Board of Commissioners - Regular Meeting

Good evening everyone. The time is now 6 p.m. and the Spring Lake Board of Commissioners work session is now called to order.

I do ask that you silence any cell phones and please keep sidebar conversations to the absolute minimum out of respect of the business of the town. To begin, I would like to invite Reverend Candler to the podium to do our Pledge of Allegiance and invocation. Former Commissioner Blackman, would you like to lead us in our pledge of allegiance and invocation? Thank you. Please stand and join us if you choose to.

Good evening. dear heavenly father thank you for this night thank you for the board of commissioners

of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you so much. I'll now call for any additions or deletions to the agenda. May I present?

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'd like to add a resolution honoring the life and legacy and service of Ms. Judy Musgrave.

And we will add that to our consent items. I will now entertain a motion to approve the agenda. Commissioner Cooper? So moved. Commissioner Thompson? I second. Is there any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, motion carries. We'll now entertain a motion to approve the consent items, which are the draft minutes of the June 8th regular meeting. Military Veterans Affairs Advisory Committee application to re-appoint Mr. Tim Baker and the resolution for Ms. Musgrave. Commissioner Thompson. I'll make a motion to approve the consent items. Commissioner Hulme. Second. Is there any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. So now we'll move on to public comments. And we will begin with Ms. Mary Jackson. Remember that each speaker is limited to three minutes. There is an indicator on the screen to let you know of your time. And your topics must be related to Spring Lake. And the court will not reply to comments at this time.

Good evening, mayor, commissioners, and town staff. I am Mary Jackson from Goodyear Drive, Spring Lake. I would like to speak tonight regarding the handling of public records requests and the role of the town clerk in serving the residents of Spring Lake. North Carolina public record law exists for one reason. to ensure transparency and accountability in government. Citizens should be able to request public records and receive it in a timely, professional, and consistent manner. The town clerk plays a critical role in that process as the custodian of many town records. However, transparency must be balanced with responsibility. Residents have a right to expect that public records requests will be handled according to established procedures and that confidential information will be protected. Personnel records, sensitive personal information, attorney client communications, and other legally protected materials should never be disclosed improperly. As taxpayers and citizens, we need confidence that requests are being processed fairly and consistently regardless of who makes the request. We should not have to wonder whether different standards are being applied to different residents. A transparent government requires not only access to information, but also a clear process that everyone should understand and trust. Therefore, I respectfully ask the board to ensure that there is a written public record policy available to the public and that all requests are handled through established procedures and that the town clerk is provided with training, resources, and legal guidance necessary to perform these duties effectively. The goal is not simply compliance with the law. The goal is to build public trust. When residents know that requests are handled professionally and confidential information is protected, the public records are released appropriately, confident in local government grows. I encourage the board to review its current practices and reaffirm its commitment to transparency, consistency, and accountability to all residents of Spring Lake. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Thank you, Ms. Whittaker. Next, Ms. Andrica Rhodes. The topic of concern is 24. Yes.

Okay. so i do have some questions though though does anyone have I've made calls that go straight to voicemail, and when I send emails, I rarely get a response. The only one who answers my call is Harley, though I will say that. And also said, why are we still dealing with the same issues after 24 years, like improvements to the streets, infrastructure, drainage, and housing? And another thing, who's paying people to complain at the town meetings? Because I didn't realize speaking at town meetings come with a paycheck. Apparently I've been doing it for free this whole time, and that's crazy work. So since some people want to be funny, let's make a bet. We can bet that these Spring Lake politicians are going to tell people exactly what they want to hear, and in the end, nothing will get done. Thank you for letting me speak.

Thank you. We'll now move on to our first presentation of the evening and it's an update on our water operations. Mr. John Cannon. I can appreciate you. If you just look at these men, you can tell that they have been working directly on our infrastructure.

council.

Thank y'all for letting us come and speak this evening.

Thank you for being here. Give you a quick update on where we are.

I'm gonna let Joe talk before me this time. Well, I guess technically after me this time. And then I'll finish up. He can give you an update on if you know what you guys have. And uh we'll kind of go from there. You're up.

Yeah, we've got a sheet here. It's just a job cost comparison to let you know on our repairs, not the consulting and everything else that's going on, but just on the major repairs that y'all want to hire out to set contractors. And you can look through the list and see in the bold numbers and that's where it dates. The same got done at the end. You see in parentheses, superior or more contractor. Superior is us. So contractors and subcontractors came out and did good job for y'all. So y'all can come through that and look at the expenses. But as a result, since we signed a contract with y'all in May on August 8th and April 20th, Our projects have been 58% cheaper than an outside contractor. So we've saved y'all money. We've done more jobs. They've done two since we've been here, and we've done the rest with y'all's crew, with y'all's people, teaching them that we've been able to do it for 58% cheaper. And one other thing, when we started, We were informed that the outside contractor had made repairs for 18 months. And the town has spent about $800,000 with that outside contractor or contractors. That's $44,444 a month for 18 months. And we're about half that amount.

Thank you. My turn. I'll make it quick. I'm glad we could give y'all that information, but the information that's most important to me is the reason y'all hired us. There has not been one repair or anything that we've done in this town that your employees have not been involved in. When I say involved, I don't mean driving trucks. I mean directly in the ditch, turning wrenches, hands-on, us showing them what we know and teaching them so they'd be a little more efficient when they do things when we're not here. So the work that we've done since we've been here, we've replaced water services, repaired water mains, found replacements. uh sewer service repairs uh to remain flushing during uh sewer overflow um we have ordered also with contractor owner gina drive of those projects out there and we have been installing water tanks i'm very proud of what we've done and i would like to add this uh i think nicole started this and uh trina had jumped in on it we were also able to get a student from federal tech that came in 120 hours isaiah That was really cool. And that expands what we do out to a different group of people. So when we are hiring for jobs, they have a little taste of it. So hopefully we'll get some quality folks in when we are hiring. Our workload is increasing. We're finding things that have been overlooked. just walk by and we're not walking by anymore so um at the end of the day i think we're doing what you hired us for if you don't have you don't have any comments any questions uh we would love to hear them any input is positive for us um and that's about all i got and i do apologize for my dress

Absolutely no reason to apologize because we know the condition of our infrastructure, our water system. And again, I can attest firsthand, I watched him get inside the ground. He showed me these busted water mains. They're really out there hands-on. I genuinely appreciate it.

And one of the last things we're doing, typically when we have water services, and this is in the past, again, it's no kidding to anybody that's here, not the guys in the department as well, but we've gotten really good at putting band-aids on things. And we're trying to instill in those folks, let's just take the problem out. Let's review it from the main to the service at the house, and that way we don't have to go back there again with another band-aid on it whenever it comes in. So what do you think is the most significant area right now? Not to be too broad, but the Deerfield subdivision, any subdivision that we've seen that is about that age is just aging out. Yours, particularly, has AC-4 lines. We were over on Crescent today. They've got some old cast iron war lines. I encourage you, if you haven't been to the manager's office, there's a small piece of water service pipe in there, and I'll give you a good indication of what your services look like and what your mains look like in that big cast. anything that they true it's just it's just a chapter I wish there was a quick fix on it but it's not that's why anything we're running across we're preparing it our best and if you can't be replaced the pipe on your field the main and he literally stand up yes that'll basically is not possible

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Let me thank you all. When the cards are all extended, let me thank you as well. And we sat down at the meeting and talked. Let me thank you for your integrity and your experience. You were very upfront with us. and your team. I thank you that you're allowing our individuals here to work at the town to get that experience, but they've been on that horse prior to you getting here. So in the savings of $44,000, It's great information for our taxpayer, our town. So it looks to me that we're going forward, continuing to move the town forward in a positive manner. So again, everybody's involved. I appreciate it. Thank you. And we're going to have our portal system up and running. I know it didn't happen overnight, but at least we have experts and professional individuals that know what they're doing. They're working in this great town, Spring Lake. So again, thank you so very much. Thank you, ma'am.

Appreciate it. I want to echo what Mayor Pro Tem said. I am so, so excited to hear what y'all are doing. I just knew when I first met y'all that y'all were going to be on it, and you have been on it. So thank you so much for your experience, for the time that you spend with our employees to get them right, and patience, because I know that can be trying sometimes. but you're doing it, so again, thank you for all that you've done, and Mr. English, thank you as well. Very good job, very good job, sir.

Commissioner Cooper. Well, I get to see the work you're doing. I live on Goodyear. So I get to see you all do the work every time I ask for it. I mean, it's amazing what's getting done. It's amazing. I also want to make sure that we thank you publicly for the work that you've done with us on this decent grant.

