City Council - Regular Meeting

Um, and the current reserve truck will be surplus, but you know, obviously it's approved by y'all.

So thank you. Any other questions for Miles?

Jim? With respect to the Helene drinking water project, I'm assuming the 471, 728 in the task order, that's not the entire project. That's just for the sort of narrower tasks set forth in the proposal and that there will be more expenses as the action is actually undertaken, is that correct?

That's correct, yes, sir.

And then it was, I think this was the first time I had learned this, of this 10 million state revolving fund. The first 5 million is just, we get it. and clear, but the second $5 million is 75% principal forgiveness and a 25% loan with 0% interest over 20 years? That's correct. Okay. I don't think I was aware of that. Okay. And then with respect to the Center City Small Area Plan, I have a question, but it might be best if there is a representative from the planning department here to address it.

Reagan. Reagan's here. Reagan can step to the mic.

Hello, so my question and the proposal and the many slides look great, but I was a bit curious, the consultant's timeline seems a bit, Some might say aggressive, optimistic, but it seemed almost as if they were anticipating they could have this done by December. And so I just wanted to know whether the planning department felt that the consultant's timeline was realistic.

Sure, that's a great question. So I will note, I think this quote was prepped in end of May, beginning of May. So we're coming to y'all now a little later than we planned, so I think that would put us probably by the time we execute the contract and start work more like January February six months from start. I do I you know i'm not the project manager for that contract it'll be managed by Chester. And he and Tiffany have worked really hard with the Arcadis team to evaluate staff capacity and make sure that we have the bandwidth and that they have the bandwidth to deliver this and make sure it's a plan that the city is going to be proud of within that time frame. And we do feel good about that. The Arcadis team has shared, you know, their approach and we had the same question when they shared their proposal with us about the condensed timeframe. But I think the way that they're planning to approach, you know, community engagement and really dive in during a design charrette and then kind of complete some of the background investigation and research in tandem will help them meet that timeframe. And a representative from Arcadis is here to speak to that as well, if you guys are interested. But planning staff does feel supportive of that timeline.

Jim, what do you think?

What do you think?

Well, I think if we're going to bring them up, I'd probably want to move it to regular agenda.

Okay. I don't know if I need to.

Okay.

I just want someone to tell me that that's a realistic timeframe and if you feel like, you know, I don't want to belabor the point too much.

Sure. I think that's a good question. If they could quickly maybe give us a little bit of clarification, we'll keep it on consent.

Sure. Super quick.

And just for clarification, so the six-month timeframe that you see in that schedule was based on the original scope of work. We've got an expanded scope of work, so it will be a few extra months that goes along with that. So I hope that that explains it. It's a different approach, and it's expanded in terms of the types of things that we're going to cover and all the different things that we'll be doing with you all. So it's probably gonna be more like April ish okay okay we're also working around another schedule that you all have for a smaller plan, so we know that there'll be some times when we will be quiet when the other plan gets a little bit more active.

Thank you. And I had a quick question since you're here. So the initial scope versus the full plan as being shown here, obviously they're two different things. My understanding just from reading and reviewing is as you got into it, the more feedback you were receiving sounded like maybe we needed a broader plan than initially the scope encased. Is that why we're now being suggested to go with the full plan as opposed to the original scope of work? And do we, is it true that there's a savings in the event we were to do a full plan as opposed to the a la carte as we go?

Yes, so to answer the second question first, which is absolutely. We can piecemeal this over the next two or three years, and you can kind of make some decisions. But this allows you all to focus your efforts on getting the things done that you need to get done and getting them in place and then moving on to implementation quicker. So being able to focus on all the things associated with the downtown area, the center city area at one time. And so that's the reason for that. And then the other piece was that really the original scope was a zoning plan to say, okay, this is just kind of what's going to happen. I'm going to oversimplify it, but largely a here's what the zoning map looks like and here's what a developer can do if they want to come in and do it. The expanded plan really looks at the sort of operations and the maintenance and the capital opportunities that you all have to invest in the downtown area and continue to encourage the type of investment that you would like to see over time. So it's much more proactive. And it's the type of plan that we've done with dozens of communities your size. We just finished one for Apex, North Carolina. Very similar to what you all have. They're about two blocks in length with historic neighborhoods that surround you all with a historic park right in the downtown. So very similar. So we're kind of used to understanding what's going on. They're advancing through their implementation very quickly and getting new investment. They're getting to grants quickly as part of that, so it just helps them move forward and make a little bit of investment now and get more long-term. Thank you. Thank you. Pleasure to meet you all. Thank you.

Any other questions on that specifically or on any other issues with Consent Agenda? All right. Well, if there are no other questions, that will conclude our work session. And I will call to order the regular meeting of the Belmont City Council for July 6, 2026. And I believe we have Robert Thompson, pastor of Connections Church, for our invocation. So if everyone would please stand, then we will have Jason Rundfeld will lead us through the Pledge of Allegiance.

Thank you for the honor of being here, and thank you all for serving like you do so wonderfully for our community. Reminds me a little bit of some churches I've spoken at where more people sit at the back than the front, but that's quite all right. So would you join me as we pray this evening, Lord? We are so honored to be here and such a blessing to be together, and thank you so much for those who serve faithfully. not only in these meetings monthly, but also day in and day out, Lord, we are So grateful for our council and for those who are employed here at the city of Belmont, for those who serve in our fire department, our police department, all of the utility folks who work so hard. And Lord, we pray for guidance in these meetings and in these gatherings and subsequent meetings that take place, that wisdom and your help and your leadership would be very evident. and all of those gatherings and those times that people are working hard to move our city forward. We always want to keep at the forefront of our hearts and minds that we are serving the people here of this great city, and we are so grateful for all the blessings upon the city of Belmont that are not only evident today, but Lord, for our great past and history, and also for the great future that lies ahead. God, again, we just put all this time and the times ahead in your hands, and we look to you for your faithful guidance, leadership, and blessings. And we pray all this in the mighty name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus, and everyone said together.

Amen. Thank you, Pastor. Everyone, please remain standing for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you all, you may be seated. All right, so this evening we do not have any recognitions or acknowledgements, so I will entertain a motion to set the agenda.

Motion to set the agenda.

Motion made by Jason.

Second.

Second by Mark. All in favor?

Any opposed?

All right, the agenda is set and that will move us right along. I will entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda.

Motion to approve the consent agenda.

Motion to approve by Charlie, seconded by Alex.

All in favor? Any opposed? All right, it passes unanimously.

So that is approved and that will move us right along. to public comment. And there is no one signed up for public comment this evening, so we will keep moving along here to agenda item C1, data center informational presentation. I believe we have Mr. Ted McGavern here with us this evening. So if you'd come on up, Ted.

