Board of Commissioners (boc) - Regular Meeting

and then the um NAACP Jubilee celebration on January 4th and of course looking forward to the Lewis Freeman groundbreaking coming up as well. Um we'll go around um I have nothing to report at this time. Thank you, Commissioner Bonik. Uh, I too have nothing to report at this time. Thank you, Commissioner Ferrell. Nothing at this time. Thank you. All right, Commissioner F. Going to keep with the trend. Okay. And Commissioner Th. And I will, too. Okay. Get out quickly. There we go. And don't say that.

Um, all right. Up next is public comment. We have three people signed up this evening. So, when you come up, please state your name and address at the start of your comments. There's a time limit of three minutes, which will be displayed on the screen. In the interest of time and fairness, it's the board's policy not to respond directly to comments during this period. Staff will follow up as appropriate. Any speaker with handouts shall be given to the town clerk and will be distributed to the board at the conclusion of the meeting. So, up first is Connie McAdams, followed by Arlo Steel. name is Connie McAdams and I live at 597 Austin Chapel Road. Last week I attended the mandatory community meeting about the newest development proposal for parcel number 60804 on Austin Chapel Road. There were 35 to 40 vocal and concerned citizens in attendance. The property is completely is a completely forested track of 62 acres surrounded by about 4,000 ft of Robinson Creek. It is zoned RA and I understand that that means the owner can by right build one house per acre as long as they comply with current ordinances. However, this proper it property is also identified in the future land use plan as a natural resources conservation target area which requires conservation subdivisions. According to that plan, the primary goal of the conservation target area is to protect natural resources with best

practices in land use planning. green infrastructure, low impact development, and conservation development design. The new development proposal seems to mostly ignore the parts about protecting natural resources, best practices, green infrastructure, and low impact development. They are calling their plan a conservation design. in it. They intend to leave only 32% of the property untouched and clearcut the rest, building 62 homes on quarter acre lots, the same number of homes that would be allowed without the conservation design. Although the lots are bigger with fewer houses, the actual footprint of this proposal is almost identical to the plan that was unanimously rejected by the planning board in 2024. We are not impressed. The property is highly valued by the community as a natural resource and a cultural resource. Points of concern at the meeting included clear cutting, storm water, downstream flooding, traffic, a sewer line across the creek, affordable housing, public access to the creek and historic cemetery, and environmental impacts. Three minutes is not nearly enough to address all of this. It will probably be several months before this project officially comes to your attention. I know you're all busy with lots of issues to understand and consider, but I want you to be prepared for this one when the time comes. I have a lot more information that I'm happy to share, and I would also like to invite you to come out to Austin Chapel Road and take a

look at this property for yourself. I'll be happy to show you around. Thank you for your time and for your service to the town of Pittsburgh. Thank you. Up next is Arlo followed by Kristen Vieira.

Hello, my name is Arlo Estol and I'm at 220 Lorax Lane and I'm speaking tonight on behalf of my parents Litol and Tammy Schwaren as well as the tree museum at the plant. Um, here's a letter. I would like to ask the town of Pittsburgh to conduct more deliberation before deciding on a design for what will be the largest park in town. While it is true that the steering committee met once and had a Zoom call, I do not believe there's been adequate thought given to canopy protection of the existing trees. Today, the 72 acre site, which has been clearcut, is home to a massive amount of understory invasive plants, which are so thick that park planners are unable to see the trees that remain. If you were to eradicate the invasives and pick up the garbage, the proposed park would resemble the grounds of the plant, which is on the other side of the fence. I would like the town to build nothing on the site until the invasives have been removed, such that they can see what they are working with. Today, the town of Pittsburgh is experiencing rapid canopy loss, and I believe it is imperative that any park design should take into account existing specimen trees. The tree museum would like to ask the town to not approve any built environment until the invasives have been removed. And this is a letter from my dad, but I am in agreement. And we pulled out all the ellagnus and the privet at the plant, and it really changes the landscape. And so I would invite you out to check out the um park lands at the plant that we have created. And it's very a stark contrast. You can see the parks we've built. And then on the other side it's um a very dense vegetative land. And so I think this would be a good solution. It's a lower cost than clearing everything and building immediately. Um, and kind of maintaining

the uh park, the new parkland as an ecological preserve, which I think would be really helpful in a town that is losing lots of its canopy. Thank you. Thank you. Up next, Kristen Vieira.

Good evening. My name is Kristen Vieira. I'm at 220 L. Uh, and I'm going to echo some of the sentiments here and just speak from the heart. Um, first I'll say I'm excited about this this nature park that's going in and I think this it's a great opportunity to demonstrate a really wellthoughtout, intentional and environmentally conscious nature park that gets the whole town really excited to walk it. And and part of doing that is well thoughtout planning. Uh, and part of that is getting boots on the ground and scoping out these gorgeous old growth native tree specimens that are out there. And not only are they crucial for our pollinator species, the birds and insects, uh, it also brings an even more exciting way to go on the nature park and look at these beautiful trees. And it is cost effective because if if you first go in there and clear out the invasives and scope out the lay of the land, you're able to design more with the with the land. And you'll even see that if you clear out a lot of these invasives such as aliagnus, also known as autumn olive. Um you'll find that it lends itself to big open spaces already. So you can do a mix of going through the these old growth trees and also have open fields. Um so it lends itself to being that's a cost benefit um there as well. So just to echo also um please in designing this beautiful park that you first go in boots on the ground get to know these gorgeous native trees that we have and I will leave it at that. So, thank you so much for your time.

Thank you. Thank you. All right. Up next, we have a presentation on the Hillsboro Street widening project by NC DOT. Morgan.

Amen. Good evening. Good evening. Presentation.

Did I just tell you when to change? There's a clicker.

Okay, we're moving up in the world.

Nice. Yeah. Thank you. Well, my name is Moren Dit. I'm with NC DOT. I'm the division 8 project team lead and today I'm going to be giving an update on um the R5724B project which is widening street. So I represent the project development unit here today for division 8. Uh we have a semi-local office. Um we oversee eight counties. um Chadam, Randolph, command, Chadam, McGomery, Lee, Mor Hope, Richmond and uh Scotland counties and our office is centrally located in the division in Moore County and Carthage. Okay, be patient. All right. So, um this is the B section as part of the overall project R5724. R5724A was completed back in 2021 and that was the roadway and street safe improvements that we had at the traffic circle and this is just a B section of that um which is scheduled for later construction for later this year. Public outreach was done for both phases of the project back in 2019. So from Lana Street up to Cow Place Lane and Lo Drive, we're widening um existing two lane um 11 foot lanes to three lane section which will be 12t lanes which includes a center turn lane. Also included in the improvements, we have curb and gutter and subsurface storm water drainage along the whole corridor. We're improving a five- foot sidewalk on the west side of the roadway and a 10- foot multi-use path of the east side of the roadway, which will thus be

providing pedestrian accommodations on both sides of Hillsboro Street from downtown up to Pow Place and Lowe's Drive. The intersection, roadway, and drainage improvements are also proposed on the side streets. After the project initiated, we've been working with the town for additional improvements in the downtown area, which includes new water and sewer and storm water infrastructure improvements, streetscapes, and ADA compliant pedestrian accommodations, and also intersection improvements at Hillsboro Street and Salisbury Street. So, it's kind of hard to see, but this is the public media map that we used when we did public outreach. Um there's a few things that have been updated since this map. Um just to touch on because this this just goes from Lonus around Lonus Drive at Chhattam Mills up to Pow Place Lane. We've also incorporated resurfacing restriping of Hillsboro Street in the downtown area from the traffic circle north um to the rest of the project which been added. Um, also additional sidewalk and downtown intersection and streetscape improvements have been added since this map was generated. And the additional five foot sidewalk has been added from Thompson Street north to complete that sidewalk connection on the east side. We also include a mid block pedestrian crossing south of Lonus and signalized pedestrian crossings at the intersection of how place we're undergoing signal modification designs now to accommodate those pedestrian crossings. And since this this map was generated, um the center turn lane has been decreased from a six. It's hard to see, but it says 16 foot there, but it's actually been reduced to a 12T center turn lane to minimize impacts to adjacent property owners. And along the corridor, storm water will be controlled by a subsurface drainage system to capture storm water runoff. We've done hydraulic studies of the

corridor and designed a subsurface drainage system that will control this. in accordance with local, state, and federal guidelines. Okay, this is just kind of a typical street section of what it will look like once construction improvements are implemented. The pedestrian facilities will provide a full connection from downtown Pittsboro up to Pow Place on both sides of Fsboro Street. Please note that south of the initial project from downtown Alonus Drive, there will be portions of the east side where there will only be a side foot sidewalk instead of the proposed 10-ft multi-use path shown here. This is to avoid impacts to the historic historic resources in the downtown area.