Having your specialized knowledge is going to be instrumental in making sure that we

submit a full and complete package to secure this funding so I appreciate your input on that as well thank you so much I would like to add one more thing I know this has been something new to the town all the way around I would like to tell council and madam mayor your people have been amazing for getting us in here i'm i'm surprised carly doesn't have the same hair that i do as much as i probably heard jimmy sent me in the back with all the finance stuff i went to him jimmy i need it right now i need it right now they've all been amazing to work with uh so yes grateful all the way around and thank you all so much for the kind words we'll continue to do the best we can awesome thank you so much thank you have a great evening you too so

I love good news. Don't mistake that for uncomfortable. We are just about to make you extremely uncomfortable, especially at this $20 million summit. Just know that the pain is coming before the healing. And I want to take a point of privilege to acknowledge our state park superintendent, Miss Colleen Bowers is here with us this evening. So good evening. It's always good to have her a part of our meetings. We'll now move on to agenda item 8A, adoption of interlocal PWC agreement. Mr. English, and we have met on this, so we may not have a whole lot of discussion. We have been able to talk about this agreement extensively for about maybe a month and a half now. So just a bit of background.

Mr. English. so thank you madam mayor it's a great opportunity to enter into this public works agreement as the mayor said it's been a lot of discussion i want to bring up teddy warner who's with public works submission who actually went above and beyond to help us get this agreement in place. So I just want to say thank you for that. I know you jumped through some hoops. We will get this vote. I know that's what you're waiting on. It's been a pleasure working with you. Mayor, of course, it's a pleasure. It's absolutely fantastic. So if you could, you know, Jimmy, if you want to come up, we may just go through the high level and give you a summary of what we're going to be doing as far as leading with the tier rates, giving us more capacity to speak to the board about the high level agreement.

This new agreement is a five-year agreement with the option to renew again in five years. We have to buy a minimum of 15 million gallons of water each month. That's no problem, but we always buy more than that. the maximum water that we can buy each month is 40 billion gallons okay we average about 22 to 23 million a month previously if we went over 20 million we would have to pay an additional fee thanks to teddy uh we now can buy the 28 million without any additional fees we pay the lowest tier rate and that rate is higher than last year but it would have been a much higher If it had gone up, this is going to probably, I mean our water is going to go up about 170,000 a year, but it would have gone up 270,000 if not for what Teddy and them have worked out for us by giving us the additional capacity to buy 28 million a month. That would require a 25% increase in our consumption to hit 28 million over our average. So we should be good for the next several years. If we go over $40 million a month, which we've never done, we will have to pay two and a half times the rate of $5.59, which would be $13.98. I don't ever see us getting there because we're not even close to that. If due to growth over the next five years, our average consumption goes from $22 or $23 billion up to $28 billion or greater, then we will have to buy additional capacity. That capacity cost us $3.71 per gallon per day. So that would cost us $371,000 to go from $28 billion to $31 billion. That probably won't happen. That could happen four or five years down the road. Don't see that happening anytime soon. If we go over $28 million because of a one-time leak or an emergency, that clause does not apply. This only applies if our normal consumption goes over $28 million. The most we can buy in one day is two million gallons. Is there anything else out there?

The only thing to add to that is, not to speak for our engineering manager, there's a little more than $40 million. You can come to the mic. Sorry about that. So the $40 million was the request of the staff to make sure you had enough for future growth. At the time that you need to renew this, we can have these conversations again, and we'll definitely do that with you. So Mr. Abramson kind of hit the high points for you, but one thing is to keep in mind is on July 1st is when the rate would have changed. That tiered rate would have been applied at that point. And it's roughly $2,200 per million gallons, more than what you're paying right now, above the $20 million that you typically average. So what he's alluding to is... You're going to be on one rate for all the work you're using on this new agreement, whereas in the past, you've done a tiered rate. Not sure why it was done that way. It was done probably 20 years ago. And this is going to fix all of that. But I can't take the credit. This is a team effort. I'm Mr. Hollis, your engineering manager for work resources, and many others that have supported me on this. And again, it's been a pleasure working with the staff on this, too.

Thank you so very, very much. This has been a thorn in our side for quite some time now. So being able to now have a bit of breathing room with these water rates, it's been a long time coming. and i have heard from staff how hard you've been working on this and so i want to make sure we recognize you we thank you for the dedication um because you didn't have to work that hard but you did and i appreciate it very very much and i know the residents are going to appreciate it because this is going to save us just a little bit more on our water rates. So again, bear with us. This is not, again, I say the same thing with the infrastructure. These water rates, this is just the beginning. We are just getting started. So you're not in the clear by any means, but we are moving in the right direction. So again, thank you so much. Mayor Brunson.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'd like to offer you a motion that we adopt.

we've talked of the fpwc interlock agreement with fairfield public works commission commissioner jackson i just want to echo the motion oh i i can you can recognize that during discussion with me so if you want did you want to go ahead and second the motion yeah i'll second the motion all right any discussion

Thank y'all so much. Tammy, thank you. Mr. Overton, thank you. Mr. English, thank you. And in the mirror, you sitting in the back, stand up.

Thank you, too.

Thank y'all so much. This means we're moving forward, so I really, truly appreciate what you've done, all the hard work, the hanging on in there, and thank y'all so very much.

All in favor? Aye. Any of those?

The motion carries. Thank you so, so much.

You love it. All right, now we'll move on to the adoption of the Overheals Park sewer agreement. Mr. English.

So there has not been any change since the memorandum of understanding. We are waiting for the attorney from Cumberland County to get us an actual agreement. So I spoke with our clerk and we just didn't have time to attend this, but let you know there's been no changes. Thank you.

and this is coming you're waiting for a current county's attorney the actual agreement and they still haven't sent anything back we just have the memorandum of understanding and we've reached out multiple times um yes and we haven't heard anything back yet i would say we spoke with women and they are in the process of having it to us when they say process can we get a solid date because we've been waiting for this for months That's unacceptable. We have to get this agreement done like ASAP. Commissioner Cooper? Aren't these breaks in the budget?

What breaks? These are breaks that we have to bring on. Okay.

so we will move on and we will come back to the overhills park agreement once we have that but if we could make sure we reach out to the county and let them know again we have to get this now and we can have a special meeting absolutely absolutely All right, well now we'll go on to agenda item 9A, our new business, and this is Development DB 004626, Timothy Dorsum, Planner 2, Kervlin County Instructions. Hi there. And just for the sake of me not having to do this over and over and over again, you can just continue through all four phases.

Good evening, Mayor, Mr. President. of the Town of Sierra Lake, facing New York State on Planner 2 with the Oakland County Planning and Inspections Department. As Mayor Anthony said, I'm here to present three related patients, the first being DEV0046-26, 0059, and PLAT-0032 are all related to the same overall development. So to start with, with 46, this is a preliminary plat submitted For two properties within the town of Spring Lake, the applicant is Promeo Builders. They are the owners on the property. The agents for it are Mr. Sean Pennings, who is in the audience, and Mike Adams, who is the surveyor for the project. The request for this particular item is a preliminary platform for a six-lot residential subdivision. The proposal is existing development along West Manchester Road. There are no new structures or improvements proposed in this and each structure is proposed to stand on its own lot meeting all zoning and subdivision provisions. To help the individual, this is an aerial taken from a 2026 county GIS database viewer. This is showing the two separate properties outlined in blue. There are six total structures. The first three on the front towards the road are existing single family residential detached structures. The three in the back towards the lower little river Our multi-family buildings, as you see in the red dots, those are address points. So in the back we have two buildings with two addresses that signify their existing duplexes and the one with three address points signifies an existing tri-cluster building. The overall developments with the culinary classes shown here is approximately 8.11 acres in size. The zoning for both parcels is R15. R15 is a residential district designed primarily for single family dwelling units with a lot area of 15,000 square feet or above. And even though the definition says single family within the use matrix for this town of Spring Lake in section 42-63.3, multi-family dwellings are a purposeful use within the district. So even though There is existing molding family. They are in permanent use and do not create the zoning on the property. Again, the property is existing. No new structures or improvements are established, so no new rural constructions are proposed at this time. And there are existing utilities for the development with existing spring-like water and sewer utilities connected. To give a little bit more, the two lots to the left, lot one and two, have single-family homes with a shared driveway. And the remaining four will all have a joint-access easement that provides access from a singular point onto the properties with the utility easement as well to have any maintenance on the private utility lines be by the property. and also ensure that that easement is used. Lot 6 on the far upper right and Lot 3, the larger one, for road climbing, no access easements. So they all want to touch your access road. our planning with the county has more consistency review determination on this proposed preliminary class the application and the prepared packet that was brought to you all with the transitional letter and the preliminary class is now in the consistency of extremely good importance and overall this does include seth's presentation of this preliminary class but as i said mr sean kenny's the applicants is in the audience if there are any questions of specific development or sites if you may have any and To kind of elaborate on why we are here, within Spring Lake, Code of Ordinances Chapter 36-30.C is what gives the Board of Commissioners the authority to approve a culinary class. With that, the application is to approve the application to approve a culinary class.

