoming traffic because you can't see the yellow lines. And also the white lines at the whole intersection needs to be redone as well. Let me see. Okay. The next one I have is about Linden Street needs to be resurfaced. I have brought this up in the past. I have talked with Leo Pope a couple of times about it. He says that it has to be on a list. for a waiting priority. I tell you now, I'm tired of waiting because the city thinks my street is not a priority. Nothing has been done since it was originally paved, and that was when Mr. Bob Meisenheimer was mayor. And you know how long that was. He has since passed away many years ago. The pavement is uneven, causing dips in the road. When it rains, there is pools of water that stands, and there's what they call alligator spots or something. And the mosquitoes congregate in that. I used to didn't have a problem with mosquitoes. They didn't even bother me. But all of my guests that come to my house, they would say, these things tearing me up. So then they started tearing me up. So all that standing water, you know, that needs to be eliminated by resurfacing the street. And let's see. Okay, and that's caused by all of those big old garbage trucks coming in and the recycling people coming in and any other truck that want to come in. So that is a problem. And the other thing, let's see. I've already mentioned about you can't see the lines at the intersection. But I just saw a homeless lady in a wheelchair up there at the social services building. And she had all of her belongings mounted to her wheelchair. So, Kannapolis, we have got to do better. We need a shelter really bad. You know, Concord has one, but they're mostly all, you know, they stay filled up and everything. So we've got to do better. The last thing I want to say, everybody's talking about the park. I've been going down to the Marvin Caldwell Park. They have a walk-a-thon on Saturday. And I've been doing 3.1 miles. I'm trying to get myself physically in shape and everything. And the last thing I want to mention, I am the public relations specialist for a new restaurant in Durham called Woody's. It's a barbecue restaurant, and I've been sending people from Durham, Raleigh, Kannapolis, Concord, and the restaurant is really doing well, and they have commended me for my efforts for being their public relations specialist. Okay, even though I tried to get a job with y'all as a public relations specialist and you wouldn't hire me, but anyway, I'm doing real well in... We have a consent agenda in front of us.

What is your pressure for this? Just to move for approval. Mr. Jackson, motion to approve. Is there a second? Mr. Dayball, all in favor?

I wanted to suggest that we pull item number A and maybe table it or either move it to the next meeting. I'm sorry.

Okay. So that means you'll have to amend your original motion.

Okay. I'll amend my original motion if you'd like to do that.

And I'll second the change.

So we want to make a motion to pull it?

Yeah.

Yes.

And then move it to the, well, do you want to table it or?

That's up to council as a whole. I just don't want to make any decisions on it tonight.

Which item are you mentioning?

Item A with the public comments policy.

I would say table it to the next meeting.

I agree. Let's just table it to the next meeting. All right.

We got a motion now to table it to the next meeting. Is there a motion for that? Is that a motion? I'll make that motion. Okay. Is there a second?

I'll second.

All in favor, if you'll raise your hands, please. Okay, thank you. All right. Now, we still need to approve the rest of the consent agenda, don't we, Mr. Kelly?

Yes.

That's correct.

All right. We need a motion to approve the balance. Mr. Payne, is there a second? All in favor? Thank you. Okay, good. All right. So on to the business agenda. And we have two young men coming up here tonight, all-time great athletes. They're going to make a presentation, I believe. Mr. Smith and Mr. Mills.