One question east side, excuse me, sidewalk coming from Thompson be five foot. How is that going to affect the houses that have rock found rock landscaping down through there? So those are we had um historic surveys done through that area and those are historic structures that we are not going to impact. So we're the sidewalk will narrow up between those little walls. Okay. Those rock structures and then once we get north of that it'll widen out to the multi. All right. Thank you.

This is the project schedule. Um as you can see we've been on this project for a while and we're excited to get close to the finish line. Um, we finished rightway acquisition of the whole project and we're now working with private utility owners to relocate their facilities prior to construction starting. Duke Energy has completed the relocation of their poles and their power facilities. The goal was to complete all utility relocation by this spring, but we do anticipate that recently there may be some delays with that um due to the relocation of two gas lines that we're working with the gas company on and also telecoms that need to relocate on Duke's poles. We anticipate that this will likely our schedule. Um we were hoping for letting the project in July for construction, but it'll likely get pushed back in a few months because of those delays. There's an estimated 26-month construction duration for the project to be completed. Hillsboro Street of the downtown area will remain at least partially open with at least one lane throughout construction and no off-site detour will be required. Property owners along the corridor corridor will be able to access their driveways throughout and their mailboxes will be made accessible for the duration of construction. Now, this is an overview of the downtown portion that we've recently added to the project. The intersection of Hillsboro Street and Salsbury Street will be improved for ADA compliant pedestrian access with signalized crosswalks. The brick sidewalks along both sides of downtown will be implemented for safer pedestrian experience. We are working with the town to go ahead and replace the ineffective underground sewer and storm water infrastructure as part of this project. We understand that this will be a significant inconvenience for the

downtown businesses and this way all improvements can be done at one time. There is not a proposed cross crosswalk as you can see at Hank Street and Thompson Street intersection due to the center turf turn lane that will be remained that will be retained um going northbound onto Hanks Street. We removed this crosswalk because we wanted to encourage pedestrians to go down Salsbury Street and cross at a much safer signalized two-lane section instead of that three lanes right there at that location. Prior to starting work in the downtown area, the selected contractor will be required to meet with DOT, the town, and the local business owners. The contractor will be required for a detailed plan of how they will maintain access to businesses throughout construction. This construction will be completed between January and September of 2027. We've added in the contract that no work can be done through the months of October through December to interfere with downtown events and holiday events. So, I'm just going to go through a brief kind of phasing of how the downtown construction is going to look. We won't know for sure until we let the contract and have a contractor to work with. Um, but it is going to be significant impacts. So, we'd like to be transparent and kind of let you know how we're going to face that work. The first B Hillsboro Street will be closed completely for the installation of underground water and sewer infrastructure and the storm water drainage system. This work will only be done during night hours with an off-site detour with proper signage on all approaches. Each day, traffic will be opened on Hills Street maintaining the existing two-lane two-way pattern. The contractor will have 90 days to complete this work. Once that phase is complete, second phase of construction will begin which

will install the new brick sidewalks, curb and gutter, driveways, curb ramps, retaining walls, steps, railings, pedestrian seals on the west side of Hillsboro Street. Only the southbound lane will be closed at during this phase of construction and a local detour will be provided. Parking on the west side of Hillsboro Street will be closed during this phase of construction and the existing two-lane two-way traffic will be reopened at the end of each day. The contractor is required to provide a detailed plan of how they plan to provide access to the local businesses on the west side of Hillsboro Street during this phase. When that phase is complete, phase three will begin, which is basically the same same thing but on the east side. Um it'll include the new brick sidewalks, curb gutter, driveways, curve ramps, walls and steps and railings, pedestrian signals on the east side of Hillsboro Street. During this phase, only the northbound lane will be closed and a local detour will be provided. The existing two-lane two-way traffic pattern will be reopened at the end of every day. Again, with other phases, the contractors required to provide a detailed plan of how they plan to provide access to the businesses on the west side of Hillsboro Street during this phase. And once all that's complete, we'll have the final phase, which consists of the final asphalt overlay and new pavement markings and striing for parking. and that will require temporary lane closures, one lane at a time. We understand the impact that this will have temporarily on the downtown area, but we believe the long-term effects will outweigh these inconveniences. Once the contract is awarded, we will ensure that everyone is well informed with the town of the downtown facing prior to we start construction. And that's all I have for this project update.

Thank you. Any questions? Yes. Um so um Morgan, thank you so much for the presentation. It is really just uh very encouraging to see how much this has improved since hearing about it. Uh, it's been a long time in the works. Um, Commissioner Pamela Baldwin informed us that she'd been advocating for the sidewalk since 2009. So, it's just it's really great to see it finally coming together. Uh, and I think a lot of us are really anticipating it getting done.

Um, and, uh, the sidewalk on the east side going into downtown, uh, that was a complete surprise. I had no idea that that was going to happen. So, that's wonderful. The streetscape improvements in the downtown area are fantastic. I'm so glad we squeezed those in somehow. Uh, and of course, modernizing the underground sewer and water is is uh it's about life safety. So, that's that's terrific. Um, also really pleased that the work is going to be scheduled outside the holiday shopping season. Thank you. Thank you so much. Um, I do have some questions. Um, I had hoped that we would get a a deeper dive on uh what kind of storm water um measures would be implemented with the project. I think it's noteworthy that um there's going to be more than an acre of new impervious surface uh derived from the widening of this this highway and and the excuse me this this um Hillsboro Street and the sidewalks. Um, and specifically I'm curious about the what I've heard is a draining and perhaps elimination of a natural pond uh at Springdale. So, um, but what can you tell us about how we're going to do better with storm water?

It's on.

Yes. To answer your question, um there is a pond that it's being impacted just north of Chattam, I think. Is that what you're referring to? Is it the little one to the south or is it the larger one closer to Springdale? Springdale and Chattam south of Springdale. I think I've seen on the map that there's a little teeny tiny pond and then there's a larger one uh that is visible from the street. So if it's

just that one the one south of Springdale on the east side will be drained. It will and we've been working with Army Corps of Engineers and NCDQ on the permitting for that and we recently received our regional general permit 50 from the Army Corps. Um and the impacts from that pond uh were accounted for in our approved mitigation plan. So we we will be mitigating elsewhere and within the wershed um per NCDQ's mitigation services permit for that drainage. Can you help us understand the reason the need for draining that pond?

Um it was just in the impacts. I mean it was in the impact area of the widening. So while the sidewalk may not go right up to where the pond is, we have to grade to get up to that point and our slopes can only be 3 to one in most cases. So to get that slope to where it's not so steep, you kind of have to back out. And so then therefore it impacted that. So it's it's almost a filling rather than a draining of the pond. Yeah. I mean, I guess you could say that from a permitting standpoint, they really just look at it as if you'reating the pond. It has to be mitigated. Mhm.

So, the reason I raised this concern specifically is that so much of this part of town drains into an unnamed creek that uh has numerous times flooded Oakwood Drive and um uh along Park Drive also. Um and my hope is that we can think outside the box and think creatively to actually create additional uh storm water retention um best p management practices BMPPS or what are the SCEs um above and beyond what is called for in law and I can't speak for the board but As one commissioner, I'd very much like to uh ask what can the town do to help that in that direction because it seems like it's an opportunity for some lowcost implementations, but I'm not an expert.

Yeah, we've done a lot of hydraulic analysis, especially around that covert and park drive because I'm I'm well aware too that that area floods and it is in the FEMA regulated flood plane. Um and then downstream from this this area as well. And um we really took a deep dive into the hydraulic analysis on that. Um so DOT projects are a little different than you know site plan development um because it's linear. So the drainage area it may not while it might be an acre of impacts. There's not one drainage area. You know it's over the course of two miles. So there's not really one area that's getting all that water flow. Um but so there's in most cases DOT doesn't really do storm water retention ponds for that reason and also because of the impacts. Um you know we already did we already reduced the center turn lane down four feet so we would avoid impacting properties. Fortunately we only had to take one property um for this corridor and if we were to implement ponds you know along the corridor we would have to take more we would have to do more relocations with that property owners. Um so that's another reason. But just to kind of give you a background on how DOT operates storm water um regulations for DOT to add a retention device um it would have to be significant impacts.

It would either be um a substantial increase in the pre versus the post development flow rate has to be at least a 10%. And um for the 50year storm event and on this corridor around that flood plane area the the greatest increase was 1.62% 62% in that pre and post development. So, we're well below that threshold. Um, also, you know, a lot of that area is in the flood plane and in order to kind of trigger that storm water measure being needed, it would have to be at least a one foot rise in a FEMA regulated flood plane. Um, it varies along this area anywhere from 0.04 to 0.13, but the highest increase is 0.13 feet. Uh, so it's significantly lower than that one foot threshold. So, I know while it sounds like it's, you know, an acre of impacts, it's really stretched out along that two, you know, 1.8 miles of roadway, um, with various drainage outlet points there. So after our hydraulic analysis we determined that no storm water measures were needed along the corridor ponds ponds I mean but we will have a subsurface drainage system with curbing gutter capture runoff and uh control that accordingly. Any more questions?