And with that, I conclude the presentation. I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Thank you very much. I do have two questions. So if this is approved tonight, will any development that happens on those plots, will they have to go through RULAC?

Yes, there is a condition in the first letter they provided to staff and was provided to the applicant and the surveyor. There is a condition that if there is any development, any new structures for for residential occupation it is going to require a form of collaboration with the rule act to address any concerns due to the fact that they are within the apz1 next to program so there is a condition to address that concern

And it's also in the 100-year floodway as well?

Yes. None of the structures that are existing are within the floodplain, but there is also a condition for Chapter 20 within these three-linked flood ordinances dealing with floodplain. There is a condition that if there is any structures that may be proposed within the floodway, they have to meet all provisions within Chapter 20 of floodplain management to adhere to any and all permits or other forms of regulations dealing with floodplain and floodplain permitting for structures.

one more question so who would maintain that easement or that shared access it would be the individual property owner that that easement into lot six to do that work commissioner jackson thank you very much is this the same thing we talked about last week no this is this is new are there any other questions or comments from the board I now entertain a motion to approve DEV0046-26. So moved. Commissioner Jackson? I second that motion. Is there any discussion? one moment before we move on I'd like to hear from the developer just about the plans that you have coming I'm sorry yes ma'am how are you I'm well thank you how are you so do you have any specific development plans plans to keep that property as is get it built back to how it should be decent housing and then i didn't even ask my family that's awesome that's awesome did anyone else have any questions for us all right well uh all in favor uh any opposed motion carries good luck with your investment for your family and we can continue to deb zero zero five nine dash two six so

the db-0059-26 this is being related to the same property for a group development site plan and depending on the effects or the reason for it is there is no current approved group development site plan for a multi-family establishment on that site so make sure it's all in performance and complies with current codes the applicant has to at the same time apply for and be approved for a Virginia site. So that's what this particular case is regarding. So again, for little donors, the owners use their pennies in the audience as one of the agents. And the site plans for three, again, existing multi-family residential dwelling units with no new structures. And each structure and plot is to meet all requirements of the development provisions of Section 36-71. And with a circle here to kind of showcase it, these are the three existing structures in question on the current developments. With the new developments, for the most part, a lot of the provisions are the same, except there are some additional viewpoints for the developments. The first is that because these are so multi-family, to ensure that there's enough access and essentially, if you will, provide enough parking for any sort of cars and vehicles, a minimum of two spaces are provided for each dwelling unit inside. Therefore, for the two duplexes, there are a total of four parking spaces, and for the dryplex, there will be six parking spaces. Additionally, there is a requirement of 500 square feet of recreation space for dwelling units, so they are showing 1,000 for each duplex and 1,500 for the triplex. Again, there's no structures or anything proposed, but it is a dedicated space for anything that might come in the future. And once again, these are also served by existing water and sewer lines by the town. Upon performing a consistency review of the loop development site plan application and proposal, current planning with the Family Planning and Planning Inspectorate Department has found that the site plan and the proposal is consistent. We screen like good ordinances. And again, overall, this concludes my portion of the presentation for this development.

And if, for development purposes, there's any questions, Mr. Pennington is also in the audience. I now entertain a motion to approve or deny DEV0059-26. Commissioner Thompson? So moved. Commissioner Cooper? Second. Any discussion?

I have.

Yes, ma'am.

Commissioner Jackson? Just probably a very elementary question, but you were saying that these are the same property, so the reason why you've got different presentations is because each property has to be done separately?

Each application needs to be done separately, ma'am. Thank you, sir. And as additional information, there's 15,000 square feet required per building unit, but each new property lot contains enough space to accommodate each school-to-family residential building. yes um thank you uh so did you say some of these were originally single family uh the ones at the very front are single family at the back those are existing multi-family all in favor any opposed motion carried all right and we'll go on to flat 003206 This is the final of the pre-applications for the formal building development. This is simply the final plat or the preliminary plat that was just approved. The main goal for here is that the final plat is found to be in conformance with the approved preliminary plat, which as we will be seeing. It is pretty much the same exact item. The Surveyor has listed it as a final plat though just to distinguish between the Rebuild and Site Plan Plenary Plat and the Final Plat version. And overall it is a conformance. The Surveyor has been working with us very well to address concerns from both the fire chief's office with regards to access and providing clearance for any sort of fire apparatuses as well as providing notes and details regarding the utilities access and also there is a note on the plat regarding flu-like concerns so as far as staff has found with the proposed final plat it is in accordance with the approved preliminary plan and is also consistent with the screen-related quote affordances. And this concludes the third of Seth's presentation for this particular development. What was Roulette's comment? Roulette's comment was essentially, because everything is existing, Mr. Hansen said that there's not really anything he and say regarding it but if there are any proposed new additions especially homes because of the proximity to the airfield and being in the APZ1 which is the accent potential zone one a very critical area to be in If there were any proposed new homes or occupancy, he would like it for the applicant to speak with the roulette to find ways to mitigate any sort of damages or take into consideration any of the roulette's concerns when proposing certain structures.

I will now indicate a motion to or deny PLAT-0032-26. Commissioner Thompson? So moved. Commissioner Cooper? Is there any discussion? Hearing none, all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Congratulations, sir. I'm excited for you. That's a huge thing to do for your family, so I commend you for that. That's a big deal. Thank you all very much.

Absolutely. And the applicant will have 30 days from her approval to bring in the miler for the town's signature and then bring it to her planning or honor. Awesome. Thank you.

And now we will move on to DEB003526, Phase 3. Mr. Fagan.

Good evening, mayor, chair, commissioners of the board. Sorry, it's been a long day.

My name is Richard Fagan. I'm here to present case DEP-35-26, which is a preliminary class middle for the Elizabeth Street Phase 3 subdivision centrally located within the town of Spring Lake. The applicant is requesting preliminary plan approval before the BOC Board of Commissioners for a seven-month residential single-family detached subdivision. The applicant is Carl Maynard, who is here today, of Keenum Hospitality. Pursuant to Section 3630C, the Board of Commissioners shall conduct an evidentiary public hearing and provide a quasi-judicial decision on the preliminary plan to determine if it's compliance with this ordinance, political zoning regulations, and officially adopted conference appointments. General site unit for the subject property. To the left is a graphic of the site itself, highlighted in yellow with a red boundary line. The property is undeveloped land. The proposed development is located at the southeast corner of Elizabeth Street and Warfield Street. Total acreage of the site is 125.0 acres. And the zoning district where the subject property sits within is R6, which the district designed for This is the proposed one, very glad submitted by the applicant, which was sent to the town, I believe mid last week. Just here for your reference. The development profile shows some details of the subdivision. The proposed lot total is seven lots. The minimum required lot size pursuant to the zoning district it sits within is 6,000 square feet. The smallest lot is approximately 6,142 square feet. The largest lot is 10,900 square feet. As previously mentioned, the housing type is residential single-family detached. There are no private or public streets proposed within the subdivision. Access was proposed off of Elizabeth Street and Warfield Street. The utilities will be served... So the subdivision will be served by the Town of Spinn Lake Water and Sewer. And the Town's Fire Chief provided a comment for the subdivision itself and stated that the plan meets NC Fire code requirements and no other comments or objections, as well as the stormwater manager also provided no comments or objections as well. The Permanent County Planning staff has conducted a consistency review determination and found the submitted application and preliminary plan to be consistent with the Town of Spring Lake's zoning and subdivision ordinances. Based on the presentation and the information provided before the Board, the applicant is requesting approval of the proposed preliminary plan. That concludes our presentation. The applicant is here to remain if you have any questions.

Are there sidewalks up here already?

So for, we go back here. Just when staff did our consistency review, we determined that we thought we'd seen sidewalks. If the town confirms or decides, you know, sidewalks need to be in place, there is a condition, a national ordinance requirement, just in case. Give me a minute here. So under Section 36.107, in any subdivision located within the town, sidewalks shall be required on one side of the street, the location to be determined by the administrative officer and building inspector. So if the town was to determine if there were no sidewalks, they can still be installed at a later date.

Mr. Manning, did you know if there were sidewalks out there? Were there sidewalks already out there? Okay. But we're planning to put some in. Yes, we need to make sure that on the cover sheet uh it says eight blocks did it was there a change of that was a typo it's seven blocks okay right

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

I'd like to offer a motion that we approve DEV 6600662684 for the region of 36-107 for the staff office, 35. I'd like to make a motion that we approve DEV003526 with the condition of the 36-107. Commissioner Burgess?