Good evening. Mayor Wilson, Pro Tem Mayor Dayvault, City Council, City Manager, City Attorney, and Ms. Gaggs, thank you for the invitation. Harry Mills and I, my executive secretary with the Cabarrus County Sports Hall of Fame, appreciate the opportunity to come present before an illustrious group and also give you some insight into what we are doing. I gave you a packet. It has several pages. I'm not going to go through all that. You can read it on your own. But one thing I wanted to tell you, as you look at the first part of it, we established the Cabarrus County Sports Hall of Fame 2010. Tony McClamrock and a group of people got together, started it out, had a vision statement, a purpose, and a mission. As they went through that, they decided that they would have a selection. So in 2011, they had six inductees, and that went through 2019. That's the four pages there that I'm not going to read, but I'm going to tell you we inducted 93 members, which Harry and I were fortunate enough to be two of those, and five state championship teams. We're very proud of the heritage that Mr. McClamrock brought. But in 2020, COVID hit us. And once COVID hit, there was a two and a half year hiatus where nobody met, no one talked, no one had nominations. And so it was going dormant. Tony got sick two years later and passed away. So after a five year period of time, his wife, Becky, contacted me and said, Coach, would you please consider... getting the Hall of Fame started again. I said, Becky, I got grandchildren. I'm retired. It was really funny. This is a sidebar, but when Mayor Wilson saw me, he said, Coach, I don't think I've ever seen you anything but black and gold. I said, Mayor, I wasn't about to insult y'all by wearing black and gold up here. And since I've retired, I've been able to buy different color clothes now. So I always had my stuff free when I was coaching. But seriously, that five-year period of time, I got 20 business leaders together, which Ryan and Doug were part of that. And we got the six board members together. We met at O'Charlie's. We had lunch. We talked. We called them stakeholders and board members, which is the committee. And we talked about what it took. We took minutes down there. Harry took the notes. We presented them in late January of 2025. They accepted them, then all of a sudden they decided they wanted some committee members, so they nominated me. They did it like this, I don't know how y'all do, I nominate Coach Smith, I second, all in favor, aye. Next thing I know, I got nominated to be the chairman, just like that. So I told them, I said, anybody that knows me, I'm gonna run it like I ran my football program, we're gonna be first class, wide open, all the way to the end of the road. So we started out in January of 25, we redid the bylaws, we redid everything. And by the end of May, we didn't have a place to put our memorabilia. So I went to the county commissioners, Cabarrus County, and in June, a resolution passed that they gave us the Cabarrus Arena. I hope someday you will be able to go and see our exhibit. We put it up this past May. It's an unbelievable elite thing that people from Guilford County, Stanley County, Rowan County, Mecklenburg County come and say, Coach, how did y'all do this? So we have set the tone for this area to have an elite Cabarrus County Sports Hall of Fame. In that time, We came up with an idea. We needed to raise money. We needed funds. So you have in there a fundraising form that I'm going to talk about for just a moment. But on the other side, we also applied for a 501c3 and our W-9, which there's a copy in there for you to see. We have that now. In May, we went forward and we put our wall up. If you will Google Cabarrus County Sports Hall of Fame, it's on the back of the first page I gave you, that website, and look at what we've done. I think you'll be amazed. We had a wonderful celebration, had almost 200 people there, and we unveiled our wall. We exhibited all of our contributors, everything. Then we came up with the idea. We wanted to have a scholarship. We wanted to give back to the community. Now, I know how municipalities work. You have to be careful when you're dividing money up with nonprofit organizations. I know how that works. I would like for you to look at and see if there's a way. that you could contribute to our Hall of Fame to help us in our process. One of the initiatives we've come is scholarships. This past May, without me going into a lot of detail, and you can read the letters, we gave out 24 $500 scholarships for a total of $12,000. We had two from Kannapolis, two from Concord, two from Central, Northwest, Mount Pleasant, West Cabarrus, Hickory Ridge, Cox Mill, Mount Pleasant. Every high school, Covenant Classical decided to wait till next year. The Cannon School and Concord Academy. 11 of the 12 got $1,000 from us. And those kids now are on their way to college. Now, I tell this story because there's a couple of things there that I'd like for you to know. As you look at what we're trying to accomplish, I want you to know this. When you have a group like you supporting education, and athletics, because that's what we are. We're an athletic organization, but we support education. It makes a more skilled workforce for years to come. Our local governments can collaborate with partnerships to develop workforce training. That's something that this money could help us with. Addressing local workforce needs, such as internships and co-op programs. That's where I'm investing our time and our efforts. and we're trying to align to increase community engagement. Our partnership with local businesses has been wonderful. The local businesses have given to us to contribute and help us, but city leaders can also advocate for local, state, and federal funding that can help us with the initiatives of expanding our educational access. throughout Cabarrus County. Local governments play a significant or pay a significant portion of your money to the school system already. We are a separate entity from Cabarrus County Schools, Kannapolis City Schools, and the three private schools. We are not affiliated with them any other way except we want to give back to help young people. So in this, I want to engage you to become stakeholders And this includes parents, educators, organizations like ours. The ownership and the accountability enhances job opportunities. And I guess the biggest thing that I want to leave you, and then I'm going to let Harry have a minute, you know, it's essential for us, for our organization, to be at the forefront of this. Tell you a quick little story. 1965, there was this 13-year-old boy His daddy pulled him over to the side and he said, son, mom and I don't have enough money to send you to college, but if you study real hard and you play hard in sports, maybe you can earn a scholarship. If not, you can work with daddy, because daddy was a superintendent for a construction company, and I could have worked with him the rest of my life and been happy. Or you can go to Vietnam and defend our country. Now, anybody that's done any history on the 1965 Vietnam War, that was not the number one choice in my life as a 13-year-old. I studied. I worked. Thank God I got a scholarship. University of South Carolina paid my way to come and play football, get my education. Once I got that education, I made a commitment that I was going to be the best coach, the best teacher, the best person I could be. Over 50 years later, I am back in this community. I would not be where I am today without that scholarship money, without somebody taking a chance on me. You as a municipality could help us. I'll give you one last thing. I met with Steve Morris, Concord. We've asked each municipality to consider $5,000. I know you have money that does other things. This would go to help us form this bond with the community that we need. If not, and you can't do it, look at the form and make an individual assessment of what you might can help us with. And don't write anything on the donation line except donation. We're not here soliciting money away from the city. We're asking you to help us help young people. That's my goal. Now, when I was coaching, yeah, I wanted to win every game, especially the Concord-Cannapolis game because my job depended on it. But more importantly, I look today at the people that came by from Kannapolis to see me and speak to me and hug me and tell me they love me. I know I made an impact, and I wouldn't have made that impact had I not gone to school. You could help a young person go to school. I'm going to let Harry, and then I'll answer any questions.