One. I just have one more. One more. Morgan on the Park Drive. What is detailed on It looks like to me that Park Drive is going not quite all the way back to Circle Drive improvements. Are we having any kind of uh center turn lane on Park Drive back here?

Yeah, it does go back um not quite to Center Drive. I can send you these plans later if you want to look at them. Um, but we will have Yeah, they'll be it'll be three lanes as you're coming up drive and you'll have a you'll have a um a designated left turn and a right turn and then you'll have your incoming on it'll have a left turn lane going northbound. that want to interfere with that uh drain and cover that's down in there where we having the flooding problem.

We're going to improve all the drainage on that part that we're going it's a couple hundred feet I think down Bark Drive and we're going to redo all the the drainage under that roadway. Can you explain what exactly you'll do there? Is it a retention pond or

No, have perving gutter and it'll have like box inlets to trap that water with large pipes under the ground to capture that water. Um, but again, you know, going back to the storm water, if we were to put a storm water pond there, we would have to acquire some rideway acquisition for that. And it's also in the FEMA regulated flood plane. Um, and as part of their regulations, it's typically not permissible to put a storm water retention pond in the FEMA regulated flow plane. Um, they have a lot of requirements from a federal standpoint if you were to do that. Okay.

And what does safety look like on the new sidewalks um with all of the driveways that what is the safety measures for the pedestrians walking or riding the bike path? I don't know if it'll let me back up. There's a lot of driveways on that.

Yes, there is. And I was going to try to show you we'll have like a vegetated buffer between the back of curb and where the sidewalk is. So going north on the west side there'll be a four and a half foot vegetated buffer and on the east side there'll be a 9 foot vegetated buffer. Um except for where we get you know where it's really tight where those historic walls are towards the downtown area that we'll have to kind of narrow in right there. But through majority of the corridor, there'll be a vegetative buffer between the back of curb and the sidewalk will be raised up a little bit too. Um, from where the the elevation of the roadway is and can you describe for us about the pedestrian crosswalk at Pow Place? So, is it going to be a timed uh is there going to be a light switch that you can push for pedestrians?

Well, yes. We're we're actually um in the process of designing the permit or the signal modification for that whole um that whole signalized intersection that initially was not part of the scope of the project, but because we sidewalks all the way up, um we'll have a crossing. I think I have a picture of it up there, but there'll be a signalized crossing um on the south, north to south, and then east to west on the POW play side. And it'll have the ADA compliant curb ramps as well,

questions. Yeah. Um the um some odds and ends. I'll touch base with the first one is closer to the downtown. You mentioned that there was a decision not to install a crosswalk rather to favor having the crosswalk uh farther down u at Salsbury.

Yeah. And um as as I've been um walking and biking and driving in downtown in recent years, it seems really clear that uh Thompson Street, Hank Street, that the traffic has increased so much that it really seems to want a a traffic light there rather than at Salsbury. But um what is the process for that outside of this 5724 project? What is the process look like for asking for a study of signalized intersection?

Yeah, and you can certainly do that. Um a lot of municipalities will do that and we can study it and see, you know, what kind of improvements. Well, first we'll do a traffic study um to see how the traffic volumes are there and if it's in peak times and kind of what that looks like. Um and then from there you know we'll look at what alternatives there could be. Um we do have a special pot of money for saving projects. It's very small compared to these kinds of projects. Um you know and we do have a need across eight counties but it's definitely something we can evaluate um if the town is interested in that. And and then of course you always have the option to go through RPO and submit that as a pro as an improvement project if you would like to. Thank you. Um that might be in part an answer to the next question. So um when I first was introduced to this idea, I was just so very enthusiastic about the sidewalks and the multi-use path. Uh it didn't even occur to me to to ask about how this might uh connect with the rest of town. And it's just intuitive that on the south side it connects perfectly. But on the north side, we've got the overpass. And so effectively, what we're doing is we're installing this marvelous, wonderful bike ped infrastructure that goes not nowhere, but folks who want to get to Mosaic or the shopping or um the high school has expressed great interest in biking to school. Um, we're not going to allow him to cross that uh overpass over the by bypass. Um, but uh what can we do to um begin working on uh a solution to that gap?

Yeah, I mean it's never it's never too early to start that process um if you're want to start a new project. Um, so I would recommend the first step would be to get with your RPO um, and just kind of talk that out. Um, we do have a new round of the stip every couple years where you can submit new projects. All municipalities have that opportunity. Um, they are required moving forward. I believe that you have to have um some kind of preliminary, not really a feasibility study, but an express design um where the RPA can RPO can assist you with that just to kind of show like rough cost estimates and if you were to propose improvements what those would look like. Um but the RPA would be a great place to

I'll bring that up. Commissioner Bonds,

I think that'd be great. Um, it seems pretty conspicuous that we've got on that overpass a center turn lane that's empty and unoccupied. Um and um near my workplace near NC State University, there's a uh a bridge passing over a railway that uh had a similar situation and they just moved the paint and set some protections for multi-use path. Um and I'm envisioning jersey walls. uh it seems like it could get done fairly simply without having to um actually change the structure of the bridge. So I'd loved if we could think harder about that. Um, and then that brings me to the question of speed limit because uh we have so many wrecks in front of the high school uh going from the high school down across um the overpass uh at Lowe's and the entrance to Power Place. Um that's all 45 even though it's a school zone. uh and then it's 45 halfway into this project where it turns to 35. And uh when I was knocking doors in this neighborhood um 10 years ago in 2015, one of the most frequently requested concerns was lowering the speed limit in that section of neighborhood. Um we have since uh moved the truck route. Um my understanding is that the highway designation NC highway 15501 will be moved once Chattam Park way north and

south are complete. Uh so it seems like we're we're planning for this to be considered and deemed to be a local residential street, but we're still building it as if it's a highway. Um, how can we get to 35?

Yeah. So, um, I think the question we kind of need to think about is, you know, do we want new speed limit signs or do we want people to slow down? Um, because that can be two different things, right? Um, so this new project with improvements, it was designed to be 45 miles per hour um, as it is existing. Um, but we do have, you know, there there are some options there. Um, but the new alignment, it's being widened from 11 foot lanes to 12 foot lanes. Um, and then when you add in the 12oot center turn lane, drivers tend when we have one, I mean, I think it's just human nature. You know, you're driving on a wider road. Um, people tend to drive faster um, just because it's more roomy. You know, they feel like they're a little safer. Um, so I think just changing the speed limit signs won't really solve that problem. Um but what what what the town can do um and DOT has done this with a couple a few other municipalities in division 8. Uh once the project is completed and implemented and open for local traffic uh the town can request formally to NC do that you would like to reduce the speed limit to 35. Um and that's done by submitting a resolution from your board to DOT to consider a reduction in the speed um down to 35 if that's what you desire. and the division engineer will review that request and meet with the town. Um, and if the town can commit to providing the necessary enforcement along that corridor, then that speed limit can be potentially be changed if approved. Um, it's really a joint effort between DOT and local enforcement to ensure safer facility at the lower speeds. Let me um just ask you a question about you said by having the 12 foot lanes that in that kind of uh subconsciously gets people to increase their speeds,

right? Well, that's what that's what we're saying.

So, if the lanes were not 12 ft, would that then kind of naturally reduce speeds and then perhaps make it safer? Because if we are having all this pedestrian traffic and we have 45 m an hour and nobody goes the speed limit, um people trying to back out of their driveways or pull out of their driveways, would it not be better then to make those lanes a little narrower to then as you said basically would make them drive slower? Yeah, I mean I think that we can't control how people drive obviously, but I think that extra foot while we're in here improving it is important um because it does give you an extra move on pedestrians on both sides. Um and you know I think the biggest thing here is just we can lower the speed limit signs but the biggest thing is enforcement. Um I think it just kind of has to be a joint effort between the town and DOT. Um, I appreciate Commissioner Hunter, I appreciate you bringing that up because from what I've been reading, um, uh, Mr. You're exactly right that that the psychology of of modern um traffic engineering is is recognizing that when we build roads uh wide and with nothing near, you know, no street trees near um there's just a natural inclination to go faster. Um, and so, um, I'm really eager for us to do all that we can to calm traffic. Um, and so, uh, that's why I guess it's now three or four years ago that I did request that we narrow that center lane. I'm really glad that we got it from 16 feet down to 12. Um,

and I did request 10, but We can't have everything. But um I I hope we're uh let me ask it a different way. How can this board demonstrate more convincingly to NC DOT that we are serious about zero fatalities and that we're serious about calming traffic and we're serious about minimizing pavement in new projects when necessary and appropriate? I mean, I think I think the town has done their part. Um, and I think DOT has that same goal. Um, we won't fatalities as well. Um, you know, when this was a US route, there were some limitations. Um, but like you said, this is SR route now. Um, so we do have some flexibility with the the speed limits. Um, you know, once once the project is complete, if we want to investigate that, that is something we can work together on. Any other questions?