Yes sir. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries.

Sorry, Richard.

which is a primary plan.

for the Elizabeth Street-based water subdivision. The applicant is requesting a preliminary trial approval before the BOC for a three-lot residential single-family detached subdivision. The applicant is also for our landing here today, Keewan Community Bunker Corporation. uh pursuant to section 3630c board of commissioners chuck conduct an evidentiary public hearing provide a positive judicial decision on the preliminary plan to determine its compliance with this board's political zoning regulations and officially adopted comprehensive plans So general site data to the left, you can see the subject property highlighted in yellow. The property is undeveloped vacant land, and I do think there was a single family residential dwelling that was recently demolished, if I remember correctly. The proposed development is located at the southwest corner of Elizabeth Street and John Street. Total acreage of the site is 0.73 acres, and it also sits within the R6 residential zoning district as well. This is the proposed preliminary plot. As you can see, it does have sidewalks on this corner of Elizabeth Street and John Street as well. Development profile, so total of three lots. Minimum lot size, 6,000 square feet as well. Smallest proposed lots, 9,436 square feet, with the largest being 12,393 square feet. type of development is the same as before residential single family detached there are no public or private streets proposed access will be provided on the john street and or elizabeth street it will be served by the town of spring lakes water and sewer utilities town fire chief did provide comments today it meets nc fire code requirements and no comments or objections

I have the same question about the sidewalks.

So Cumberland County planning staff asked that the consistency review determination and found the submitted application of preliminary plat to be consistent with the town of Spring Lake zoning and subdivision ordinances. Based on the presentation and the information provided before the board tonight, the applicant is requesting approval of the proposed preliminary plat. I close my presentation. Happy to answer any questions, as well as the application as well.

so there are sidewalks shown uh that go from elizabeth street around the corner

i'm honored to be here just for clarification sidewalks came off just to kind of help typically when they show the sidewalk on the plans or individual lots typically they will bond those sidewalks they do not want you don't do construction on an individual home while the sidewalks are in place they come after the fact so prior to the um after the certificate of occupancy is an issue then they'll lay in the sidewalk for that individual as richard had mentioned you also have like almost like additional requirements where your building inspector can actually ask for sidewalks when they are falling for um So I just want to share that. I appreciate that.

That's good information. I've now entertain a motion to approve or deny DEV006626. Commissioner Thompson. So moved. I don't know. Mayor Rotem or Commissioner Hooper or Commissioner. Who's first?

Mayor Rotem. Michelle, I don't know.

Commissioner Hooper. Second. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries.

Mr. Manning, how many houses have you put out here now?

No, please.

nine years now. I think for Chapel Hill Road, we have 16 miles to go there. The Ion Park behind the Ion, there's nine. Elizabeth Street, there is five on Phase 1. Phase 2, nine. Phase 3, I just want to just thank you for working with me on this. I'm enjoying myself working with you. What I would like to announce to you in one second, one of the minutes. On the spurs, We are doing a PNC Bank as part of the CBC, what they call the PNC Roadshow, where we will have guest speakers, the mayor, and Kurt David Mitchell, the mayor, Kurt David Miller, the town commissioner, and the board chair. Along with other speakers, we may have Michael St. And we may have a couple other speakers there. Today we'll be here talking about homeownership and what PNC is doing to this community for homeownership and affordable housing. Not just affordable housing, but homeownership as a whole. And I'm sure everyone else is going to be talking about the process of how to come to the person's home. But most important part of that will be PNC will be approving people from the spot for ownership. Ownership. It is true. It's a global process. So the first round in the 4th of July, we have already conspired with all of your speakers. We will have an agenda. We will be putting this information out. And I would love if you guys could kind of announce it through our stream media so people can understand and know about what we're doing when I continue helping to make affordable housing available for people that can't afford it. Not just rental, but affordable housing, home ownership. That's our mission. thank you so they're about the sidewalks i don't mind putting up sidewalks i mean some people hate it but sidewalks appreciate it thank you for the work you're doing in spring lake but i would like to offer

Maybe if you could have someone set up during the first Friday to let people know what's out there, what's available. I think that would be real helpful for people in the community. Because, you know, there's just so many ways to reach people. So, if you could do that, I think that would be really good.

I'm rewarded. I have a lot of testimonials. I have a lot of videos. One thing that I don't have, I try to Thank you so much, Mr. Mayor.

All right. We will now move on to our agenda item nine F. Budget amendment BA25FY2026. Is there an overdue?

Good evening ladies and gentlemen. Budget amendment 25.

All we're doing here is just moving money around within the total budget. There's also no increase or decrease in any one department. We're just moving stuff around among the line items so that we don't have any line items over budget at the end of the year.

Any questions or comments from the board? I'll now entertain a motion to approve uh budget amendment BA25Y2026 Commissioner Cooper. So moved. So second. Commissioner Thompson? I second. Any discussion? Hearing none, all in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. We'll now move on to our next budget amendment, VA 27FY2026. Mr. Overton? Good. Mayor?

Yes. Are you Ms. 26? Oh, okay.

We're going to be a...

that's not the one we just did we did 25 sorry 26 26 is very similar to 25 most of it is just simply uh moving a little money around within the departments there is an increase in the total budget of thirty six thousand nine hundred that is coming from uh uh building permits our building permits are substantially over budget due to that big apartment complex and also thanks to the gentleman here who builds houses our building permit revenue has gone up this year so which is good news that's great but we're using that uh for two main things for one we've had some vacation payout you You know, we've had several employees leave. We need to increase our vacation payout in a few other lines. And the other increase is $20,000 to legal fees. That is related to the foreclosure of Spring Lake property acquisition and the fees that we want to owe to Mr. Hutchins' law firm. The rest of that, again, is pretty much like 25. It's just moving money around within each department. The total increase is $36,900 and it's paid for with additional permanent revenue. Mr. Warner? Has the Hudgens Law Firm billed us? Some of it. They billed us $8,400 so far. There's another bill that's going to come when they actually, at the time of sale is when they told us. So this was in consultation with their protection? Yeah. Okay. Thank you.

and just again just so we hear foreclosure and it sounds like a big scary word but in this case it is great um this is what we have been working towards this is um the end of a 3.5 million dollar um deficit that we were facing with some land that we could not um we can't do anything with and once this foreclosure happens the town will be able to then take ownership of the land and we can actually do something with it so this is a really really really good thing for the town this is where we take ownership or get a lot of money awesome so Mayor Procter thank you Madam Mayor I'd like to offer a motion that we approve budget amendment BA 26 FY 2026 second Commissioner Burgess second any discussion Hearing none.

Mr. Oakland, I don't know if this is appropriate at this time. I should be speaking about this during the budget. But moving the monies around, I know it says for the foreclosure and SPA land and vehicle repairs.

Yeah, we had a transmission go bad in one of the cars in the street department for trucks in the street department last week. And we didn't quite have enough money left in that line item for vehicle maintenance.

And you said it was a total of $36,900? $36,900. Yes, ma'am. Okay. Just a portion, and it may relate to the budget that we're going to approve tonight. Individuals, employees that's working and they're holding a second position until we hire somebody in that position, normally they get extra monies. because they fill in two positions at that particular time. Once the individual employee is hired in that position, the money is taken back.

Yes. Yes. Because of some of the vacancies, we have had several employees take on additional responsibilities and their salary has been increased when that vacant position is filled back to whatever their original salary was plus the cost of living that's in the budget. Okay, thank you very much.

I'll now entertain a motion to approve B.A. All right, all in favor, thank you ma'am. Any opposed? Motion carries. And now we'll continue on with VA 27.

All right, 27. In last year's original budget, we set aside $143,900 transferred from the sanitation fund into a new fund, the capital reserve fund. That fund didn't exist last year. This is a fund that we set aside money each year and hope to build it up, earn a little interest, and use it for future capital improvements and replacement of equipment, big things like garbage. and those things. We're trying to build up the savings. We budget the transfer out since this fund wasn't set up last year. We're just budgeting the transfer in of $143 plus $2,900 of interest. We're not spending any of it this year. We're just doing the budget for that transfer and the interest that is earned is still in the savings. So there's no end expenditure here at all.

There's a question I have. Why was it not set up last year?

There's a new fund. It was a new fund that we didn't have before. A new line item, a new fund? Yes, ma'am.