Thank you, Mayor. I'm going to introduce him real quick. So this is Ted McGavern from Fundamental Data. He's also a member of the Environmental Sustainability Board. And just as just a recall, we had a conversation at our at your all council retreat back in february regarding uh data centers and the direction to staff was to have have mr mcgavern attend a council meeting to present further information on that and so uh we invited uh ted to attend tonight so turn it back over there thank you miles thank you it's good to be here with you yeah i am uh one of my one of my callings in life is with fundamental data and we're developing quite a large project in northeastern west virginia

one that I would not anticipate occurring here. I also do a lot of consulting. I'm basically a power guy. I'm a licensed professional engineer, graduated from North Carolina State University in 1984 with a degree in electrical engineering. And so I do chair the Environmental Sustainability Board. I believe that I can bring some sense to what's going on in this data center world. There's a lot of misinformation out there about data centers, and it just kind of creeps up and goes a little bit viral from time to time. Let me tell you that there really are three types of data centers that you want to look at. First, there's the big hyperscaler centers. That's like what QTS is doing down in Lake Wiley. To an extent, Amazon is attempting to do up here. Those are very large. They go above 50 megawatts. A lot of them can go, like the QTS one goes, a gigawatt. The complex we're contemplating will eventually go to about 3 gigawatts, if not 4 or 5 gigawatts, just to give you a sense of how big what we're looking at is. In the In the middle and in between is what's called the edge data centers. The edge data centers are about 2 to 50 megawatts. They're a lot of times called data in a box. They don't require the big generation and the big transmission. They are best suited for being put in repurposed industrial facilities, which we have a few of those around here. and they don't require a lot of water or anything like that. The thing about the big ones is you're going to have to hook up to big transmission lines or big gas turbines or something like that. In Belmont, we don't really have that infrastructure available. It would take a lot of gas to do something like that, and the transmission lines are the only practical place for one to go around here would be down at the Allen site somewhere in that area. Duke would feed that and we would have no impact on the power. Duke would feed any of this stuff since we're all on Duke around here. As far as the water situation goes, the big ones take a lot of water initially. They usually operate on closed-loop systems, which means once they get the water in there, they just circulate it and you get make-up water from time to time. But they do require for infrastructure to be built. So I think anything that we did with any data center, we would need to evaluate the efficacy of new facilities and get them to pay up front. I can tell you, these guys have the money to do that. So that's not a big deal. With the edge data centers, you just don't see that. They're going to be either sitting inside a repurposed industrial facility or they will be outside in a structure. And I want to say something about these structures. To put the servers that you need to run a real AI or just regular data center now, they're just pretty strong structures. Noise is typically not an issue, but I would recommend that we look at a noise ordinance. Typically, what you see with noise with these guys is going to be a diesel generator running backup or something like that. They're all going to have to have some sort of backup.

Sorry, are you still referring just to the ed centers or are you talking about in general?

In general, I would do a noise ordinance. There shouldn't be any noise issues. The new technology, there really isn't and the type of structures are not because these guys are putting in 20 to 25-year leases or buying a property outright. And the equipment they're putting in there is high-end stuff. You know, the best service you could possibly have. See, I talked about the three types of data centers. Another one we need to consider is the crypto miners. Those are about as low rent as you can get.

So that would be the third type.

That would be the third type. Yeah, and I would say... we better look really carefully if we get somebody wanting to do a do a crypto center here because those things are noisy they don't stay around for a long time and uh they're just they're kind of painful to have around now they've improved themselves a lot but i would i would be really even on our site we really don't want those guys there we're out for long-term play with big government defense organizations or the awbs's or qts's of the world on our site I'm just very skeptical about crypto as a technology anyhow. Now, this morning President Trump talked about that. He's not skeptical about it. So we have a little bit of a disagreement there. But I think I would be really careful about crypto coming in here and look at that on a case-by-case basis. But I do think that we need to have some ordinances regarding noise. I think we need to have them pay for any infrastructure updates. The infrastructure to us is typically going to be the water sewer situation. And again, the edge data centers that I think are going to be the most likely thing you're going to see around here, the smaller ones, are going to be what we see. And I would prepare along those lines. Not saying we can't get a big one, and it could happen. But some other things would have to fall into place for that to be the case.

What? Hey, Ted, real quick, on those three buckets, do you have an idea of what the average square footage is generally within those three?

Well, with a big data center, you're looking at upwards of 100 acres. With an edge data center, you can get that done in an acre or less or around five acres. That would be the most. That would be a big one. That would be a big edge data center complex. Crypto, think about it, about the same type of size of an edge center, unless somebody wanted to come in and do a really big one. They're out there. The Caruso Group, people like that have done that in Texas. And they're all taking grid power. I would just say in North Carolina, we're going to have trouble really doing a lot of data here in North Carolina because we're very gas constrained in this state. I don't think anybody knows a whole lot about that. But when the ACP got canceled, that really hurt us economically. And I think it's going to be really a tough putt to do a lot of big data complexes in this state. Now, the edge, I think not so much. And they're easier to manage anyhow. So I think that's probably what we're going to see some of. And, again, we have the capacity here electrically, and we have the capacity here with the – with the industrial sites that have been abandoned to do that. So I would anticipate seeing some of that and we can get some tax benefit from that. Probably some really good tax benefit. And they'll stay here. The crypto guys are going to come in here and they're going to spend A couple years here, then they're going to pick up and move.

Wasn't the state exemption just put on moratorium? They did do that. They did do that. And I imagine it's going to tap the brakes a bit.

I think it will on the bigger ones. Maybe not so much the little ones.

What was it? North Carolina had a tax exemption.

And again, that goes back to we just don't have the generation capabilities in the state anymore to do this. Just to give you an example, that QTS thing down in South Carolina that's just across the line is going to take about half the output of the Catawba nuclear plant. They're around 800 megawatts to a gigawatt down there. That is a two gigawatt site.

What about the president also speculated on requiring these large developers to be able to have their own power generation? Is there any legs to that?

Yeah, I do. I know everything about that because that's exactly what we're doing in West Virginia. We're not depending on the grid at all. We saw that coming a long time ago. He sat there and said people that were doing that were brilliant people today. I felt good about him calling me a brilliant person.

When you talk about North Carolina kind of not being able to handle that large capacity, I guess maybe it was just a rumor, but the rumor was that just across the river they were going to be developing potentially the largest data center in the state.

Well, that's kind of what they're doing. Well, QTS is the largest data center in South Carolina. It's called South Carolina. No, I'm talking about in Charlotte. Somebody will try something, I'm sure. I think it's going to take about five years to get the power developed to be able to feed something like that. When you start developing a project like that, it's a long-term play. We've been at it up there for two years, and we're just now getting into the construction phase. Now, we did some different things. We got legislation passed at the state level, and we've got our air permits and things like that. One of the things that hangs these guys up is that they get kind of full of themselves These tech guys have more money than they know what to do with, literally. If you don't believe that, see how Google Fiber turned out. Not so hot. And they're kind of doing the same thing in this data world. I can tell you right now, Duke is going to run the show with data in this state. Now another aspect that we have here, and this is I think an opportunity, is they need some really strong backbone fiber. Now out here running on 74, you've got the MCNC network. It's a statewide network that really gives the state a leg up in some competition for this sort of stuff. Belmont doesn't have a real good fiber system at all. So anybody that locates in here is going to have to build some fiber. And I think you could look at it from an opportunity that if we got several of these things in here, we could probably work out a consortium to build a really strong fiber loop in this town. And it's needed, very much needed. So that's an opportunity out there that I think we can get done privately and do some things like that that would really enhance the livability of this town. And these guys don't pollute. Like I say, we do a noise ordinance, and they don't make a lot of noise. But we need to have an ordinance. And they will have some generation on them that if they – and they're going to have to turn those on from time to time just to exercise them. They will need a noise ordinance. Go ahead, Jason.