Okay, thank you very much. This is very helpful. Thanks, Morgan.

Up next, we have a presentation on our audit from Sharp Patel. Yeah, good evening. My name is Jay Sharp. I'm the partner in charge for the town's audit. I'm here to present the 2025 audit. Uh so first thing I will start with is the status of everything. Uh bill work has been completed. The financial statements have prepared and they have been submitted to the local government commission for review. Uh they were submitted on time. We are just waiting for their final review and then we will issue the audit for 2025. Um one thing I always like to talk about just a little bit our roles and objectives as auditors. I always like to joke that I used to teach a class at Wake Tech so I can talk about this for 32 hours but I'm sure you don't want to hear about audits for 32 hours. Um we don't just come in and start crunching numbers at the beginning. There's some planning procedures we do uh that's involving internal controls uh you know getting an update of any internal control policies uh testing internal controls we test controls over three areas cash dispersements payroll and credit cards and we do some other planning procedures. Um but we do all this because we have to do what we call a risk based audit approach when it comes to the audit. We're assessing risk to all the significant financial reporting areas the town has our cash, revenues, expenses. Um, we're going to concentrate our audit efforts on the higher risk areas, but we do look at every significant financial reporting area the town does have. Um, and and so we do all that because as auditors, we have to gain sufficient audit evidence to render an opinion on financial statements. That's why you hire us to give an opinion and that concentrates on whether financial statements are

materially correct or not. So, 32 hours worth of teaching into a couple minutes. Uh, so the results of the 2025 audit, I think you'll be happy with these. Uh, scope and timing audit, we're on track. No issues there. Uh, the opinion I just talked about. Uh, once again, the town received an unmodified opinion on the financial statements. That's a clean audit opinion. The best opinion you can receive. So, good news there. Now if during our audit procedures we know any issues whether it has to do with internal controls or financial reporting we're required to report those in the form of findings. There's two levels of findings material weaknesses which are the more harsher and significant deficiencies. I'm happy to report there were no findings for 20 2025. Uh you had one finding in 2024 that was correct. So good news there. Um as a result of our audit procedures we just had some routine audit adjustments. Nothing significant. Some adjustments provided by the town, but kind of summarize clean audit opinion. No findings for 2025.

Can you remind us what the finding in 24 was? That was an over expenditure of the budget. Yeah. Pulling from fund balance had to do with our lease. That's right. Account for a lease. Yep. Okay. It was a rule change that we were not aware of. So the revenue was there but or sorry the expenditure was there but the revenue wasn't for the full term of the lease but that's been fixed. Yeah lease standard changed and unfortunately a good number of towns got caught up in that not done. So we saw that that probably our number one finding last couple years.

Um in addition to the audit we're required to issue a separate letter I call communications letter that's addressed to the board. There's four main talking points with this letter. The first one, any major accounting policy changes or standard changes, um we're required to report those to you. Uh there was one for 2025, um Gazsby 101 compensated absences. So, previously any governmental unit was required to acrew for vacation. Um they've changed the rules where it just kind of cruise for anything, any time off, PTO, comp time, sick leave was a big thing. Um, but the rules are you don't have to acrew for 100% of it or you don't have to crew for any of it if you meet certain standards within that uh rule they've sent out. Um, and so that didn't affect your financials, but it is a new standard that you had to implement for 2025. Uh, we one of the areas we pay close attention to during the process numbers derived from management's estimates. Uh, you have two key estimates, the depreciable lies in your capital assets and the allowance for doubtful accounts. We looked at those. Those appeared reasonable. No issues there. Happy to report. No disagreements with management. No difficulties encountered whatsoever during the audit process. We had great cooperation from Heather and everybody at the town during the audit process.

That's good. That's always good.

We appreciate that because we don't always get from everybody. Heather always gives it to us. Um so now I'll end our presentation talk about the numbers. First of all, let's talk about the general fund. So this is kind of trend analysis going back to 2016. uh general funds revenues and expenditures. You can kind of see the growth of the town by the fact that the revenues and expenditures have gone up. Um and they did go up in 20125. Uh your revenues were about 11.7 million. Uh your expenditures were just over 11 million. Um so they did substantially increase compared to 2024. Um but also the good news is you had more revenues and expenditures during 2025. And I'll be reiterated on this next graph. Uh this is the fund balance in the general fund which once again back goes back to 2016. Uh 2016 you had $4.2 million in fund balance. At the end of 2025 you have $7.2 million in fund balance. So a $3 million increase in fund balance in about a 10ear span. Uh so a healthy trend there, healthy growth by the town. But what is important is what that fund balance is made up of. And so you have three categories. The smallest piece there, about $25,000, is non-spendable. These are prepaid expenses that you've already paid for. Um, and so you can't spend them again, those funds again. Uh, the red there is restricted by general statute. Uh, those are funds that you have not received yet. They're due from other governments like sales tax, things like that, yet you have not received you received after you're in. U, but general statute say that if you don't have the funds, you can't spend them. And so that's where they're restricted until you do spend them. Uh but the most crucial piece is that green piece that is unassigned fund balance almost $4.99 million that's available spent by the town. Um and one of the calculations we do is comparing that to your expenditures. Uh that unassigned fund balance made up 44% of your 2025

expenditures. What that indicates is you have a healthy fund balance. Uh you know anything between 20 and 30 is considered healthy. Anything above that's really healthy. Um so you have a you've got a really nice fund balance in place. So nothing to be concerned about there at the end of 2025. Now we'll talk about the revenues and expenditures. First off, revenues. What makes up your revenues for 2025? Uh the three biggest pieces, first of all, property taxes was 48%. Um other taxes and licenses 24% and then let's see, sales and services were 18%. Uh so those are the three biggest pieces of the pie. Um and I also wanted to do analysis kind of compare this year versus last year where you've seen growth. Like I said, your revenues did go up substantially. Um $9.2 million last year to 11.7 million. Uh the biggest variances were property taxes went up about $950,000 and sales and services 1.2. But overall, you had a 27% increase in your revenues for 2025 compared to 2024. One question for sir just for clarification on our sales and service that increase was on that parkland correct is that where we're getting that from

I think I think the timing yes I believe so

that's a yes back to you sir

we'll find out and we'll get back to One of the things we also do is when we calculate some liquidity rat ratios for towns is we look at cash reserves. You know, we're looking at your unrestricted cash compared to your expenditures. Um, and how healthy is your cash reserve in place. Um, and so we generally recommend towns that have three to six months in cash reserves. Um, I think right there we put a line across indicates 120 days. It's kind of in between that. Um, I can kind of see where that falls over the course of the last 10 years. Um for 2025 your cash reserves was 192 days. Um your cash actually went up but your expenditures also went up. So that's my calculation went down but still very healthy cash reserves over half a year there. Um well above that 120 days. So you can kind of see it goes up and down throughout the years. A lot of that depends on your expenditures on annual basis which a lot of that's you know geared toward capital projects and things like that but a very healthy cash reserve in place that year end. And finally, I want to well cash flows. This kind of indicates where your cash flows came from during the year. Um, this actually isn't on the audit. It's just something additional analysis. Um, so there's three areas of cash uh flows. Operating activities, which is general government oper operations, investing activities, uh, which is purchases of capital assets, and then financing activities, which is either payments or proceeds from debt. Uh, so you kind of see where your cash went and came from during the year. overall net increase in cash was $2.3 million um compared to 2024. The most important thing is the majority of that did come from operating activities. And finally, we'll talk about the expenditures uh breakdown here. Number one expenditure item continues to be public uh safety at 38% uh general government 31% and then 15% in transportation. And once again, variance analysis there. You can kind of see uh 24 versus 25. Um, we did see about a $1.7 million increase in expenditures. Uh, you know, quite a few here. General government, public

safety, and transportation all went up um, substantially compared to 2024. Um, some of that had to do with capital project spending. But with that, I'll be glad to take any questions you have on the results of the audit uh, audit process or the numbers themselves. Thank you. Any questions for Mr. Char? I have just one um all the years that I've been on the board, I've been real real impressed with our cash reserves. Um last year at 222 days and 192 is this possibility because of not having enterprise fund now is that

no this is the general fund the enterprise fund would be presented separately. I would have a separate calculation for that in prior years that has nothing to do with it. Okay. So all right my question is maybe for staff is uh why we dropped off almost six months because our expenses have our expenses have increased and no revenue correct well I mean revenues increased but I mean the c the cash has increased at a slower amount than the in the expenses

okay so our fund balance has kind of stayed a little bit flat, but our expenditures have gone up at a higher amount than the cash on hand. So then that the days that you have cash sitting around, it's going to decrease naturally. But the larger your budget, the less cash typically you're going to have percentage-wise in the bank because like if your if your budget's 50 million a year, you're not going to have 50% fund balance because then everyone's going to wonder why you have $25 million in the bank, right? So as our um expenditures and budget grow over time that that percentage will also decrease over time. Now the amount will go up but the percentage will start to kind of trickle down.