What made it be a new fund each time?

this is the first year we've had a capital reserve fund a capital reserve fund is a fund that you set money aside for future capital improvements equipment purchases and you save that money the town has never had that fund before this year we're doing another 140 000 in your upcoming budget and it's budgeted in both both funds going out and the fund coming in okay thank you

love it this is great okay commissioner jackson so what you're saying every year we do the capital um fund that if we don't use it it just grows yes ma'am it grows until you buy a new fire

Okay. But we're doing the right thing and saving towards it. All right. I'll now entertain a motion to approve BA 27, part 26.

Commissioner Cooper? So moved.

Mayor Parton?

Second.

Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. All right. Next budget amendment would be 828.

Good. In last year's budget, or this year's budget for 26, because we did not renew the contract with cumberland county for the manchester fire station we basically closed that section and the plan was that we would eventually move the water department out to that location okay of course that has not happened yet and now based on the new contract with the with cumberland county and we're still waiting on we're going to reopen that fire station okay We want to reopen that fire station. They're going to pay us about $700,000, and so we have to reopen it. They already gave us $50,000 to buy the furniture and appliances for that. But one of the things we did in that budget since we were going to use it for a water department, we budgeted the debt service on the fire station in the water and sewer fund. This budget amendment simply puts that debt back in the general fund because we're going to use it as a fire station, not as the water department. So if there's no increase in the budget, we're just moving it from the water fund back to the general fund where the fire department is. The payment is $56,000 each year.

commissioner jackson i'll make a motion that we approve budget amendment b828 at box 126 commissioner cooper second any discussion all in favor aye any opposed motion carries thank you thank you sir now we are on to the item of the evening adoption of the town of spring lake budget ordinance for fy it should say 26 27 and not 25 26.

Oh, I'm sorry.

That's my fault. Okay, so that's just a 2627. Adoption of Town of Spring Lake budget ordinance for FY 2627. Mr. English.

It is my privilege, Madam Mayor and Board Commissioners, to present to you the 2026-2027 proposed budget. As we have worked tirelessly, we've met several times with the board, the staff, to ensure that we have a budget that is, I would say, fiscally responsible. And one of the biggest highlights for me in this budget was the employee raises. We've had employees that have not had raises in over three years, and that was one of my priorities to ensure that they received a raise. We've seen a lot of our employees who were below the average. So that was a big part for me to make sure that we had the cost of living as well in our budget. So you would see that in my message to you all as we move forward tonight. It's important that we highlight that we are still behind our odds, but we are on track. to get our audits in a place where we can say that we are not behind, but we still have a lot of work to do on our annual audits. And so we will continue to work with our auditor on that moving forward. But I'm excited about just the work that we are doing with our water infrastructure. We're gonna continue working with our strategic plan. continue to meet with our focus groups and ensure that going forward we have we're looking ahead to a brighter future for spring lake so with that said i want to go ahead and turn it over to you

I don't have it saved on here. I would have to go get it saved.

so what would you like to highlight specifically when you go through so we have on revenues at five million do we have that so we can make sure that the residents can see can we pull that up we need to pull that up they need to see where their money's going

so it should be in the agenda

This is not a gadget. We get it. We're going to get this right in here. Absolutely.

what we can do is move on to agenda item 10k the ordinance number

2026-4, an ordinance declaring the road closure for First Friday. And this is the standard ordinance that we submit to DOT to close Main Street for August, September, October, November for First Friday. It's pretty standard. And we just submit this to DOT. And they'll reply back with the acceptance. But it's pretty standard, same thing we've been doing every year. Did anyone have any questions about the ordinance? All right, I'm going to entertain a motion to approve ordinance number 2026-04, an ordinance declaring a road closure for first Friday on May. Commissioner Jackson?

I have a discussion.

Okay.

Commissioner Hooper? So moved. Commissioner Thompson? I second. Any discussion? I do.

So that's what we have decided to do, but I don't know what we have decided to do for first Friday. I didn't know that we weren't going to do it. Yeah, it's budgeted. And that's the special event.

Yes, ma'am. However, we usually get sponsors to offset most of that cost.

All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. So now we will go back to agenda item 9J, the adoption of the Town of Spring Lake budget.

And we're printing off the presentations so you can have those as well. We did not have those in the budget, I mean in the agenda package.

That's okay. We know this is your first budget, so we'll have some hiccups.

Get it through. So our general fund, proposed general fund for 2027 is 10 million. It's $10,245,968. Of course, with the current budget, it's $10,782,625. Our capital reserve fund is $144,800. And our water and sewer fund is $5,912,775. As you can see from the current budget, it actually has, has come, it's coming down. Our stormwater fund is $527,170. And our current budget is $708,000. So if you see the proposed budget there, that has actually come down as well. Our sanitation fund, $930,468. The current budget is $1.2 million. Other post-employment benefits, $82,000. And the current budget is $75,000. Spring Lake property acquisition, which we discussed earlier, $790,000. And then the current budget is $500,000. And then the total proposed budget ordinance is $18,633,181. And our current budget is $19,245,341. Can you touch on why it went down, please?

well if you look at which particular are you just talking about i just want to make sure that we are this is we're talking about the residents money and they have to i want to make sure that we are as clear and transparent as possible so that they understand what we were told as well

yeah i mean so so looking at um we did not raise taxes we did not do any kind of tax increases so you're going to see that drop from there but we still have a proposed balance So our general fund estimated revenues, if you look at the Avaloran property taxes, that is a $5,467,141. That's a percentage of 53.36%. And those other taxes and licenses, 38,100. That's 0.37%. Our North Carolina Department of Revenue, Our sales tax, franchise tax, beer and wine tax is $2,585,000 to the 25.23%. Our permits and fees, which we said has went up, is $147,605 to the 1.44%. our powellville nctot is 445 000 and that's a 4.34 and cumberland county manchester fire district tax is at 647 000 at 6.31 percent and our interest income is 175 000 one point seventy one percent and the miscellaneous revenues seventeen thousand one hundred twenty two point seventeen percent our inter fund transfers from other funds is for the sixty thousand four point four nine percent And our fund balance appropriation is $264,000 at 2.58%. That's a total revenues of $10,245,968. Commissioner Hoover? Thank you. Can you go back? Go back.

So we are having to pull money from one balance to balance the budget. Is that what the 264 is for? You said 264,000? 264,000. We have to appropriate 264,000. Yeah, but I'm just asking, is that why we have to appropriate the balance?

Right, so 264,000 is the balance. Okay.

Why are we appropriating $254,000?

The budget includes a $300,000 max for the potential grant that we're going to get from Piedmont Natural Gas. The $264,000 we're taking out of savings for that grant max if we get the grant. If we don't get the grant, we don't have to spend the $300,000. The other reason the budget was down is we bought a lot of equipment this year. Unfortunately, we had to pay cash for it. The street sweeper is due to be delivered tomorrow morning at 830. So that's why the stormwater budget is down $200,000 because that's how much it costs to buy a street sweeper. And some of the other, it is capital outlay. We bought some garbage truck. So in the sanitation fund, we bought the big garbage truck. And over the last year, that is some of the reason for the decreases. But anyway, all right. You see that property taxes makes up about 53% of our total revenue with the Department of Revenue sales and franchise tax being our next largest revenue of 25%. Okay. General fund expense. government, that includes government body, administration, finance, human resources, information technology, is $2 million. Police, fire inspections, that's our largest budget item, $6 million. Power bill, And the streets department is $1 million. Economic development planning is only $408,000. That includes the $300,000 match for that grant for Piedmont National Gas. $79,000 for parks and rec is two things. The $4,000 grant we get every year from the Arts Council. other projects we do, plus a $75,000 match for eight. The Commonwealth County Parks and Rec is going to do some capital improvements, and they've asked us to put up a $75,000 match for that. So that plus the $4,000 on the council is $79,000. Of course, debt service is just our normal debt payment on all of our fire trucks, the fire station, and the police cars. And then a transfer to other funds. That is a transfer to the employee retiree benefits fund, the $79,000. See, public safety makes up 60% of our total budget. Our next largest is general government, followed by transportation, streets, and power building. Okay. Property taxes. Tax rate stays the same. Our net property value inflation is $749 million. That gives us a levy of $5.5 million at a collection rate of 98%. Our estimated tax revenue is $5,400,000 for the current year. Okay. Current levy. One penny of tax only raises $73,000. The Department of Revenue, this is our electric. Franchise tax, total of $583,000. The Department of Revenue also gives us solid waste tax each quarter that goes into the sanitation fund of $92 million. Sales tax. You all know that the county changed the way it allocates the sales tax. Last year, our sales tax revenue was 3.2 billion. We had to give 375 back to the county based on the interlocutory agreement. That goes away. This year, we get to keep all of our sales tax. The only problem is it's only about 56% of what it used to be. Instead of 3.2 million, we're going to get 1.8 million. So that is a decrease of about a million dollars of 43%. Can you see our sales tax? You see how it's gone up each year? The red line is what we received. The green line is what we got to keep after we reimbursed the county. You see in 26, it's way down because of our... But both lines are the same because we don't have to refund any to the county. Okay. Power bill. We get $350,000 a year from Department of Revenue plus $94,000 a year from the City of Fayetteville. They pay us 30% of the streets that they annex from Fort Bragg. Okay. And plus the $1,000 a month. We have a total of $490,000. And we're going to use all of that for engineering and street repairs and sidewalk repairs. This is a list of all of our debt. Our total debt service payments are $664,000. Our total outstanding debt is $5.1 million. And you see that the maturity date follows. Some of those loans go out in 2047 and 2048. So we've got right many years left on some of our large debts. Sanitation, no change in the sanitation fee. It's $396 for each resident times 1,923 residents. Our total revenue, $930,000. That's about $33 a month for your garbage collection. Sanitation expenditures, 900,000. The biggest expense here being GFL. We budgeted about a 4.7% increase in that contract based on the consumer price index for trash collection. And also the sanitation fund is paying $224,000. Part of that is $140,000 that's going to the capital reserve fund. The rest is money going to the general fund for administrative expenses. Here's your trash collection contract. See, we're paying about $36,500 per month in this year's budget. to GFL to let it crash. And we pay GFL $13 a month for a 96-rollout gallon cart and recycling. And if you just have the rollout cart without recycling, it's $10 a month. Here's the street sweeper. It is, like I said, it's going to be delivered tomorrow morning, but that's coming out as a 26 budget. Skoll Water, our fees stay the same, $5 per month for residential and $6 per month for each equivalent residential unit for commercial properties. So that's $60 a year or $72 a year. An equivalent residential unit is a house of about 2,300 square feet. So if your church parking lot is 23,000 square feet, you'll pay 10 times that. All right. The stormwater expenses, again, they're transferred 45 to the general fund for administrative. The biggest expense, of course, here is repair the maintenance of the stormwater. We do have two employees in this fund. One of them is going to be the... Public Works Director, which is currently vacant, its salary will be shared between a water and sewer and a stormwater fund. We also have in this fund a maintenance tech whose primary job is going to be to drive our new street sweeper. Both of those positions are currently vacant.