Okay. Yeah, I'm sure all of us have several questions, but the noise ordinance, since we're on that topic, I had a gentleman tell me that does a lot of work around the country in developing these data centers too, and he said a lot of them, the backup power source is generators typically, right? And not two or three, like 50 or 60. Oh, a big one, yeah, absolutely. And they run on diesel fuel, so you can't just leave them sitting and waiting.

No, you've got to rotate them, yeah.

And he said they're not cranking them up at four in the afternoon, they're usually cranking them up at like two in the morning.

Well, yeah, again, and we need to deal with that.

Where it's located.

Where it's located, yeah. And we can restrict time of operation for things like that unless it's an emergency condition. I would suggest we take a look at that as well. Because, I mean, we've got a small town here, a small compact town. And so a diesel generator makes noise. Now, the computers inside the data center don't, but the generators do. And so I think we need to be very strict on that aspect of the noise.

And on the power source, I get what you're saying about you have your doubts about whether North Carolina has the capacity from a power standpoint to support this. Like you said, Duke would kind of control the conversation there, but... I mean, if what you're doing in West Virginia and that type of technology with having your own self-contained energy source, I mean, don't you take some of that influence away from the Duke Energy?

Oh, absolutely.

So is that... I mean, you're saying on the one hand that you don't know that North Carolina's current capacity could support that, but if we were doing a model like what you're doing in West Virginia, that kind of becomes a moot point, is it not?

Well, it does. The problem is it has to go through the legislature to become that moot point. See, what worked out for us up there is the two big power companies up there are not West Virginia entities. They're in Ohio. They're First Energy and AEP. First Energy is in Cleveland and AEP is up in Columbus. So there's no love lost between... That's a big difference. That's a big difference. See, Duke runs this state.

Is it because if the data center was to generate their own power, do they then get into the bucket of a necessary utility that the state has to regulate?

Well, that's a good question. If you're generating your own power, no. Every large industrial site in the United States and the world has its own power generation anyhow. But they can't sell power unless they get an interconnection agreement with Duke to sell onto the grid. But they can't – that would be something that they would use for their own – it's just they can only generate it for themselves.

So in theory, they wouldn't necessarily need state legislation to generate their own power. It's only if they were to then in turn try to sell that. You're right. In your experience, because it sounds like it may vary, in the instances where, let's say, the data centers leverage the local energy companies, I think everyone's biggest concerns is they're going to start seeing their energy bills going up because it has to be subsidized somehow, right? What's generally the relationship between between a data center and an energy company. Does the data center pay for that energy company to build their own infrastructure?

Yeah, I mean, you have to pay to get your own service. Now, what's on the table right now with FERC is how much you pay for how much you impact the system. And that would be beyond where you get service, point of service. That would be system-wide. I mean, we're looking at paying a good bit of money to do an impact study because eventually we will actually support the grid. We're a little bit different in that situation, but we'll have to – Probably pay to do some of that. Here, you're going to have to pay to – you'll get a really good energy rate from Duke because you're going to be on 24-7. You're going to have a high load factor. But there's going to be impacts. There's going to be capital impacts from that. They'll have to pay – I mean, even a data center that comes in, an edge data center that comes in, let's say it's a 10-megawatt site, they may have to pay for like a transformer upgrade, a line upgrade, or something like that. Now, that won't affect us in a direct fashion because Duke is regulated on a statewide basis. So what we have here, what we're served by is what's Duke called Legacy Duke, Duke Energy Carolinas, and it's separate from Duke Energy Progress. It's the old Duke system. Let me tell you what, get to the bottom line. They can't raise the rates in Belmont because we put a data center in Belmont. That cannot occur. That would have to be a system-wide. See, they're going through a rate increase right now.

But they have to provide backup details to the legislature for the legislature to approve a rate increase. Well, the Utilities Commission, yeah. The Utilities Commission, I don't know 100% how it all works. But in that instance, if you were to bring a data center in, they would then in theory have the backup to say, I've got a strain on the assets, right?

You could do that, but there's also the argument that says it's going to drop the rates because you're going to sell more energy. Yeah, because you're selling more energy.

Has that occurred before?

Well, we're so new into it, we don't know, Charlie. I would just say my experience is, yes, that will occur, but it's going to be a little while.

Because in my thought, If it is a high water user, you would potentially have that for water, wastewater utility bills from the city, right? That's right. If they're bringing in millions of gallons or whatever it is, I don't know what the stats are. Right, right. You absorb the cost to the rest of us and can lower that. Right, right. And make them have the brunt of it.

That's right. You would do that. You would do that.

With regard to water usage, are the hypercenters the one primarily of the three types that you mentioned, the ones that use the closed loop system, the others use?

Yeah. The other ones just use nominal HVAC and maybe a little bit of water on some of them.

So that's where you're going to get your biggest strain, even though it's larger capacity on the closed loops.

Yeah.

That's a good point. So like your edge data centers wouldn't draw much water?

Not significantly. Okay.

So where does all the – is that some of that misinformation out there about water usage too?

Well, there's a lot of – yeah, that's out there. That's out there. I mean, just like where we are, it's one of the – it's actually one of the coldest places on the continental U.S., believe it or not. I mean, it gets down to like minus 28 there.

You're talking about West Virginia. Yeah.

Northeastern, we're about a kilometer high.

All right, yeah.

So, yeah.

Well, because you said where we are, and we're... Yeah, where we are. No, right now, where we are.

Obviously, today, we're not one of the coldest places in America.

So, with the hypercenters, then, I mean, I don't know what the upfront usage is to get it into the loop, but is there a major concern around water usage with the hypercenters?

With the hypercenters... It's not so much about use. Ongoing water use. Well, because all they do is do makeup water. It's a closed loop. Okay. Once you get the water in there, you're going to lose some from evaporation. Right. So you're going to get, once you get, say, 20 million gallons, you're going to need about 2 million gallons every now and again to get your. What's every now and again? It could be a monthly thing or something like that. Okay.

How does that compare with, like, a typical, I mean, if you know, like a typical industrial use? Because, like, we've had heavy water users here in the past.

Well, it would be very similar to that, except, you know, these industrial guys aren't doing closed-loop systems. They're using water, and then it goes out, it gets steam, or it gets used for another thing. It goes into the stormwater system or something of that nature. So it's a little bit different than that. And a lot of them are going to air-cooled. There's a lot of air-cooled technology out there, so...

Ted, with the edge size, that mid-range, have you seen them integrate into communities and do so in a way that is not obtrusive?

I'm actually working with some people who are starting to do that right now.

So are we kind of waiting for that technology to catch up before it really can?