Okay. We're still well above the recommendation. We were just well well above well we were very well over Yeah. And to my dismay that's what I like. I'm sorry. So but that's okay. But the orange line, we we we added an orange line. That's kind of where Heather feel like we should be. That that's like our bare minimum. U so we're not quite double of what the where we want to be, but I I think we're still that that orange line is the three months, correct? That is four months. 120 days. Yeah. Yeah, it's four months. Okay. Thank you.

Yes, sir. I just say I appreciate Thank you. Appreciate it. And Heather's work on this that that gives us a healthy fund balance that gives us some flexibility um with things like when property purchases come up, stuff like that that we can be uh flexible and have those reserves. So, thank you. Thank you. Have to make sure Heather is watching Jonathan SP sitting next to him. Believe me, that's Thank you. Okay. Up next, we have a update on the master plan for the Robinson Walk Park. Jay, we'll get you to answer that question.

All right. Get you to answer that question. I was pretty sure that's what it is. I don't I can let you know.

Evening everyone. I just wanted to provide a little bit of update and I I want to make sure that I clarify that this little presentation is this is not a final draft. This is not saying that this is going to happen. This presentation and the design that I'm going to be walking through is solely based off of the feedback that we have gotten from the community. So go ahead and start. So we have we've had two public meetings. We've had a steering committee. One was in person, one after the initial feedback where we were presented to concepts which you'll see here in a moment was conducted over Zoom to get feedback on as well. I'd like to say this 72 acre park is more of our passive park, not as active in recreation. Your active parks are more of athletic facilities, um the co tournament complexes, things like that. Whereas your passive are more walking trails. And as we walking trails and you know bike paths and more relaxing and focusing on multigenerational functions a lot more than maybe like your tournaments that are only like specific youth oriented, right? So I especially think that as we grow and we receive more and more land, we need to make sure that we are keeping that balance of active and passive parts so that we are making sure that we are reaching everyone and providing services for everyone in the community. So we in the fall we had conducted our

first public meeting and we got a lot of feedback. We had some poster boards that were up that we had people put sticky notes on or hey, what are we looking at? We had visual pictures for that. Then we created a little bit of a design of two different options where we had people come. So here is what we've heard. We had a website to where people could also submit a survey. Total in-person visitors, 147 adults, 38 children over the two public meetings. And then we had online participants, 64 commenters, and 243 comments. So overall, familyfriendly, wanted all ages, multigenerational, accessible and inclusive, connectivity, water access, and and more natural and ecological, which you find in more passive parks, right? There, again, this is we're not clear-cutting, right? That's not what this park is. Uh we are more passive and we were wanting to lean into the landscape to create that more natural atmosphere. So based on the feedback we then after the first really public engagement methods and with our stakeholders we came up with two concepts concepts. One was way more passive and and geared not as like your your more extreme passive, right? And then one was, hey, we can have some more active spaces without it being out of the like passive category, if that makes sense. So

the second round of feedback was we at the public meeting especially, we had people that came in and you could vote on one concept, but we wanted to make sure that we got feedback on both of them. So even if they said, "I'm voting for this one." If they liked other features on the one that they didn't vote for, we wanted to make sure to collect that. So from that information and feedback, we created one overall design. So this we merged a lot of that feedback together. And again, I want to preface that this was you based on the engagement, one of the things that were going forward. So, this is a draft. I wanted to get direction from y'all and see if there was anyone that felt really passionate one way or the other about things so that if we need to make some changes, we can. Then the next phase would be okay now we go to the final design to where we can how do I say that so that we can get cost estimates for what this would actually look like. Right? So I think that the the biggest thing that we wanted to keep in mind when having these creating these designs is to make sure that we have phased approaches. Right? This is not meaning that oh we're going to build this park all at once. I I don't think that that's realistic. What I what I do think is that we need to like many different parks that we've had is we need to have that phased approach maybe a little bit at a time. We do that starting with the parking lot and us doing some na n natural trails throughout the park and then maybe conducting another phase. But before we get that I want to make sure that we have feedback. Again, this is based off of our public feedback. wanted to get you all feedback to you to see if this was something to hey let's move forward

with getting some cost estimates or hey let's let's tweak some things

up to y'all okay feedback okay

this looks uh for me I'm there's so many things that remind me like I think I selected most of the things on here when I was uh walking around and doing this Um, I love the tree houses. Um, the hammocks is is speaking my name. But one thing I'm I'm looking at just this. I'm wondering if we don't need a bigger tree buffer because we are going to have houses built almost up to this. And I can see someone being in a treehouse waving to the person in their backyard. So, I'm wondering if that doesn't need to be made a little bit bigger. Um the other thing I just want to mention um because Arlo still came and spoke. I walked the plant yesterday and um it does look like a before and after with the and that's what um was kept being point outed to me and there were some absolutely amazing trees that I could see on our side and I do believe that um what they were suggesting with the invasive eradication will actually allow us to see what we're working with and it may in some way design itself if we take that time to do that um invasive eradication. Um and I guess uh let's see there's some other point that I want Oh, I was wondering if we could get a current aerial view of the park to see because I've heard some parts are clearcut. You said no, we're not clearcut. So if we could get um I tried to go on Google Earth and try to get a better idea of the park. Is that something that we could possibly get?

Could definitely look I'll see. But I I mean I there are so many things that that I really do like about this because I want to make sure that it's a park that not just they built it, they will come hopefully. I want it to be a park that people just want to come to, you know, and I I think we're we're we're definitely getting there.

To that point, too, is that is especially you think about master plans, right? is we can have some of these concepts, right? That's kind of just a direction that we're going into. I think one of the things that at least for myself would prioritize of, hey, if we get in there and we see some things are like, oh man, this is really beautiful like we we can pivot a little bit, right? And that's not we've walked the site several times and we walked with our consultants as well a couple of times with that of and and just knowing that yes, whereas this kind of gives us an idea and a master plan of a general direction. If we get in there and we find some different things of like, oh, we may we can absolutely pivot a little bit uh to make sure that we can really enhance what we're what we have already. Um, I would say in terms of the satellite data, the county GIS has a 2025 data on there recent Google

trying Google Earth and it was sliding and they have the historical stuff too, but 2025 is pretty representative of what's out there. Do we know what time of year it was? looks like fall, but winter.

I don't see a date. Um I uh I like all these concepts as well and in the mesh of it um between the different options and uh I just want to kind of reiterate for everyone that this you know this isn't something that we're going to be able to afford anytime soon or afford in a whole anytime soon either. So even the plans, you know, the cost estimates will help us plan that out. And then, you know, I imagine it would be a parking lot and a building and then a play structure and then, you know, things as other priorities compete uh with parkland. Um, one question I had on this was the kayak canoe access upstream of the dam there and it's kind of low water anyway, but can you talk about that?

Yes, they actually did some more research after we had washed through everything. Right. So, one of the shallow, right? Having that, I wanted to make sure that we kept that on there because that was a lot of the feedback that we got, right? So, I felt like we were doing a disservice if we just immediately wrote that off. So, you can kayak canoe. It at least has to be a minimum of one foot depth, right? Which is there. Now, if we wanted to make the quality better for a better experience, we would have to do some work to the creek area in order for that to happen. I wanted to keep that on there as that is an option. It's going to by the time we get there, who knows where we'll where we'll be at if that's still a need. But considering the amount of feedback that we got that were saying of we want kayak canoe water access, I feel like we would be doing a disservice not to not to have that on there. But knowing that that would be a a cost to make sure that it would be up to the standards of having a quality experience if you're going to kayak or commute there. So, would you walk the kayak from the parking lot down to that access point?

Okay. Which is great. And um is is the creek even wide enough to turn a canoe in there? Is it maybe some like tighter spaces, but we walked pretty much that that creek and it was the part where it says the kayak canoe water access to the rocky water access. It was 45. Yes. Yeah. Okay. 20 feet. Like 40 feet.

Maybe. Okay. I'd say the length of a canoe. Yeah. I mean, you can put this. Okay. Yeah. Okay. All right. Um, yeah, that was that was a a great question from me because farther upstream, uh, when I've walked our greenway, it does not seem really wide enough. Um, yeah, that's why it really stops right there. It doesn't go all the way up. It does. It looks like about 40 on the GIS. Oh, great. and and from being in it as well.

Thank you. Um and when you say that uh there might be additional work, I think I'm hearing investment cost to make it more amendable to um voting. What would that look like? I'm not sure that's why we would need the cost estimates for it is they would whenever we move to that next space to look at what the cost estimate that will be included for that but they would I'm not sure exactly what that looks like and how they would make it but from my understanding is they would need to um there looks like there has been some beavers that have been along there so that have built up several different things to make the water in some places like stand still Right? So we'd have to we'd have to focus on that and then that's getting the equipment back there to be able to focus on that. Right? So the cost estimates if that is something that we want to pursue would be included in the next phase.