Do we know the percentage that will come from each burns to pay for them?

$85,000 from the water and sewer fund, $35,000 from the stormwater fund for the public works record. These are our current budgets.

if we can hire somebody for that that may not we may have to increase that a little bit depending on the quality of cash Mr. Archie can I pause you for one moment I have lights on Commissioner Jackson did you have a question that you wanted to ask now or is it something you can you go Mr. Cooper thank you all right Spring Lake property acquisitions we budgeted 790,000

All that hopefully will come from the sale of the land. Once we get the property foreclosed, get the title in our name, we will offer it for sale. The tax value on that land is three and a half billion. Hopefully we will get at least the 790. And anything above that would be the profit. We will use that money to pay back the general fund for the money that was loaned to Spring Lake property acquisitions and also to pay back the money that we purchased the mortgage note for $50,000 from the bank. Here are your total inter-fund transfers of $1.4 million. You see the biggest one there, Spring Lake, owes the general fund $763,000. And the rest of those are expense reimbursements and the retiree health insurance. And then the sanitation fund is putting $140,000 into the capital reserve fund for purchase of future equipment and fire trucks and vehicles and garbage trucks and stuff like that.

That was Spring Lake property acquisitions, not Spring Lake. Just for clarification, Spring Lake property acquisitions.

All right. Fayette and Public Works, we're going to have a 21% increase in our water, cost of water for the Fayetteville Public Work Commission. But, as Mr. Teddy said, all of our water is going to be at the same rate of $5.59. We will not be paying the increase rates. Had we not worked out this agreement, we would be paying $8.15 for it. anything over 20 million gallons and 838 for anything over 24. now we pay 559 all the way up to 28 million so our water cost is going to go up about 177 000 but it would have gone up 275 000 had we not had vandal not taken away the tiered rates What did I do wrong? Okay. And you see our average is about $22 million. And this is the terms of that contract that we went over earlier tonight. Okay, Hornet Regional Water, their rate stays the same at $335. We buy about 10 million gallons a month, so we budget $420,000 for Hornet Regional Water. Okay? Water revenues, 5.9 million. There's no increase in the water and sewer rates. We did do a 17% increase last year. They're staying the same this year. of water expenditures you see the big one million dollars for capital outlay that is for the repairs and maintenance of water and sewer lines and also if we don't spend that we'll put that money aside hopefully to pay the debt service when we can borrow some money to do some more repairs. Two million dollars for purchased water from Hornet Reef that's Hornet Regional and Fayetteville PwC combined Okay, 300,000 transfers in the general fund for administrative expenses and 261 for debt service. Also, in the water and sewer operations, there is 600, we're planning to replace 670 meters at $400 a meter. That would, our goal is to replace at least 10 every year, and this is about 15% of the meters. Okay. Our asset inventory assessment, $36 million of water improvements. Hopefully this $20 million grant will help us with that if we can get it. We've got $43 million of sewer improvements. These are not in the budget. We just have $1 million for this year. And hopefully we will get a $20 million grant from the Department of Defense. And if we were to borrow $10 million to pay back the loan, and this is what it would cost us a year to pay it back over 20 years, $500,000 in principal, the first year interest would be $400,000 at 4%. So our total one year payment on a $10 million loan would be $900,000. That would require a 15% increase in our water rates just to pay that debt. The problem is we don't need $10 million, we need $80 million. Our water and sewer rates, they stay the same, and this is just what they are, the same this year as last year. There is one change in Overhill's rates. Over, last year we increased overhead rates to our outside customer rates, which was a 300% increase, which the county said they cannot afford, okay? The memorandum of understanding, these are the terms. For this year, they will pay $9.25 for each household out there, 300 houses every month. They will pay $6.25 per 1,000 gallons. Next year, they will not pay the $9 minimum fee, but all maintenance of those water, sewer lines, and pump stations will be the county's responsibility, and they will pay us a bulk rate of $9,000 per thousand gallons. The water rate for overhills is going from $5.08 to $5.60. That is just to cover, round it to the nearest penny, to cost it. It costs that up to $5.59. Okay, this is just a schedule of your monthly water bill based on 0 to 10,000 gallons. Average water bill of 5,000 gallons is $128 a month. Okay, and that's really it. Capital outlay. These are the things that are in the budget for capital outlay. We've got a $300,000 match for people on natural gas. We're going to buy a zero turn more for the public buildings department. Our other toll, $75,000 grand match for Cumberland County Park and Rec. Replaced some stuff at the fire station. We're going to buy several pickup trucks, six new police cars, and one Ford F-150 for the police department and replace a Chevy Tahoe. And the fire department's got 190,000 miles on it. uh there's money in here to put a new roof on the police fire station because it's leaking 90 000 uh and to replace some pickup trucks in department and uh two uh two new units we have already replaced several of the air conditioning units on the top of this building we just replaced one last week All right. And these are the big changes from last year's budget. We're getting 600,000 from Cumberland County. That's helping to pay for the reopening of the fire station, the cost of living increases. We're adding three new firemen. Well, not new firemen. They're free frozen firemen. We're discontinuing our dispatch contract in Cumberland County. 135, that's allowing us to hire two additional police officers that were frozen a couple years ago. Public Works Director, as we said, the total salary in the budget is $120,000, shared between the water fund and the stormwater fund. Our cost of... State retirement is going up again. That's going to cost us an additional $40,000. Our medical insurance, which was going to go up by 26%, thanks to Mr. Crumpler, he's gotten that down to only a 7% increase instead of 26%. And then positive living increases, a minimum 3.8, and a slightly higher adjustment for those employees that have not had a raise in 3.8. Thank you. Total salaries and budget of $7 million for salaries, benefits, work response, retirement, and health insurance. Okay. And this is the salary for the mayor and board next year. Okay. And that is it. Okay. That is just the summary of our budget. Total of $18 million.

Do we have our pay and fee schedule, our rate and fee schedule and the pay classification, work chart, can we, do we have those?

We make those available to the board so you can at least see them before we vote on the budget?

So many copies.

So many copies.

Do we have the work chart and the copies?

There's no change in the tax rate. The water and sewer rates, except for the bulk rates for overhills, those change. But the residential and commercial rates stay the same. The only other change in rates is the new system development fees that you adopted at the last meeting. Everything else is the same as last year. Sanitation, stormwater, property taxes, and water rates. Overheels and system development are the only changes.

Are there any other questions or comments from the board? I know Commissioner Jackson, you have your mic on.