Yeah, before we can really make definitive statements about it, we are. Well, I have seen crypto, which is similar, do that. It's just that they make a bunch of noise. Yeah. And they move around pretty quickly. These guys won't do that.

Do you know if there's any of these edge centers like around here locally-ish?

Actually, there are some. A lot of the banks have had them for years. They weren't called edge data centers, but they kept their data kind of on site and had their own sort of data systems. A lot of the banks have had that. Some hospitals have had it. Healthcare facilities have had it. So you've got that around. So they're already kind of there.

So with that kind, we could drive through town, pass one, and not even know we're passing it. True. Okay. But not with the large ones, obviously. Yeah, the large ones. Maiment size, still noise, and all the things that come along with that. Right, right.

And I guess one thing I better say is we're also going to need security, but you may have to hire some extra security or something like that. That could impact that. These things can be targets for people that don't like us.

There's a lot of them.

Yeah, there's a lot of them. Well, I just talked to my cousin that's a Beltway bandit, and he fought terrorists over in Afghanistan and Iran. He was a career Air Force in intel, and he was on the ground a lot. And he lives in Loudoun County, and he's going to come over and see our site in West Virginia soon. But he says he drives in and goes through what's called data center alley.

They've got a ton of them in northern Virginia. Exactly.

And he says you can just see how soft these targets are and how you can hit them.

And that's why I think Virginia is the state that has by far the most bills and proposed bills to address issues in data centers.

They do. And just to give you an overview of the data center industry, the data industry, it's He knows what's about data. Y'all know what I'm talking about when I say data center alley? You do need to know something about that. That's around Dulles Airport. And there's about 1,000 acres there that you've had data centers all just crammed in because the... The undersea cables are not far away, and there's one site there. The data center is called DC Equinox One. There are about 1,000 networks that come together there, and that's just about as close to the physical heart of the Internet worldwide as you'll ever get. About 70% of all the data in the world at any one point in time comes through that place. I mean, it's a massive economic and security thing for us. Is this top secret information? Yeah, we already know that. That's well known. Yeah, that's well known. And part of the reason you're seeing this stuff get dispersed is there's what's called, I learned this term blast zone a few years ago when I was doing some fiber stuff up there. And everybody wanted to get out of the blast zone, out of a two-hour radius from D.C. Because if you had a 9-11 with a nuclear weapon, you could really do some damage.

Ted, I got a quick one for you, too. So I guess, you know, we try to weigh and talk through, I think, at our retreat of, like, what's the benefit? I know one was, like, You look at it from an absorption like we talked about from water, but it sounds like that's really only common in your very large type of facilities. Again, questionable if a Belmont area could even accommodate that. But I guess what is generally the cost of the equipment, the capital investment going into here?

Well, I mean, I'm going to say it depends on the size. I think what you're looking at for like a 10-megawatt site is probably – $50 to $100 million worth of stuff in there. I mean, it's high-end stuff.

And that's your kind of edge data center.

Edge-type data centers, yeah.

How often do you have to replace that?

They usually are going to do replacements about every three. They'll constantly replace. But you'll probably turn the whole thing over within three to five years. Wow.

So if you built a brand-new one, brand-new equipment, you could anticipate turnover in three years of that equipment. Three to five years.

Part of that. Part of that, yeah. Yeah, you could. You could.

Hmm.

Tell us a little bit about the staffing of these places. How many people are they hiring? What's the traffic impact?

Actually, the big AI data centers hire a lot more people than just the nominal data centers do. A big one, like a 100-megawatt one, is probably going to hire 100 people or maybe 200 people. They're not a little. For an edge situation, somebody might hire one or two just to keep tabs on it. Make sure stuff's running. There's not a lot of employment there. Your benefit there is tax base, industrial tax base.

What type of employment is it like? I don't even know what you would call them, like engineers?

Yeah, you could hire somebody with an engineering degree, more of a tech type. System operators.

So when you hear a lot of the reports about like the rolling blackouts through Texas and Arizona, a lot of people want to tie that back to the data centers. And I think a lot of them kind of proliferated before these internal self-contained energy sources were even a thing.

Right, right.

Is that just because they're tapping into the state grid?

Yeah, they're all grid dependent.

Yeah.

And Texas has taken a position that they're going to basically be able to cut you offline if you're a data provider. And I think all of them are going to do that. I think the president has mentioned that. And the move for the hyperscaler is to move towards self-generation, which I think is going to push most of that to places like we're working in, in very rural states. West Virginia, obviously, very, very rural. I'm actually a native of that state, so that's probably where I get a little of my twang from. It's almost heaven. There you go. Key word is almost.

Yeah, almost. On the self-generation topic, what is the preferred method for them to generate energy? Is it a combination of a lot of various things, or is there one that is more ideal?

I think the ideal, and this is me talking, and I think experience is saying this, that natural gas is the best. So natural gas is the best. Yeah, natural gas is the best. And we do not have the pipeline capability to build a big one. See, one of the big problems at the old Allen plant, the reason they're putting a battery storage thing down there is there's no big gas line to convert that to natural gas. That's a problem. If they were going to build one, they had to build it under Lake Norman. That's a cool several billion right there.

Is that because the connection is more in that area?

Well, there's no gas around here that comes down that peninsula. And you need a lot of gas to run something. If you put like a two gigawatt site down there, which frankly Duke needs to do in my opinion, and maybe they're thinking they're going to do that, and that's why they're doing a couple of these big data centers here, it's going to take a little while to do. I mean, we really only have that one transco line that goes down through here. That's the main gas artery in North Carolina. And we've got some interconnections at other places that can kind of boost that a little bit. But really, transcos, we're tied to that literally.

What would Duke's incentive be for wanting to promote these data centers to buy power from them?

What's that?

What would Duke's incentive for wanting, you mentioned that Duke may have an interest in supporting these data centers. Is that as a potential power source for them, capacity?

Yeah.

So why would they do that versus build their own? Yeah.

Well, Duke has, like I said, Duke has control of this situation politically in North Carolina. They're not going to be real happy with – when we were up in West Virginia, we were the guys that basically wrote the bill and got it through the legislature in 2024 and early 2025. And that gave us the opportunity to generate and set out the rules for what's called a microgrid. It's really a microgrid. It's as big as it's going to be.

What did you say that was?

A microgrid. basically a self-contained grid that we can do pretty much whatever we want to do up there. We set our own rates. We're under the Utilities Commission. There are a few stipulations. One stipulation is we only can sell 10% of the power we generate off-system. And we may set something up to do that because we're in an ideal position. We've got 6,500 KV lines that come together right there, a big power plant.

It's an all-abandoned mining land.

It's in the middle of nowhere. It's in Tucker Grant County, West Virginia. The combined population of those counties is not 12,000. So that's where I think these things are going to wind up going. I think for rural America, it's a real economic boom too. But I don't think anywhere in Gaston County you could really, really put a complex like that. Now, you might be able to tap a big transmission line somewhere up around Dallas or on the other side of Gastonia to do that. Kings Mountain has several. One of the things that Kings Mountain did was that NT, they're not in the... Electricities Group, and they've got their own utility system. That NTE plant over there, they're part of that. They own a part of that. And so they were able to swing a pretty sweet power deal for those guys to go in there and do that.