Right. Um, and another big question for me was as we were thinking about this parking, I think you said we might like make that as a first step that making it accessible for vehicles to park and then for people to access. Um well, first of all, I would I would very much like us to uh program uh food trucks and um utilities like that um in a much later phase uh because we've already got food service at Lorax Lane and the plant. Um it's conceivable that once the surrounding uh residential development reaches 1,000 or 1,200 units of course that there would be sufficient demand for food food service that um the plant might be overwhelmed uh and so food trucks might be a welcome addition over on the side of the park. Um but that is a concern for me. And then I'm wondering, could we phase the parking paving? Like maybe just have it gravel at first with grassy beside it with the long-term plan of of then adding parking once demand reaches. So, I think the only challenge with that is per our own UDO standards that we aren't able to have a gravel lot that it has to be a paved lot, but I'm not I'm not sure what that looks like. So, I will

I've been wanting to fix that for a while. So, let's make note of that. Um, yeah,

I hear you on that aspect. There's been several times where I'm like, oh, we should put just a gravel lot here, and I have been told that's not allowed. Okay. So, uh, 20,000 foot view. We have this gifted plant that, uh, was, uh, it's going to be a great asset to us and to the plant also. Uh, I can see day trips, family excursions, outings going to the plant and either ending up in the park or starting in the park and ending up at the plant. Uh, I don't see any connection. There is one connection where with a plaza entry. Is that correct?

Yes. And uh, if if I have a stroller etc. I think it might be easier to enter the plant or the park further north. Um, I'm just thinking about day trips and making an event of it. Uh, I would love to to picnic at at the pond and then cool down or or get your cool beverages at the plant. So, how how can we make sure that those are integrated? So, if you also look up near the multi-purpose field, the trail

right there, that is a connection as well to to the plant because what what we wanted to make sure that we do is have complete access and encourage people. So, especially when you're looking at greenways and connections, you want loops, right? You want one main loop, but then you want to go and give everyone options. So if you have a meeting or if you have a doctor appointment, oh I can only get in a little bit of a run or something then you can go smaller loops or I want to go for a longer run. I have a little bit more time then I could go for the larger loop. Right? So, a lot of all these spaces that we're seeing is that we have connections from the neighborhood and from the other and overflow parking at the top and then the full connectivity through the the greenway trails. That would be

ideally what I'd love to see is a is a trail between on the uh east side of the multi-purpose field right smack connection there. There is a connection right there. But are we programming that? Not seeing that. Where the asterisk is? It's on the diagram. There's a Yeah, there's a tiny little cutout. It's hard to see on this, but there is a cutout right there where multi-purpose field that little circle that is an also an access point to the as well. Yeah. As the plaza entry. Okay. Super. And so the thought process is this is going to be over a series of years because of budgeting. Is that correct?

Sir, it's our first park coming into Pittsboro from uh the from the east. Uh and it's it's a it's a wonderful space. So uh how how would then we process on a regular basis considering what else we need to spend to get to where we want to be. Is it going to be a a schedule? Is it going to be how how how are we going to do this?

Yes. So we have a little bit Jonathan and I have been working over the past couple years a list of our projects of our existing parks where what we have coming down the line and what the schedule of you know inventory of replacements and also enhancements. What we will do is probably come to y'all here in the next couple months as well to help us prioritize of what y'all priorities are. a broader approach, you know, with the South Village small area plan now that we know broadly where the other parks are going to go and uh Katie, in the last three years, I I want to say the master plan that we currently have is at like 92% completion, which means it's time to do another one. Um because some of the items that we can't quite get done are large scale projects that will be in the millions. Uh so it's time to redo that and then certainly for you all to figure out what your priorities are in terms of funding. So that'll be a discussion that we'll probably end up including in the next budget meeting.

And I think overall we are currently parkland rich and park feature poor. Uh and that will get worse before it gets better. Um I mean parkland rich is a great thing to happen. Um but we're not going to have the funds to fit out all of these things. So, these plans like this will help us develop that master plan, but also be ready for grants and uh park foundation or whatever else comes along that can help us fund some of the activation of this land that we're that we have and we'll get more of.

It's a great backbone and good skeleton for for what we need. Thank you for your efforts. I I'll say too, I appreciate that the sort of mill area is left as like a thing to discover. Um, so I want to I still would like to put some, you know, signage in in history around that, but um, great. It has a place to discover for those that don't know where it is yet someday.

Yeah. Um, so a few more questions if I may. Um are going back to the water access. Uh what might the transitions at small street sewer facility uh what might that do to impact water levels here? Are we ever going to lose the discharge volume there? So that is that is something that's still up in the air with Tri River. um they've talked about keeping it. They've talked about, you know, doing away with that sewer plant and they they have not come to a to 100% determination on what they're going to do. And it could be another 10 years before they know.

Yep. So, we might plan a a water access and then have very little water.

You would definitely have less water. Yeah. Um I I do remember hearing that actually there were some uh biologists and and other folks who are interested in such things who noted that the act the ecosystem along this creek actually improved with our discharge the increase of discharge from small street plant um because it uh allowed for year round flow. Um so uh let's watch that carefully please. Um and uh another kind of ecosystem uh set of comments. Um, uh, Llaya still has shared with me that, um, he has just had tremendous impact with relatively small investments in invasive eradication, seeing just a proliferation of local species and ecosystems blooming forth. Uh, he's very excited about the prospect of getting onto this public land with volunteers. And I have heard that there are a lot of volunteers who do want to do this work. And I'm not hearing it just from him. I'm hearing it from other directions. And so I believe that it's true. Um is it something that we can commit to to um uh develop a long-term relationship with the community to uh begin this kind of invasive eradication on the 72 acres?

Of course. Wonderful. We love volunteers.

Yeah. Um, and it it maybe it's maybe it's a a memorandum of understanding or something like that to formalize it so that u a nonprofit organization could uh run that show entirely and we wouldn't have to put labor into it. Um that would be wonderful. Um the to the extent that we might do that I I can imagine a a place where the town would participate would be with management of the derived biomass. You know when all of that autumn olive is is ripped out of the ground and stacked then can we once a year hire a chipper kind of thing. Um, I think that that would be a really good way to support that effort. And I do believe that uh he's right and that Arlo Estell is right in articulating that once we get in there, we will understand that land much better and perhaps the mill uh mayorship as you point out and other features will emerge. Um, I'm hopeful that we might find some topography that is conducive to a natural uh amphitheater or um it might also need some additional work um earth moving work. But we've for years been hearing from various sectors people want a performance space in town and um the Forest Theater near UNCC Chapel Hill is just such an amazing feature and it's a draw and an attraction and people get married there and and you know granted that's that was probably a very substantial and expensive work products

administration project. Um, but if we could do something along those lines, uh, while also stewarding the the tree cover to recover from the clearcut of a few years ago. Um, so that eventually it would be a a a an amphitheater shrouded in trees. um or just any any kind of attraction that we can think of uh where people can come and visit and and then also uh enjoy the the features and amenities at the beverage, excuse me, at the the plant. Um I think that would be a marvelous um interaction between this park and that local business. Um, and then I think I had some other thoughts. Just overall I am concerned about topography. The pump track, I think it's a great idea, especially right there next to the mountain bike trails. Uh, I am concerned that, you know, I've never designed a pump track, but it intuitively to me it seems like it would want to go along the um contour lines rather than against the contour lines. Um, bumping all the way uphill and then having a long glide downhill. I just I don't know. But I'm curious about that. I'm curious about some other things where I see pretty stark straight lines on an area that you you can make out where you can make out the topography lines and it doesn't seem to to correspond. It doesn't there doesn't I don't see the logic coming forth there. So,

um I hope maybe we can revisit some of those things. Um, but certainly together we'll we'll learn more about the land as as we move forward into the future. Um, I'm glad to know that this isn't a final plan and um, it shaped up a lot. It was a tremendous public input process. I'm very satisfied with the rigor of that. That was great. Um, um, what else? Uh oh. What leapt out at me was possible conflicts between the multi-purpose fields and the prominade if there's ball sports going on there. Um I don't know about the scale of the land there, but I'm just wondering is there a chance that balls might launch into someone's head as they're walking on the prominade?

This is really just kind of like an open space feel. not necessarily encouraging a mini soccer field or things like that. Just, you know, if people want to, you know, go throw frisbee or have a picnic or things like that. It's not

it's not more active, right? It it's more open. It's a multiuse space. Maybe even if you did um kind of towards the bottom and we ended up wanting to do a little amphitheater or that's there and then could go out towards that's certainly an option just to have some space to where you just had an open field if they wanted to play, you know, just throw a football. My kids just go outside and throw and they don't need a field. It's just they need a little open area. Okay.