Yes.

Mr. Overton, I want to tell you personally, I thank you so much for the work you have done, the having the town managers back. His first budget, he did a wonderful, fantastic job. In fact, some of the things that he could not answer, meaning he did not know it, he just did not answer, but you stepped right on in, and that's what we show is teamwork within this town. As long as we stick together, we can make things happen. So thank you so much, brother. for coming to his rescue and i know he already know because he done told us this several several times so thank you again mr english for what you've done thank you mr overton for having his back you two work very good together thank you any other questions or comments for the board

This is the presentation that we gave you last Tuesday. We did make a couple of changes. The only fund that changed in total was the general fund. The budget ordinance that you're approving tonight is actually $10,306,000. That is due to the increase that you approved for the fire. Okay? That changed. There's one change in the water and sewer fund, and that is we add $10,000 to repairs and maintenance in the... Refugee collections departments, that $10,000, $8,000 of it is to fix the drive-through window. But we reduced another expense in that fund so the total didn't change. But you're actually voting on the general fund $10,306,000 instead of $10,245,000. Everything else is the same.

Thank you.

So the only thing you need is the board chart.

Go ahead.

Is there like the position classification plan? That's what's coming down. Thank you.

So what's required is the org chart, the message from the town manager, the fee schedule, and the pay classification. So you all have those in your budget now.

So we have to put it on the website. Does this meet the requirement for the citizens to view the information?

And that is an actual requirement. This has to be posted, all of this information as well.

all of these are part of the budget and the citizens have not had a chance to see that and they're supposed to have

So it's probably just whatever we did for the public hearing was posted on the website. Right. Which was mainly just the board budget ordinance and some slides provided by Jimmy.

So you're saying that what needs to go to our website is the word chart and these two documents? Yeah.

Not the statue. The funeral statue.

When the budget is posted, all of this information has to be made available for public viewing. And this was during when the budget ordinance was first posted. When we had the public hearing on it, all of this information was supposed to be posted together.

So with our reclassifications and a new human resource manager, we have put this together since our last special budget meeting. So that was really why we had to put this together so fast. because we made changes in our budget in the last special meeting and it's a reclassification of positions mr porter can you chime in on this uh on us being able to honestly not on the fly that's something i would have to pull out we can't spend any money next week period

Understood on that part but I want to make sure that we are passing the budget correctly and making sure that we are following general statute which mandates what needs to be shared and what goes in the budget and the time limits for residents to view it. I want to make sure that when we do this it is being done correctly and that is it. So that means we have to call a special meeting to get the budget passed so that we do it correctly. I would much rather do it that way than have the LGC come in and say, hey, that was done incorrectly. So I would much rather take the time to figure out how we do this before we pass a budget.

So to just be clear, all we're doing is posting these to the website so the public can see them?

I want the attorney and our clerk to look through the ordinances to find the exact process to make sure we're not missing any steps tonight.

as always policy general staffers and I want to make sure as well we have settled different meetings we have the chief we have the financial director as well as you've been there mayor and we've been there and to get to this point to know we need these three documents when we had extensive meetings to make sure that we get in front of the public and we're doing everything that the public needs to know, I just think if that was the case, and we can put this, and they're looking it up, put this on there, but we was all together, but to get to this point to approve the budget, and then it's like, okay, well, you don't have these three documents in there. I do believe that the citizens should know everything, but why is it that we were trying to work together as a team collected it like Ms. Overton did tonight that we did not, as well as working with Carly, have this information put in there and i think that you kind of called it out as well as miss cooper that y'all knew about this but we didn't know about it um but anyway that's what i said it's what i got you think but we do want to do it right there but we'll move forward and they're going to look it up but i'm just saying we had we had some meetings again that i'll say and that's why i said

mr talman this wasn't a gadget thing but maybe i was wrong you are absolutely right with this is not got you because i spoke with mr english multiple times several weeks ago and i gave him this exact list all right to make sure that these were included in the budget i actually said that to him in my office this was this was not a gotcha mr english has been made aware in ample time that the budget message was needed the budget ordinance was needed the fee plan fee schedule was needed and the pay classification was needed i personally made sure that he knew these were a part of the budget and i made sure at the end when i talked to him this afternoon that's why they were scrambling to try to get these documents so there was ample time provided so that these could be put in the budget thank you Any other questions or comments on the board? Go ahead, Commissioner Jackson.

I want to echo off of Mayor Prochazin. Even though, Mayor, that you may have told Mr. English, it would have been good for the board members to know, since we have the vote on this vote, and know what's going on as a new board member now back then four years ago, I would have liked to know that so we can also reiterate what's going on with the budget and to be put at the time and point that we're getting ready to approve it, to say it can't be approved because of these documents that some of us didn't know anything about is kind of crazy to me. With the responsibility of each board member, especially the older board members, should be relaying messages to the newer board members what it's supposed to do so when we do our job, we do our job correctly and in decent and in order. So Mr. English, I personally apologize to you because I did not know that this was supposed to be in there or I would have reiterated because you had five or six bosses on here so it would have been good to be told five or six times to make sure this is done because this is important. As Mr. Overton said, if we can't get it approved, In time, we can't spend no money, so this is crucial. So every information geared toward the budget should have been known before tonight. But I'm all for having a special meeting to approve the budget because, Mayor, like you said, we need to make sure we're doing things, as Mayor Pro Tem has said as well, in decent and in order. So I have no problem with that.

So again, I want to reiterate, Mr. English had ample time and I told him multiple times that this was a part of the budget. And if there is messages that need to be disseminated about our budget, that comes from our budget. He is the manager of the budget. He should have been the one presenting the budget. And we've heard these things over and over and over again. We should be able to hear that from the man that is literally his signature as well as mine go on this budget. Again, I will not apologize because you were told multiple times with ample time to prepare these documents.

The human resources manager has just started. She recently came on board. And when you gave me the list, we pulled this together. And like you said, at the last minute, because she had to work through the reclassifications, at the same time, you all approved in your special budget meeting the actual reclassifications. And this was just last week. So again, she was told by our clerk that she had to have this today. Like you said, that misinformation, as she's coming in new, she had this particular item. The other items were complete. So I think that's the issue with just having this information at the last minute. She not knowing, she found out this morning from our clerk. So again, I just wanted to clarify that.

We are not passing the book. The book stops with the manager. The book stops with the manager. You are the budget officer. That is your responsibility.

Also, in addition to that, the presentation of the actual budget, we presented the budget to you on our special meeting. I was informed that tonight you would actually not need an entire presentation. You would only come in and vote on the budget. We presented to the citizens in the previous meeting, so I was not informed that I would go through a full presentation. I just wanted to clarify that as well.

I don't think that...

Commissioner Cooper and then Mayor Pro Tem.

Thank you, Mayor. Yes, ma'am.

I only caught this because last week I went through some of my training from previous classes about budgets and audits. And when I got here today, and he said he was putting that together, is when I said to myself, I don't think this passes the requirement for general statutes. So I wasn't trying to do it about you. It's just something that I noticed and realized while sitting here that we have not given the citizens who we work for an opportunity to look over these documents. So that was the only reason why I said that, because that's what came to me.

Mr. Mayor, did you have something you'd like to add?

Again, these reclassifications in terms of the citizens having them was gonna reflect first thing in the morning once we put that on our website. So it wasn't a situation where we were not going to have this information. revenue department. That was the biggest part for us to make sure those were not aware.

Mr. Attorney, do you have any information?

I'm looking to see exactly where it says that, but no, I mean, frankly, we give a little heads up. I'm not blaming anybody, but I mean, I'm seeing if I can find anything.

Well what we will do is we will continue on. We do have closed session when we come out of closed session. We can give you a bit of time to look through this before we go ahead and adopt the budget.

Oh, I'm sorry. You're right. Well, the attorney stated that if, you know, because we're trying to work together. That's what we're trying to do. And whoever noticed, whatever noticed, or whatever the case may be, we're never going to be able to work together. Because that's why I said it's more than a gadget moment, but it looked like it was. Again, I'll say that. But the attorney said he wished he had had a hands up, as well as Carly. clerk, as well as the board, as it was so elegant to say about Ms. Jackson, then we could all have been the latter. Since we argue about to let you know, because I would have never been here going through this, that would have been my common courtesy to let you know to do what you need to do for the citizen. Because that's how I operate. I'm not upset. I'm not angry. I'm not shaking my head at you. because it looked like we had some situations with the agenda, because sometimes we do make mistakes. But something like this, the attorney should have known. And it's great when you just get here, you just realize it. But if I had known it a few days ago that you should have known this, attorney, as Mr. English, you wouldn't be here doing this as well as we would. Because we want to always make sure we're being transparent to the citizen. But this should never have been this way.

at this time we also want to make sure we take accountability for our own research we are all up here and we all have a job to do and we all have to trade and we all have to know our budget that is our responsibility is to know what goes in these budgets it is not It's not the job of the mayor or any other board member to disseminate any information to you. You were duly elected to be a good steward for the position, and that means taking responsibility to educate yourself on how this process works. And that goes for the manager as well. Commissioner Jackson?