There's a lot of sweet deals happening up in Kings Mountain.

There are that, yeah. That's probably all the rage right now you hear being talked about. I wouldn't put any stock in it. Because those guys need 60% enriched fuel to operate. That's bomb-grade stuff. What they put in Catawba is about 5% enriched. So you'd have to have... a battalion of Marines around each one of these things if you have an SMR. Now, they're talking about getting some other technology, and maybe that'll happen, but we're years from that. And the last time that somebody tried a nuclear plant, the cost estimate for Vogel 3 and 4 was $12 billion in five years. It's operational now at $35 billion in 15 years. Wow. And when I was in school at NC State, I was a co-op student with North Carolina EMC, and I saw the cost of nuclear just skyrocket. I mean, I'm still skeptical that we can do this. I love the technology, and I hope it can work. But I'm just – somebody starts peddling a nuclear plant around here.

Well, supposedly we're getting ready to bring back a lot of enriched uranium from Iran.

Yeah, well, there you go. But it's enriched. I was going to say, there's going to be somebody wanting it that doesn't like us.

Yeah.

So – There's a lot going on in the data world. It really is. If you really look at energy and data and how they come together, energy and water kind of travel together because the way we have produced energy to date in the United States is we essentially boil water. A coal plant just creates a big heat source to boil water. That's what a nuclear plant does. A gas turbine is basically a jet engine that turns a mover, so it's a little different. But like we're doing up at our site, we put what's called a heat recovery steam generator on it, and that is another. We take the heat that blows out the back of that turbine, And we heat water, and it's another cycle. There's another steam generator down there. So our efficiency goes from 30% to 65%. About 35% to 65%. That's what makes natural gas such a great thing. It just doesn't pollute very much either.

So I'm assuming you're right near a large body of water up there, too.

Yeah, we've got several big bodies of water. I mean, the whole place, we've got a mine next door that shoots out 20 million gallons a day. And then there's other water up there. There's a lake about half a mile from the site. This guy fills it up to 30 million gallons a day if he needs it. It's just a boon for water.

The only other big one I have Out of curiosity, other than the power it's pulling, what are generally the big environmental concerns with these facilities?

Well, I think they're pretty clean. They're really clean. They don't have smokestack issues. They really don't have contamination issues or anything like that. I suppose, and we talked about it on the ESB, we could come up with some sort of a decommissioning requirement. I'm sort of, yeah, I know on that. I just don't know that we need it, but we might want it.

So it's a lot of the concern that comes from the nuisance of the noise.

Nuisance of the noise is really, well, people are worried about the power, and there's a claim that you raise the temperature. You have a local heat island that you create. A lot of that A lot of that is really, you have a big one, you have big parking spaces, because these heat islands are really about, you had trees here 100 years ago, and now you've got a parking lot. So what does that do to the, like out there, what was that like 100 years ago when that was trees? That's what a heat island really is. It's not like these things make so much heat internally that they raise the temperature around. That's what the cooling's all about. So in that way, there's some misinformation that these things raise temperature. They don't. And about the only thing they kick off that would be, you'd see coming up out of there is some steam every now and then that comes out of the chillers or something like that. And that's where you use your makeup water to rejigger that.

Well, they must hit the bigger ones, right?

That'd be bigger ones, yeah. You wouldn't see that with a...

Is there any way to, like, I know you mentioned the crypto centers. Like, if somebody wanted to come in and, like, build a data center that was either, like, an edge or a crypto, like, is there any way to, like, tell the difference?

Well, yeah, they need to tell you what they're doing. And one way to tell the difference is what sort of a lease they sign. If they sign a three-year lease, that's a crypto site.

Mm-hmm.

They sign a 25-year lease, that's a real-for-real data AI type site.

What happens after they leave? Say it's a crypto, three years, they're gone.

They typically pick their stuff up and go. That's in their lease. Okay. But again, that's why I lean towards a decommissioning type thing. There's good reasons to have something in there.

That's a good idea, yeah. But from a zoning perspective, can you necessarily zone it based off of if they're doing it from crypto mining versus... Can we regulate the use like that?

Mm-hmm.

I mean, I would think so. Look into it. I guess like my headspace goes to is like if it's a data center, it needs to be regardless like conditional zoning because that's the only way you can do really any of this. But are we able to even do that with the state legislature's change of down zoning? Wouldn't that technically be a down zoning?

Well, not if it doesn't currently exist. Don't you argue it's an up zoning because you're allowing it?

Well, that's an interesting question. So I think my understanding is that everything has to be allowed somewhere. Like you can't just... totally say you can't have this anywhere in the city and a lot of it ends up in a highway commercial but I would to me if data center is not specifically addressed in the code that means it's addressed as whatever you know is it an industrial use is it whatever general category would fit in it's considered that and would be allowed where those things are because you can't Basically say it can't be allowed anywhere.

Is that right?

So You know it would be more We define it, you know, we've done that before with certain other types of uses where we've said these types of uses aren't defined in the code and we think it's best to define them because otherwise they're allowed here here and here and But if we define them in the definitions, then we can make it clear that they're only allowed in X and Y zones.

Like in a text amendment?

Yeah, in a text amendment.

Can we define it without triggering the downzoning issue?

The problem is to what I think Jim is saying, which makes sense, is like it probably needs to be defined as like, I don't know if it's like, what do you call that, heavy or light manufacturing?

Yeah, I mean, that's the sort of thing maybe we could be, if we were thoughtful in our definition, we could define it in such a way. It sounds like the edge is sort of that balance that we want to strike, and we could define it in such a way that that, sounds a lot like an edge center, and that's where we want them to go, and then the rest. But I don't think we can completely exclude them, can we?

Because what we couldn't do is just say data centers is its own, and correct me if I'm wrong, its own category outside of light manufacturing, heavy manufacturing, and it's always conditional, right? Does it have to fall in one of our buckets as it exists today?

I don't necessarily think so, but it would still come within

The parameters of the general code.

But by defining it specifically, then you can resolve any ambiguity that, all right, it is a defined term. So when we say data center, that means it goes here and that means it goes here. And the fact that the other five zones don't refer to data centers means that they don't go there because we defined it and we put it in the categories or in the zones where we want it. And so by inference, if they're not referred to, then that means they don't go in those zones. The problem is when you don't define it, it's considered just that general type of use. And so that's where, all right, well, these zones don't specifically say anything about it, so they're allowed anywhere that you have an industrial use or something like that. So it's a lot more about code and statutory interpretation if you want to define it, but I don't think it would necessarily be its own category. It would be more like this is a specific type of light industrial use or a specific type of heavy industrial use, and therefore when we use this term and we've defined it, we mean this specific thing, and when we say that, that's what we mean, and if we don't say that, then it's not allowed there. Is that right, Park? Did I misstate anything?

I don't know.

All right. If we get specific with it like that.

A lot of jurisdictions are currently studying this because they don't know. But, like, you know, we did sort of...

I don't know what Jim said.