I'll be brief. I actually live in China Grove. But I tell people all the time, I'm a Kannapolis person, and I'm proud of Kannapolis. I love Kannapolis, and I do want to help the young people. I think these scholarships that we are giving out, you know, we only give a $500 scholarship for a boy, $500 for a girl. But my goal is to keep pounding until we can give at least $1,000 to a boy and a girl at each one of the schools in Cabarrus County. Right now, your mayor knows that I do a scholarship at A.L. Brown High School each year for a cheerleader. My former wife that passed away was a cheerleader, and I saw it fit to do a scholarship in her name at A.L. Brown High School. So scholarships are important. And again, I just want to tell the audience, I'm a Kannapolis person living out of town.

Thank you, Harry. Can I answer any questions, maybe specifics of what our goal and objective is? Jean?

Thank you so much for your presentation, and I really appreciate the program that you've established. I would just like to acknowledge that there is a Hall of Fame member in our audience today, and that is Shantae Pinkston Grigley. Ms. Grigley, would you please stand up?

She's one of our most famous. In fact, I even got a hug from her tonight.

Anyone else?

Thank you so much for your time. I look forward to hearing from you. Y'all have a wonderful day.

Thank you. Okay. Mr. Anderson.

Hey there. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of council. Me and I have a public hearing and a resolution regarding a development agreement before you. I know typically you see Richard up here, so we'll do our best. So today before you we have development agreement 2026-01. It is MPV Kellswater. So this is right at Kellswater and Rogers Lake Road at the Kannapolis Parkway. It will be the third track there you see highlighted. The current applicant is desiring to build a non-residential medical office building. The total wastewater capacity need is 1,000 gallons per day. That does come out of the previously approved Exhibit A, so that comes out of the non-residential call for projects. And here's some renderings of what it will look like. It'll be a standard medical office building with about four doctors is the intent. So with that, we are asking council to hold a public hearing and then consider a motion to approve the resolution adopting the ordinance. Of course, we're here to answer any questions that you may have. Are there any questions?

Mr. Anderson. Anyone have a question? No questions. Okay, I'm going to open the public hearing. If you want to speak on this subject and this subject only, please come forward and speak. I don't see anyone, so I'm going to close it. We now have closed the public hearing. We've got to go to page two now. I think we're going to be calling for a motion. to adopt this resolution. So do I have a motion to adopt this? Mr. Jackson, is there a second? Mr. Payne? Okay, all in favor, if you will. It's unanimous, all right. Thank you, Mr. Anderson. Thank you. And the young lady with you. All right, Mr. Melton.

Mayor, just a couple updates for City Council tonight. So the Representative Linda P. Johnson, as well as the Roger Dale Carter honorary designation to the bridges located over Main Street at Rogers Lake Road, as well as out at Center Grove, those applications have been approved, and they will be on the Board of Transportation's September meeting for formal approval of the resolution to enact.

Okay.

A couple other items that I wanted to point out to Council tonight is the Little Texas Road sidewalk. We talked about this last time. We are currently in the right-of-way process on that project. We have approximately 35 right-of-ways to complete all the right-of-ways. There were over 100 right-of-ways, and as we talked before, Everybody's excited about sidewalks until it starts to impact your property and understanding what those are. Our hope is that we will be able to be successful in getting those as soon as possible. But if not, there... There are other ways that we would seek to get those, and we hope not to go down that path. But with everything on schedule, we intend to start utility relocation the third quarter of this year, and complete that by the first quarter of 2027, and bids to open that project for construction on March of 2027. And it'll take about a year and a half to construct that project. Bethpage Road sidewalk right-of-way will be complete by February of 27. Utility relocation will start March of 2027 and completion in September of 2027. The right-of-way let date for that will be November of 2027. And that's it. We've talked about the other bridges that are on, so that's all I have for Councilman Nightmare.

Thank you, sir. Any councilman comments? Mr. Daymark.

Thank you, Mayor. A couple things. I guess, Wilmer, the issue that Ms. Mitchell brought up about Dale Earnhardt Boulevard, the lines on the street, I guess you or Mr. Rattler report that to DOT for repair.

Yes, sir. I made a note that Michael or I1 will get that reported.