The panhandle is 428t wide. Yeah. So, little pan handle sticking up says multi-purpose build. So, from the plant property over to our property line is 428 ft. So, you you got plenty of space in there to go. Would we be able to do things like movies in the park at that um multi-purpose field? Because like I said, we can build it and they'll come. But if we give people a reason to come and reason to um you know,

yeah, that that's exactly what I kind of envision for that space and not having it as a formalized active athletic facility, right? um with hard lives of we want to make sure that we'll have whether that's you know spring Easter egg hunt or whether that's a you know movie in the parks or a you know a concert right um any of that type of stuff that's what that facility is really is really going to be just an open field for us to conduct those things Okay. Uh, final question on the two overlooks. Um, one at each end of the park. Can you tell us a little bit more about those? Are there natural promonries there or are those intended to be structurally elevated from how we're on Earth or something? They're looking to be a little bit more elevated just looking out just like a you know place to take a picture or just you know given the elevation it depending on once we get in there and get a further look we can determine what that actually looks like. Right now it's kind of just a decking that's overlooking that area.

Okay. But hypothetically, this decking or the the overlook structure would be like above the highest conceivable flood plane level. So that that is a significant elevation over the water. Okay. Thank you. Anything else for Katie? And and for moving forward on on cost estimates and stuff, you're kind of looking for a general headnod discussion from us on this. Yes. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you so much. Broadly, is is this good? Do you want to see less? Do you want to see more?

Over time. Yeah, it's good over time.

All right. Up next, we will have a public hearing. So, I'll ask for a motion to enter into the public hearing for ZTA 202502 unified development ordinance amendment to chapter 9. So, move. Thank you, Commissioner. Second, Commissioner Foley. All those in favor say I. I. I.

And who gets the opportunity? Good afternoon. Originally, Randy Tingle was going to do this resation. I requested to step in his place given that this would be a committee that I will be heading up. Um, and this is to update the UDO and add a section to chapter 9 under section 9.7, the technical review committee. In July of um, 2024, the team started to have meetings um, across the board, but this followed through a piece of process and schedule that I wanted to actually discuss. So the presubmitt happens um first for a project and then the community meeting after that followed by the first submitt of an application and then TRC which is the technical review committee that is when this would take place followed again by um staff completes the reviews goes to planning board and then to the commissioners. So just to give you a reference of when this would take place. All right. See if I break this. Okay. So the primary team that is part of this committee is development services led by myself and the assistant chair which is our planning director. In addition, you're looking at um the parks and recck and downtown departments as well. So that's the core of the piece and each submitt that comes in the entire team looks at and figures out who is impacted by that piece. Am I asking for incot or is a town road and

then making sure that those individuals are present at the meeting. So those items um it is particular to each project that includes Tri River or any additional both internal and external. And then we already have a schedule set every Tuesday from 1 to 3:00 p.m. there is a 45m minute session followed by 15 minutes. The 45 minutes is to actually meet with the developers on the individual projects and they get a slot just as if we were having that submitter would be due the week before to make sure that we had all the documentation and then 15 units to reset for the next piece and it's every Tuesday. Um and then that way we have the county and all the actual additional outside partners in that meeting. So the request by the staff is to amend the video and a motion to approve that under CTA 2025-02.

Please addition. Yes, Mr. Armstrong. I've heard of uh bodies like um one-stop shops in local government where applicants can come and uh get all their questions answered at once. Is this kind of what this is that this side of that? Yes. in that shot

and um the benefit to uh the development community is clear and I think that's admirable and and uh good intent. I am curious also about the overlap if there is any between this technical review committee and the technical review committee for the Chattam Park project that we have separate meetings set aside for Chattam Park. those are actually going to move to a Thursday meeting separate from this to go through that entire process. So this is all the other developments through this piece but there's overlap in terms of the membership.

Yes. So county um fire marshall driver water the same list exists whichever are impacted are invited to that meeting specifically for that section. Thanks for the clarification. That's really all my questions. And this is a current process or policy. We're just kind of codifying it in a UDO. Yes, we're just making identifying the process and making it so I can see it clearly and know who be in that meeting.

Okay. Um there's no one signed up to speak at the public hearing. I'll take a motion to close the public hearing. So I move. Thank you, Commissioner Frell. Second, Commissioner Bonditz. Uh any other discussion? I'll take a motion to approve text amendment ZTA 2025-02 as submitted. So moved. Thank you. Blets. Second. Uh all in favor say I. I. I. Thank you.

Thank you. Up next, we have a few appointments for the board of adjustment. There were believe three applications for five positions. I make a motion to um go ahead and table this for um 30 days to allow the town to open this up for more. I understand, just correct me if I'm wrong, there's nothing to go in front of the board adjustments in the next month, right? That's correct.

Okay. And you have gotten some more um applications in since Okay. Um so, if it's okay, I'd like to make a motion that we go ahead and table this for till the next meeting. Give town some more time to get until the March meeting.

Okay. Till the March M, excuse me, till the March meeting. And I'd also um one of the things that kind of kind of hit me with with these appointments is the application and the process. Um I would like to see if staff could come up with something a little bit more in depth on vetting um potential um board applicants and um maybe even an interview process. I mean we got these on Tuesday. I would have loved to have sat down and met with them and and um done a little bit more in-depth um I guess we could call it an interview process. So if that's something that we could kind of look into

I will second the motion and encourage us to have a conversation about the second item. Okay. So just to the motion is to uh table this March meeting with staff for re to readvertise. Yes. Okay. And so we have a motion and a second. Um any other discussion on that? Okay. All those in favor say I. I I uh any opposed?

And I'd like to I I very much want to uh ask myself that we make efforts I make efforts to recruit actively recruit more applicants and so I hope we'll all think about that who we can ask to apply. U do we want to discuss a little bit further your your second idea? Um yeah, and I would like to is there a way we can get um the um applications that have come in um earlier than you know as they come in? Is that something we could do? Because like I would love to meet with them and and talk to them. Maybe I can, maybe I can't, but I would love to see the applications um as they come in.

I think my only question about that is if we would I think it'd be important to meet with all of the candidates. If you're going to meet with any of the candidates that be a bigger if we get 20 applications that could be a bigger trusses. True. we have in the past for

uh what about a like a subcommittee maybe made up of some of town staff and maybe somebody who's sitting on that board like for example if we had somebody for planning we had Corey sit in on it or or the chairperson just to kind of give us an idea of what the board is lacking or what they would really love to see on the board because they know better I think than even us qualifications would enhance the boards like a review of the applications. Yeah. Or look at the sub committee and then they could give them thoughts. Okay.

Just an idea. So what occurs to me is that uh for so many years we were kind of u really begging folks to volunteer for boards and we we now have greater abundance of people applying and um I' I' I'd be very happy. I'm I'm encouraged Commissioner Hungo that you're interested in meeting folks. I have so little time that I would simply prefer to that we have maybe a more ramped up uh survey or questionnaire for applicants. Um maybe just a little bit more detail for specific uh boards. Um what are others thoughts? Interesting idea if I might speak first. Uh but the the details the difficulty comes in the details of it. What who selects the subcommittee? Uh how quickly does this have to happen? Um what if we have like we said 20 who is it that's vetting for us? I don't know if I want anybody else speaking for me. Um I think the process uh should require a little bit more time. I think we have these names given to us at the agenda uh as the agenda package comes out. I think that's not enough time a week uh five business days. So that's that's something we want to consider. But having a subcommittee and having somebody else have their say on who who may or may not consider what the board really needs is something that we we we want to talk about.

So I think too if we uh if we look at our current process in the code of ordinances and I'd love to revise the code of ordinances overall but um I think some of that is defined or some committees are defined in there some are not. Um so I think we look at that overall and then also have staff look at what some other even like recent changes by other municipalities and stuff like that and see what what would be the best course for us. Mhm. But agreed like we have a relatively new uh good issue of a lot of applicants for for positions typically. So

Pittsburgh 101 has paid off and and just the town growing has also paid off. Um, was anyone else uh curious? Do you when I'm reading through the applicants, I'm thinking, okay, so we just did a board of adjustments appointment month ago. Uh, what are we anticipating? What future vacancies are going to be coming up this year? I was asking myself these kinds of questions. Um, what's the current makeup of the board in question? Um, so would anyone else like to see in these kinds of reports, uh, or in these kinds of staff memos for new appointments, a little bit more information about

current members, current membership, who's going to be um, terming out um, got So would be need to be remove renewed when you're saying like repeat the website information in the packet. That'd be helpful. Yes. Yeah. It's more administrative. Yes. Yeah. We can get you a breakdown. Are the terms on the website? They are. We can get you a breakdown and then we can we can probably move the process forward a month or two. So, if we see an opening coming three or four months down the road, then we go ahead and and uh request applications, get those out to you a month prior, so you have a full month to to review.

We kind of do that, too. But when if people leave or stuff like that, it's obviously out of our control, but we I think we're typically All right, good discussion. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Okay, up next we have uh return of the request for Chattam Parkway dedication R5930A message.