He said it's governed by this, but he don't say it's governed by that. But this is statewide in a lot of jurisdictions that are currently pausing and studying it.

But you can do it.

I think you can define a hyperscaler from anybody else by how big they're going to be. I think if you say they're going to consume more than 50 megawatts of power, that's a hyperscaler. I think with the edge and the crypto, you've got two different functions of what's going on in there.

I just don't think we can regulate what the function is inside of it. Because regardless, the whole... it's a data center, right? Yeah, basically it is.

I mean, it's sort of the same thing, like you can't regulate, well, somebody wants to build a multi-unit building, we can't regulate whether they rent the units or sell the units to ownership, because we went through that. Unless it's conditional.

Was that because it's residential?

Well, yeah, it's residential. I'm not sure whether, but it's still use, right? Like, yeah, I understand what Alex is saying.

I don't know. I mean, I'm not debating it. If we can, let's do it. I just don't want to get ourselves in a lawsuit.

Yeah, I think it's something we need to look at proactively. And that's just to clarify, we don't have a data center knocking on our door right now asking these questions. But I do think that it makes sense. That's right. That's what I'm saying. That's right.

We can be prepared for it.

Absolutely. And that's what we're doing this evening.

Yeah.

Ted, thank you. You're not going anywhere yet. Hold on. Thank you for coming and explaining. But they will. That's right. And they are. And we know that. We see that. I think that's why it behooves us to sit down and see what the landscape looks like and then to find out what we need to do to prepare to have these questions.

With a large one, they'd need access to water, right? And we could potentially go at it from that angle. That's what I was about to say. Permitting on the water connection. Yeah.

Yeah, the letter to serve, if we had water, sewer capacity.

I mean, that doesn't really help with the edge and the crypto, but...

It sounds like it doesn't, at least with the edge, it might not need to help all that much, because they don't require a lot of water.

Yeah. That's why I was curious to square footage, because if you think about how we wrote the manufacturer industrial piece, it's square footage, right? Really kind of dependent on that. But if you could fit one in five acres, I mean... In the grand scheme of things, that's not a lot.

You couldn't base it all on their capacity because that's a big metric differentiator between the three different types.

Like how much they're using.

Well, we did that, didn't we, with the solar panels to some extent? We did. Which was another example that wasn't in the code. That we added. Yeah.

So what's the next step, I guess, for this?

Let me ask a question to Ted. So it sounds like the edge and the crypto versions are kind of the low-hanging fruit, at least from an economic development perspective. This is pure speculation, but if we had a developer that said they wanted to come here and they've already identified a parcel that they wanted to put a hypercenter, they were going to have their own self-contained power generation source. What would be your points of caution or other considerations? If we were approached by someone like that, it's not going to be a fly-by-night or someone who's new to the game.

The two things I would look at out front is, number one, their air permit. Their air permit. That's a state function right there. Now, there's really two types of air permeant. There's a synthetic minor, and then there's a Title V major air permeant. And most of these guys, if a hyperscaler like that came in there, we were able to do a synthetic minor with what we were doing because of the technology we were using. If they brought in a big set of diesels, they probably had to get a major air permeant. And see, that probably would be what they would have to do because there's no natural gas around here right now. Otherwise, they would be – so I'd look at their air – I'd look at two things, their fuel content and their air permit. See, I guess one thing I guess we better talk about a little bit is support for first responders if those things have a fire or something. If they have a diesel, that could be on the – and they're going to have storage tanks too. So you're going to have to ask for them. This is a national for their spill prevention countermeasure control plan.

On that same vein – Understanding the diesel piece with fossil fuel and stuff is a burning, but do you see a lot of the electrical fires, which are a completely different animal to fight within itself?

I haven't seen that any more than you would see in a nominal utility. I just have not seen that.

That's a different type of fire retardant. Completely different. Oh, yes. Wake Forest is obsessed with fire extinguishers, so I've had to take several trainings about the different types of fires and how you extinguish them. Right.

How often are they having to cycle those diesel generators? you typically really need to cycle a diesel generator about once a week. Yeah.

And say, with Jason's example, they got 50 or 60. Are they doing all 50 or 60 at one time, or are they doing 10 here on a Tuesday and 10 here on a Wednesday?

I don't know what they are doing. That's their operations people that would say that. The people that I know typically do them all at one time and just kind of get it done. But it just kind of depends. And I think having some sort of a runtime requirement on that per your noise is something that you need to consider.

Riddle me this. From what I understood you to say earlier, is it your opinion that even if somebody were otherwise inclined to want to come locate a hypercenter in Belmont, that from a practical logistical perspective, they'd be hard-pressed to do so?

Yes.

Okay.

Doesn't say somebody won't try to tomorrow, but that's what I'm going to say.

Not impossible.

And look, like I say, the most probable location is down there in Allen and along that canal there that Duke owns that property there. There's big transmission lines there. There's about 3,000 acres on the other side of the fence there that's wide open. If you're going to get one, that's where it's going to be.

Throw them big bucks around. They're not scared to do that.

That's exactly right. And you know, a natural gas pipeline might show up down there.

No, it's county.

Well, this was a lot. Well, I think the next steps would be to follow up and find out that you made a good point as far as finding out what we can do, what we can regulate, how we can be proactive because we see these things come up a lot. At least the discussions have been coming up a lot. So knowing what we can do to regulate it.

reaching out to the league do you think that would help there might be somebody there that's gone through this that has well i mean let's maybe we don't need to necessarily restrict ourselves i understand that north carolina has its own set of laws but you know this is cutting edge you know sort of uh very nascent subject i mean i i find it hard to believe that there aren't anything out there like think pieces or CLE type. You know what I'm talking about.

Charlotte's got a lot of them. Some are kind of large. See what they've got. I think the person I talked to over there on their council is that Wallington girl. She's pretty sharp.

But I mean, somebody has to have sort of thought, you know, some sort of program where you go to get continuing education. How does this look? And maybe not even in North Carolina, but, you know, somebody's done something and we can adapt that to North Carolina if we needed to.

Or they may just be approving first and asking questions later.

Well, yeah.

Well, I mean, I think this would be the thing to do it on because there's not much guidance.

Yeah.

So is this something we kick to the TNZ board to have or had? What's the next?

Miles, what do you think? I think my recommendation is that the planning department takes the first stab at it to see if there's any information with the league or school of government or other municipalities that are dealing with this to see what kind of ordinances they've put in place or regulations for zoning. So I made a few notes that we could be proactive in the research and then see if we can develop something and bring it back to you all for consideration.

Can we look at the noise ordinance aspect too? I think that's probably a good idea.

I did. I wrote noise ordinance plus I think Ted mentioned infrastructure updates for water and sewer, you know, the kind of ordinances related to that.

The only thing I'd be curious about a noise ordinance is how do you measure that? Well, decibels.

Yeah, you can measure it.

Miles, Charlie mentioned, too, the decontamination. Decommissioning. Sorry, decommissioning process. That's a good one. But yeah, there was a way that we could do it conditional and have some sort of conditional framework.

I think the preference would be if you could just force this conditional, right? And then we could outline what the conditions are.