Okay. And then about the street issue she's talking about on Linden Street. some of the repairs if possible on that street uh... if you could look into that and the other thing i want to share with everyone the mayor and i was talking uh... before the meeting and he had received a letter from the north carolina highway historical association uh... historical markle marker program today that uh... i want to share with y'all that the uh... Office of Archives and History in Raleigh, part of the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, approved at their May 12th meeting that a new historical highway marker will be placed here in downtown Kannapolis. And it will be for Dale Earnhardt. And it will read as such, 1951-2001, the Intimidator won seven NASCAR titles, become racing icon. His death in 2001 reformed stock car safety. He lived two miles south. So those are not easy to come by anymore. There's not many of those that are put up throughout the state anymore, and I'm very proud to have a new one here in our community. They are proposing the location be near the Dale Earnhardt Plaza at North Main Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue. So we will see that at some point, hopefully. The other thing I wanted to thank Coach Smith and Mr. Mills for coming out tonight. Coach Smith's probably one of the most inspirational people I've ever met in my life, even though he is from Concord. I didn't think I would ever say that. And if any of my friends are watching this, they'll probably, you know, throw a tomato at me or something. But I do hope that we can look at maybe helping out their organization some. I mean, it is a good thing. Maybe at least cover the Kannapolis area. scholarships that are being paid out from that organization because it is good and and that is an organization that's here in our community for our young people so hopefully we can mr melton or kristen someone can look into what's possible for helping however we can so that is all i have mayor i'm on a backtrack here mr coach smith can i ask you one question

It's limited to one answer now.

Yes, sir.

Okay. How many people from Kannapolis are already on the hall or in the hall?

Right now we have 107 members. There are 43 A.L. Brown, J.W. Cannon. There are 36 Concord High Schools. So about 80 out of 107 are Concord and Kannapolis. Okay. Harrisburg, Odell, Central Cabarrus, Northwest, Mount Pleasant. Robinson would be the next one because they're 26 years old. You have to be 30 years old to get in. So that's one of the criteria. West Cabarrus is a little behind. But yes, sir, we have. And I will say this real quick to y'all. This is kind of interesting. Harry and I and Ray Clark, who are supposed to be here tonight, We have gone to Wyckoff, O'Dell, Harrisburg, Hartzell. We've pulled up almost 100 names of former athletes. That's called a historic research group that could potentially one day be in our whole thing, that people aren't making nominations. You have to be nominated in order to get in. Then you're reviewed. In fact, we have 55 living, 26 deceased, And we're going to get eight and six living and deceased this time. And we're going to add ten state championship teams, which I want to tell you, these are good news. Nine of them are from either J.W. Cannon or A.L. Brown. And one is the Post 115 American Legion. So all ten of those state championships are coming from Kannapolis this year. Take that into consideration when you're thinking about my money.

I'm going to throw one more thing in here for all the Kannapolis people. Mr. Mills, will you stand up a minute? The 1960 Bell game was won on the touchdown pass at the end. This man caught it, and we beat Concord. So thank you very much.

But it has a good view. I wasn't five years old, so I was at home. I didn't see that. I know.

I was only 10. Okay. Okay, let's go on to a more important part here. Is there a motion to adjourn? No, I'm sorry. I got another one. Close session. Oh, close session. I'm sorry, Mr. Dayball. That's all right. Just cut me out.

Mr. Mayor, if I might. Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't want us to leave here. We had a great celebration here in Kannapolis last week with National Night Out. And I just wanted to thank our Chief of Police, Chief Spry, and his whole staff. I know they had a lot to do with that. And also all the community partners that came out. They really are what make Kannapolis great. And it was really neat to see the different people. groups there. And I think one of the things that inspired me was a lot of the people that were working that event told their own stories about why they were helping with whatever it was. So it was a really great night. So thank you guys for anyone that helped with it, especially with our staff. Thank you so much for having that and letting our residents be aware of what was out there. Thank you.

Okay. All right. Before I let him do it again, does anyone else want to say anything? Mr. Jackson.

Yes, I'd like to thank Gary Mills and the Parks and Rec staff for a great summer series concert. They had a lot of Saturday night. They had a lot of challenges with the weather, but they hung in there and was able to get through. And that was the biggest diverse crowd I've ever seen at a concert. There was several generations there that enjoyed Andy. So just hats off to Parks and Rec and Gary Mills.

Okay.

Now, back to square one. Mr. Dayball. Too much Sylvia Thursday night. Yeah, too much Sylvia Thursday night. All right. I haven't done this in a while, so I'm going to try this. Mayor, I'll make a motion to move us into closed session pursuant to North Carolina General Statute 143-318.11a3 to consult with an attorney in order to preserve the attorney-client privilege and General Statute 143.318.11a6 for discussing personnel matters.

Is there a second? Second. Mr. Payne. All in favor? Okay. Now, we are adjourned.