Mr. Mayor, members of the board, um this matter was tabled at the December meeting. Um but the issue is be that is before you is a resolution that would adopt the first amendment to the 2023 alternative acceleration agreement. Um Chattam Park has provided a timeline of what's happened about this road since 2020 that's in your agenda packet. And also there's a copy of the 2023 agree agreement that's in there as well. This proposed resolution would uh basically comply with what you did in 2023, which was to agree to facilitate the transfer of the easement rights for the parkway from the land owners who are affected uh from to to convey those interest to the town and then the town would convey the interest to DOT. U that's essentially all that this resolution does. Stephen um Perry from the Raleigh Law Firm representing China Park is here if you have any questions.

And Mr. Mesa, can you like this is what it DOT is waiting on to open that section of China Park or That's correct. That's correct. Good evening. Uh mayor, commissioners, staff. Uh I'm Stephen Perry. I work at Wy Robbins. I've been representing uh CPI folks at Preston for um a good amount of the last couple years. I've listened in on a lot of these meetings uh in person and digitally. So, it's uh great to be in front of you and I'm happy to answer any questions that I can to explain how we got to where we are now and uh yeah, answer any questions you have. So, fire away.

Any other questions? have any questions? Maybe just a quick comment. Um, for staff, as I was reading over this, Chattam Park agreed to pay reasonable rates to the town of Pittsburgh for staff. I I assume we have been reimbursed for our services. It's only in the event of money being passed through, right? This has not got anything to do with money. It sure says it right in him. CPI agrees to pay reasonable fees to the town of Pittsburgh for its staff to serve as the intermediary

in the terms of the money. Yes, sir. We're not dealing with money tonight. We're dealing with land. The amendment doesn't change that part. question was I assume that the town is being reasonably paid for our transferring money from the uh DOT. We're not transferring money, sir. Oh, that Paul, I'm asking this question about this right here. Yes, sir. It would it would apply if we were had any money. We would charge a fee. So, we are being reimbursed from Chattam Park period. Is that

haven't gotten any money? We haven't done any monies on this since it started. 122 and I don't know if there has been any request for reimbursement related to like admin expenses which is I think the provision in the document you're referring to but I I think if those requests have been they would have definitely been complied with but yeah that is kind of separate and apart from history what Yeah.

So I guess uh I'm going to rephrase the question in a different way. Uh there are administrative uh there's amount of time that our staff has used to come up with this agreement and um Mr. Messik has been paid for his time. Does Chattam Park pay our staff? I think that's your question.

Yeah. Yeah. Yes. So there are provisions in this agreement as there have been on others that provide for a reimbursement for kind of admin like expenses. Um I don't have the provision kind of directly in front of me now but that is like consistent with my client's expectation that they would you know hold up that their end of the bargain with respect to that matter but again yeah that is kind of separate and apart from what this amendment u you know relates to. So what we're talking about is then is conveying easements. Uh and that's it. We're not we're not changing the road. We're not changing the designs. We're we're just obtaining easements so the the DOT can move forward with their approvals. Is that correct?

Correct. And and this amendment really does not um I mean the the town serving essentially as an intermediary for rightway and easement interest is something that was covered in the prior agreement. I mean this existing amendment is really serves the purpose of kind of um bringing the agreement up to date based on changes in property ownership that have occurred since 2022. Um and then additionally kind of DO's rightway acquisition process commenced at a point in time when 5930 had not been split between A and B. So, but the agreements were put together at a time when the split was kind of in process. And so, DOT started their acquisition process for 5930 as a whole. The agreements really focused on a um based on just kind of that was the expectation at the time. Uh now it's you know DOT's right ofway acquisition process relates to the the entirety of 5930. And so our thought was factually it would make sense for these agreements to be modified to reflect things as they are now between owners and the scope of the rightway the DOT is acquiring.

So Mr. Jones has property that this highway would would would go over. Mr. Jones sells this property to Mr. Smith. So the easement has to be changed. Is that right? Is that what we're doing here? It's more like the the initial alternative acceleration agreements referenced a different affiliate as an owner who was going to convey property to the town who would then convey it to DOT. Right.

Now it's a different Yeah. Just a different owner. Right. to the terms of recital and who's doing what makes sense to kind of update those things so that they're accurate. In most of the other uh fundamental documents surrounding the Chattam Park project, uh the language has typically been uh the Chattam Park investors or their assignees. Uh would that language not have sufficed to cover WYW and DMBB? cover it from from what standpoint I guess is

why why is it necessary that um WYW and DMB be named specifically now um when the prior language I would assume read assenees

I don't know if the prior language referenced as um I do know that the existing agreement referenced you know 15501 east was I think the name of the other CPI affiliate iliate. And so, you know, subsequent portions of the agreement said things like, you know, um the developer is going to convey and is going to cause his affiliate 15501 East to convey. Um the 15501 East entity wasn't a signatory to that agreement to the best of my kind of recollection. But again, this amendment would just kind of bring the agreement up to speed with how things are now. So that when people see a deed in the in the property records and they look back at this particular agreement, we don't want there to be kind of a disconnect there when it comes to what happened when and why. Any other questions? Right. I'll take a motion to adopt the attached resolution authorizing alternative acceleration agreement amendment and related real property conveyances for NC DOT stip project R5930A and R5930B.

So moved. Thank you Commissioner Foley. Is there a second? Second. Thank you Commissioner Huniker. All those discussion.

Y thank you. Uh, I merely ask for the opportunity to to speak. Um, and I want to be clear that I'm going to vote against this. Uh, I'm not voting against this item because I oppose the completion of the Chattam Parkway project, nor because I wish to undo prior agreements. I'm voting no because this action that we're about to do uh reaffirms and ratifies a structure and that structure permanently directs public funds towards a single private development. Over several years, this framework was shaped under pressure and misinformation and deception and without a full public policy debate in my opinion about the long-term cost to the town. So simply because I understand that history, I can't support reaffirming it even as I recognize that the project will move forward. Thank you. Okay. Any other discussion? All those in favor say I.

I. Any opposed? Opposed. Motion passes. Thank you. Up next we have a request for the Capefir regional hazard mitigation plan. Jonathan. Yes sir.

Uh so we had got notified that um the consultants would have liked this uh to be uh approved by the 15th of January. The existing plan expires in February. Uh the county is planning to pass their plan in February. So we would be covered under uh the county's approval of that plan if if this were tabled. Um but staff is recommending uh that you all table this uh indefinitely until we bring it back. There are some changes that need to be made within this um specifically I think section five page 499 um that speaks to dams in the region that have no impact on public drinking water and u uh commissioner Bonnets found this language. It is not correct because the Pittsburgh raw water intake certainly does depend on uh the Hall River Dam. uh there's some other things that we want to get changed in this and so we just asked for a couple of months to uh work with the consultant and DEEQ to get those changes put in. Uh spoke to both of them today u and they are willing to make some changes uh whenever we can provide that information to them.

That's it. I'll take a motion to postpone this indefinitely. So move. Thank you, Commissioner Bonnets. Second. Second. Discussion. Discussion. I want to thank Commissioner Bondis for catching that. Good job. I appreciate your diligence. Thank you. Great.

If I may, I'll belabor it m just a moment. Not not to bask or anything, but through my day job, I'm privileged to have been introduced to hazard mitigation plans uh in 2019. Um, and that was because we at the Clean Energy Technology Center have in particular uh relationships with entities like electric cooperatives who uh were looking at ways to leverage Federal Emergency Management Administration funding, FEMA funding for things like more resilient fire station, which would have solar panels plus batteries instead of relying upon diesel fuel gener. generators and there was funding available for that. What we learned is that for a great number of federal projects uh having to do with resiliency against natural disasters uh or a dam break. If things are not explicit in that HMP, that hazard mitigation plan, then we can't go back to FEMA and ask for funding for it. So, it's really vital that we get this language right and all the eyes dotted and tees crossed and any omissions that we find in it, uh, we need to ask for them to be fixed. Runs on a fiveyear cycle. Uh, FEMA does have a process for allowing minor edits in between those five years, but I think that that this is substantial enough that I think we we need to pause on it. So, thank you.

Thank you. All those in favor say I. I. Any opposed. All right. Thank you. Up next, we have a closed session. So I will take a motion to enter into close session pursuant to NCGS143 3181 11A3 to consult with the town attorney to consider and give instructions concerning a judicial action of seven directions of service Chattam Climate Action Network and Hall River Assembly versus the town of Pittsboro and A6 to discuss personnel. So move. Second.

Okay. Uh motion by Commissioner Huniker, second by Commissioner Foley. All those in favor say I. I. Any opposed? We have quum. I guess They're

Um, all right. But, uh, we're back in open session. I will take a motion to adjourn. So, moved. Thank you, Commissioner Bonnets. Second. Second, Mr. Polley. All those in favor say I. I. I. Thank you. Thank you.