Can you say something like if you need to have diesel generators on your site that triggers?

I mean, I don't see why we couldn't do that because we have certain other uses as perhaps some of us are familiar that are only allowed by special use permit or...

Well, I would be very cognizant. The special use permit.

I went back way off. I'm not saying that we, but that's in a similar vein. I don't see why we couldn't say that. I mean, we've said that with multifamily, that it's only by right in certain zones, it's conditional in every other zone. So I don't see why we couldn't just say, well, this is, you know, data center is x and it's conditional but that's the key don't you have to have some component of buy right i don't necessarily think so it's all you can't my understanding is you can't just blanket it can't be allowed anywhere now you can put a lot of strings and bells and whistles on where it can go but as long as you're not completely outlawing it i don't see why you couldn't say it's conditional everywhere. Because like I said, there's certain uses that are only allowed by a special use permit. They're not allowed by right anywhere, as I understand it. We'll wait.

I'm happy to follow some recommendations. But I think as an overall guidance, if it could just be conditional, not special use permit, that would be the preference. I know you're making an example, but it's a good point to bring up because I don't think any of us want that.

Yeah, I agree with that.

And I think that's just entrapping whatever future council has to deal with that. Oh, I agree.

But I'm saying if you can do that by special use permit, I don't see how you couldn't do the same thing and say only by conditional. Fair. I just want to make sure we're in the right place.

Miles, we will look forward to see what comes from that. Ted, thank you so much.

And I know the plane department will be excited to add something.

Any other questions or anything? Anything else for Ted before we release him back into the world?

Thank you, Ted.

We appreciate your time. Thank you. One of our interested viewers sent me a email just now about the town of Stanford, North Carolina. Apparently, it has a whole section in their LDC on data centers. It's on decommissioning, noise ordinance, and all of that. So that's something we may want to tap into. Maybe reference, yeah.

Yeah. All right. I'm glad someone's watching. All right.

Well, I just want to make sure I got that.

So the differentiators that we are going to kind of go by is size, electrical use, noise, and water consumption. Does that sound about right?

I think what Ted was saying is that's the way they can easily be categorized. That's how they put them in the categories, right?

Okay.

All right. Well, a lot to think about there. We will keep moving on. And so that'll bring us to other business. We do have a closed session that we'll get to after other business, but that is next. So I will start with Alex.

Awesome. Well, first of all, we were not able to make it because, as you can imagine, with a two-year-old, it's hard to. But I did hear the July 3rd, the fireworks show was awesome. I heard nothing but great things. I had people texting me right after saying that everyone just did exceptional. The music was good. The show was good. So I want to thank everyone involved with that, staff, volunteers. I think that's a really exciting thing, especially from last year, right, which wasn't our fault. Sure. So I think that was great. Just two things, I guess, for me. As far as it pertains to the waste management and all of that stuff, maybe it might be helpful just a live quick recap from Miles, just for our viewers who are wanting to hear about data centers and stuff. Is there anything that's still outstanding, or is it pretty much all kind of buttoned up probably with some level of...

follow-up yes the uh the majority of the cans have been delivered i think they're still delivering as of today some of the walls that were that were kind of missed. And so I saw several of our trucks loaded up with cans, making those deliveries. So we have that form on our website that you can go to, and there's various boxes you can check whether you don't have a can or whether you still have a WastePro can. And so our staff did an excellent job since June 22nd with the change out. I know it was, y'all saw in the weekly update that One person had 1,100 some odd calls. The other person had 900, almost 900 calls.

One was 45 minutes long.

Yeah, so they really did a good job on the transition. That was a big project. There are some waste pro cans that are still out. I saw some. Yeah, I've seen a lot. And we talked today about... you know, the potential of if they don't get collected, somebody's got to collect them, so it's more than likely going to be our staff grabbing those and probably bringing them back to a location. Throw them in the dumpster right now. Yeah, put them in the dumpster. We're probably going to collect them and ask WastePro to come pick them up. We'll first ask WastePro to collect the ones that we know of that are out. If they don't collect them, then we'll collect them ourselves and then store them for WastePro to collect. Waste Pro started their collection routes on July 1st. They have, I think, three brand.

Waste Connections, you mean? What's that? Waste Connections.

Yeah, I want to say Waste Pro. I'll be saying Waste Pro and Waste Connections interchangeably for the next year. Yeah, so they started their collection on July 1st. Of course, they're getting used to their routes. And so, like I mentioned to everybody, when we approved the contract, that have some patience. It's a big process. There will be some hiccups. So there probably still wanna be some hiccups over the next month or so until WastePro gets their routes down. That means that they may miss some cans, but we wanna give them a good chance to get out and get their routes going. I hadn't really heard of too many folks getting missed. I know folks online may say otherwise, but to my knowledge, I don't think that that has occurred yet. And so just overall, I think we did a really good job on the transition. It was a large project to accomplish and WastePro and Waste Connections kind of did what they were supposed to have done over that period of time. So kudos to all of our staff for helping out with that process.

Cool. No, we appreciate everything y'all did. And then just finally apologize for being two, three minutes late at a late time. Work meeting in the office in Charlotte and traffic is nothing to joke about coming in from Charlotte. How dare you.

Thank you, Alex. Charlie. Piggyback off what Alex said about red, white and Belmont on July 3rd. It was fantastic. It was hot, but it was fantastic. Everybody that had a hand in that, thank you so much. I know a lot went into that and hats off to the Belmont Police Department and the Belmont Fire Department. the water and the fans and the misting fans you had out there. That was a lifesaver. So thank you guys for that. That's all I got. All right.

Yeah. So just to echo a lot of what was already said about the trash, I think our staff did a great job in handling that. It was obviously a little bumpy, but I think that that was probably to be expected. We actually did talk about how that was to be expected. So I was not surprised, but I think the one maybe a piece of feedback I'd have around that is perhaps more communication around what was likely to happen might have been helpful as far as preparing our residents for that transition. A lot of them were kind of asking me questions about stuff that we had already kind of put out. I'd seen it, so I know we were sharing the information. I think it's just one of those things where some people just need to be told multiple times before it kind of clicks i think a good example of this actually is with the police department and the reminders to hydrate all week it kind of got to the point where every time you quote facebook there was yet another funny little ad from them reminding you to not get dehydrated out in snow park so that would be kind of my only maybe feedback on that but otherwise I think we did a great job handling 2,000 calls in such a short time period like that is I'm not even sure how they did that but I know that a Jonathan Jake and their teams did an excellent job in responding to all the resident feedback that I sent them so kudos to them on that One other thing is at the TAC meeting, whenever that was, a week or two ago, it came up there's a potential scheduling conflict between our utility work around South Point Road and NCDOT's plan to repave South Point Road. So I just wanted to... elevate that. I know that staff was already kind of working on that, but I don't know that the rest of the council is necessarily aware of that. So to the extent that anything changes around what needs to happen with that, I think that that would be good to receive an update on as appropriate. I'll kind of defer to you on that, but, and if we need to get involved about any sort of decisions around that, I think it would be good to know that earlier rather than later. Basically, there is a, I guess I didn't really explain The conflict, basically, we've got the utility project for the moratorium project. Yeah, the moratorium project is supposed to occur roughly the same time that NCDT is planning to repave South Point Road. So you're talking about tearing up the road to put a pipe in the ground and then, or no, well, they would pave it and then we'd tear it up again and put the pipe in the ground. They obviously don't want to do that because that doesn't really make much sense. But there were some scheduling things around it that may make some decisions around it very difficult. So I know that Reagan and Public Works are all over that. But that was a big takeaway from, I think, the last TAC meeting on that. That is all I got.

Mark, thank you. Jason.

Yeah, as has been said previously, I do want to share my thanks as well to Public Works, and you guys are on the front lines taking rapid fire. Jonathan, Jake, Crystal, Jay, Jacob, all you guys, we really appreciate that. As has been stated, we knew there were going to be some hiccups.

It was quite an undertaking, but I think all things considered, I think it was a fairly smooth process.

I think on the communication front, I did hear that statement. Everybody can kind of imagine how that process went. I think ideally if we had it to do over again, we'd like to have a little more lead time to get those communications, especially for those who may not be on social media. But unfortunately, we didn't have that luxury. But I think all things considered, I thought it went fairly smoothly. I do want to commend Cassidy and her staff and Police, Fire, all the first responders and everybody that made the Red, White, and Belmont a huge success. Again, I thought the fireworks show was really great this year. And then lastly, I don't know how much you guys, I'm sure you can't really avoid this, there's really been kind of a, and I'm hearing a lot, I imagine you are, proliferation is the best way I can describe it, of these e-bikes and fast bikes, mini bikes, whatever you, I don't know how you distinguish between them anymore. But I'm seeing, I'm not just in neighborhoods anymore, but out on, I mean, I was coming home last night on Central Avenue by Snow Manor, headed south, and there's a kid in my rear view that I can see, and he's doing every bit of 25, 30 miles an hour down the sidewalk, light goes green, so I'm going through the intersection on Central there at Kaner, and the kid doesn't even look, just gets it right on through the intersection, and I'm like, somebody could have been turning left, somebody could have been coming down Kaner and taking a right on Central, and I just, I think it would be helpful, kind of like maybe what we did with the golf cart policy, if we could develop some sort of policy around I see the chief smiling at this. I think he's a fan too.

Actually, I think they're working on something as we speak.

It's over July 20th. That's even better. So it's coming up for the police department to make a presentation on our new ordinance that we have.

Yeah, because, I mean, even through our neighborhood, these kids are going around with no lights on them at dusk. You can't see them. And you can hear them, but they don't have lights on them.

It's not your neighborhood. It's like major city streets. They're doing this.

And I don't want us to have a serious injury or fatality or something happen and then have to address it. I was talking to a kid the other night, and I imagine one of his parents is watching. He has one of these fast bikes. I said, how fast does this thing go? He said, about 35. He said, but I'm getting ready to get a kit and make it go.

You evoked chief. There he is.

Just real quick, I couldn't help but comment. We are in the process of developing the ordinance. There's been a lot of work went into it. We're still... We're right at the end of getting everything put together to present to council, but the one thing I'd like to tell you is I've actually been riding around a little bit more, and I actually pulled two e-bikes over myself, and they have been picked up by their mother, and... We're back in York County now and we'll be coming back to Belmont. So we're too short. So we're still working on it. We're making progress. That's all I have. Thank you.

Chipping away at it. Personal touch.

That is a personal touch.

That's all, Jason. Thank you. Appreciate that. Jim.

I also want to thank our staff for all their work on the waste contract changeover, especially Crystal J Jacob and Jake for fielding all the calls and and addressing all the issues one thing I wanted to follow up on. think we we all got some some emails about a new traffic study that was done on 6th Street and what that might may or may not mean towards potential traffic calming measures on 6th Street and that information is with the police department to process and make a determination on any potential next step. So I was just wondering where that stood, because that was maybe about a month ago now.

Yeah, this was about a month ago, you're right. Yeah, so the email that you referred to was lengthy and it had a lot of information that we broke down piece by piece, or the police department broke down piece by piece. We've got the draft response prepared. I imagine that it'll go out tomorrow. to Adams Bluff HOA. And so, yes, it just took us a little while to go through our current policy and all the points that they made. And then as we look at our policy and the things that we've done as far as like speed studies and everything else. So it's lengthy, but it's coming out. And my goal is to have it out by the end of the week. But today it was pretty much drafted back and forth with Chief and I. So it's ready.

Okay, good. And then I think I brought this up to you previously. I just had someone reach out about a stormwater issue on Lincoln Street, sort of near the auto zone and potential clogging there. And so I just want to make sure that that's being addressed or looked at.

Yes, I sent it to our stormwater coordinator when you sent it to me last week. So they said they were going to go out and take a look at it. I don't have an update, but I can find one and get it back to you all.

Thank you. That's all I have.

Perfect. Thank you, Jim.

All right, well, I will sound like a parrot up here, but thank you to everyone involved with Red, White, and Belmont. So I remember my time on Main Street, everything that goes into those types of events. There's a lot of volunteer time. It's a lot of people. It's a lot of effort. So thank you for everyone that was involved in that. Please fire. Main Street Board, DBDA, everyone, all the volunteers that came out. In the sweltering heat to do that, we appreciate you. Some of the fun things that happened in downtown are because of all of you. Again, same thing with the trash. So we knew it was going to be a painful transition over. Change is never easy. I remember when I heard the first time it was going to be 16,000 cans, my head kind of started spinning a little bit, what it takes to be able to change those out in an effective way. And when I would talk to people about it, I understood the frustration, but I appreciated their understanding. At the end of the day, Belmont did a great job of understanding the transition and kind of getting it. I know it was not a lot of fun to go through, but hopefully we're on the other side of it now, and we're gonna start reaping some of the benefits of that change that we have. So thank you to everyone here in staff, and everyone's already said it, but especially for those that were answering those calls every day, it's a lot of people to talk to about the same issue over and over. And remaining calm and professional, that's what I appreciate most about all of it. Just one thing that kind of peaked in my mind again as Mark was talking, we were talking about communication, and that really did seem to be the crux of a lot of it. It's not that the information was out there, it was that for some reason it was missed or wasn't understood or wasn't digested to the point where people were able to plan for the change. So I think we talked about putting it on a future agenda, but looking at that app scenario or whatever it may be so there's more direct communication easier for the city to post it in one place and be seen uh something i definitely want to look into into the future we talked about a little bit at our uh our council retreat so something i would be interested um at going back and kind of rehashing a little bit at some future time But that's it for me. So at this point, we're going to go into closed session. So I will entertain a motion to go into closed session pursuant to NCGENSTAT 143-318.11 subsection four to discuss matters related to the location or expansion of industries or other businesses in the area served by the public body.

Do we need to include anyone else besides council?

Is it just council, parks, and Laura? All right, I'll make that motion. Motion made by Jim. Second. Second by Jason. All in favor? Aye. All right, we are in closed session, and we will take a short recess to let the gallery close.