I appreciate the words, Mayor, and you are right. It is our civic duty to do our own research and everything, but just like with anything, sometimes you miss something. Everything that has been going totally on every time, spring, late, it's a lot. But with this budget, it's supposed to be very, very important. So it would be good to look at our seniority that's on the board. to have maybe point that out to us because we may have missed it. So with accountability said, you said you've spoken to the manager and you told him, so you're gonna hold him accountable, but I'm gonna hold the senior members of this board accountable, but not letting me as a new member of this board to let me know that this was important. This was important for us to know because as many meetings as we have had on this budget, This part should have came up. Now, I don't know. I could be wrong. But you're saying that the budget shouldn't come past because of the organizational chart positions when the main part of the budget is how the money is going to be spent. Everybody knows that. But if this is supposed to be part of it, then by means be part of it. But don't insinuate that because we didn't know about the organizational chart, that we didn't know about the classification, that we was not indeed in place. knowledgeable of what the budget is and the money being spent.

So I... No, that's not the insinuation. By in means. By in means.

I think I have a point. So I think what I'm going to do is because we can go back and forth with this over and over again. You feel some type of way. We feel some type of way. We're not getting anything done by all of you feeling some type of way. So I'm going to be quiet, and I'm going to let you do what you do so we can move on. Absolutely. Thank you.

So what we'll do is we will table the budget until after closed session, which will give the attorney and the clerk some time to look over the process to make sure that we are in alignment.

Just to be clear, I want to set expectations. This is a big issue. one in closed session i'm going to be participating in closed sessions so there's only one of me um two you know i don't want to take the time to do a deep dive because this is getting so big so i'm making no representations that before we get out of this meeting tonight i'm going to have an answer i'm just being very clear and honest thank you for your transparency mr english did you have something else no your life

so again we will table the budget and if you need to call a special meeting afterwards we will to make sure that we can get this done and hopefully we can get it done tonight we'll now move on to agenda item 9l discussion regarding revised draft policy for key cards or purchasing cards and I'll go ahead and do the discussion regarding draft policy 19, the code of ethics for board members. So I put these on the agenda simply because we are working through policy updates and have them for the past several years. We have policies and ordinances that are far out of date. I believe these two particular policies are 10 to 15 years old. And there have been a lot of questions here lately regarding purchasing cards. And I wanted to make sure that we have an updated policy because there were so many questions surrounding it. So what I would ask is that we give our consent to staff. to go ahead and do some revisions on that purchasing card policy to get it up to date as well as the code of ethics for board members. And this is just regarding our public conduct, our communications and conducts amongst each other, our communication and conduct with town manager and staff. And again, these policies have not been updated in quite some time, and so we can begin with some low-hanging fruit. I do hope to continue at every work session to have some updated policy brought before us so that we can work to get our policies updated. If there are any that you feel, and I believe it's in the agenda, the list of our outdated policies, And so we can go through those if you want to prioritize which ones you want to do first. But these are policies that all have to be addressed. Mayor Pro Tem.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. We've done this in the past and what we've done is worked as a board when we're going through these policies. We got together. and we all spoke on it like we did the budget so we can go through these in the future so it's not just presented to us and have enough time to think about what we want to say so I think you had called at the last budget meeting a retreat if we can do it prior to then so we can look at these policies and see what we can put in place because my understanding that They have been using the policy from another town.

and we should be using our policy from spring lake because these policy is different according to whatever situation we run into so i would like to kind of go over these absolutely right um so that that's perfect to um discuss it i just went and when they say they're using uh policies from other towns they're not actually using that exact policy they use them as references to make sure that what we're creating is in alignment so they're not like just copy and paste they do tailor them like for example the local government commission for our finance policies they had a bunch of examples for the city of dogwood this imaginary city and what they do they provide the templates for the policies and then you take those templates and you customize them and so when they're using other municipalities they're using them for reference And just to kind of expedite the process, having the clerk or staff prepare the policies in advance with us doing our own research as well. And then we come together, we can edit the policy that staff prepares with our notes, updates, implement recommendations. It's just to kind of keep the process going.

uh commissioner were you finished commissioner jackson i was going to say you seem to be on the same page i was going to say that i don't think we need to pass this off to the staff i think we need to do it ourselves it's real responsible for the policies and everything i think we need to sit down and go over the policy it may be faster to pass it off to now but that's not their job But if it is their job and we're responsible for the policy, I'm going to do the policy. I'm going to be a part of the responsibility. I'm going to see what is being done, know what is being done, and not just take somebody's word for it. I'll phrase it like that. So I agree that we need to work on the policy ourselves and maybe during the retreat and go over. So if it takes two or three months, a little longer than you usually do, then that's what we're here for. We've got four years. We've got plenty of time.

right uh just just for clarification it is staff's job to draft the policies it is our job to review and approve the policies we don't draft them and that's a part of the clerk yes ma'am

Commissioner Jackson, I can tell you that the staff, the new human resource manager, Trina Whitfield, Derek in finance, we've started a committee already just reviewing all of the policies. As you mentioned, the issue that we had, I think you were referring to was the previous town manager pulled some things from South Carolina. That's a bit of an issue there when you're looking at other states. That came up. But what we're doing as a staff right now is meeting on a, I want to say a biweekly basis, but I'll verify that. We are going through each of the policies. So what we're going to do is bring those policies to you all at a given time to keep you aggressive as we move forward. But you will have an opportunity to go through each of those policies so that you can make changes and vote on those. So I just wanted to clarify.

Thank you, Mayor. What Dennis is referencing is the personnel policies, not the standalone policies that the board approves. I believe that's where a little confusion is coming in. The policies aren't being, these policies aren't being reviewed. referencing the personnel policy.

And that doesn't mean you'll come to the board. No, it does. The personnel policy was approved. Not for staff. I mean, it's for the whole town?

Yeah, for staff members. That's the one he's specifically talking about. They're talking about some different kind of policies. So when you say stand for the policy that you're talking about, what stand for the policy?

For the personnel policies, that will go. I mean, for these key cards and the code of ethics, that will go through our court.

Okay, okay. And we will have every opportunity to go live, live or live? Yes, ma'am.

Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. We go line by line. They just give us kind of pretty much the bones, some recommendations, and then we say, we want this, we don't want that, cancel it, do it all over, and we have our opportunity to put all of our input in. Commissioner Boomer.

Thank you, ma'am. A key card policy could go through finance.

Mr. Overton, can you verify that?

does finance prepare the policy for p-cards is the question I'll say this. I'm not much on life policies because I like to sue. But it was made very clear when we gave this card back to anybody that if you misuse the card, you will no longer have a job. And that the policy, the credit cards, you have to turn in your receipts. If you don't turn in your receipts, take your credit card away, and we have done that with one employee. They'll reconcile each month. The credit card will pay on time. The receipts are attached to the credit card statement. The credit card statement is reviewed by, was reviewed by Evelyn and now by Derek, and then it's reviewed by me before it's paid. So, all of We check the account coding so the credit cards are used every month. There is a limit on how much you can charge on the credit cards each month. So we are doing the things that we need to do to ensure that the credit cards are not issued.

i i understand all that fully i just want to make sure that we have this in policy because there will be a time where mr overton is here and we're not sitting on this board and we need to make sure that we have the structure in place

Thank you, Mr. Overton. Go ahead.

And the policy doesn't state who has key cards and who doesn't?

We don't know. That's why we have to update all of that. And these are things that we can put in that updated policy if you want to know who is using the key card that you want. a documentation these are all things that we need to put in to the policy because right now it's we know the rules but the rules are sitting down and as i've said before we've got to make sure that we start moving by policy because that sets the standard for when we're not in these seats when they're not in those roles so Right now, whatever the outdated policy is, they go by the rules that Mr. Ofer can just explain, but those aren't explicitly outlined in the policy. And so we'll, again, we can go through and Madam Autry has provided the list of the policies that are outdated that we have to get updated, and these were just the top two. And again, we can do them two at a time. We can, if you guys want to do them during a retreat or what we did before was we formed a policy committee and it was just a few board members and they went through and just read through policies and read mine and brought that back and then we went through whichever policies and updated it that way. So there's all kinds of options if you want to think about that. And then once we get those policies back, we can kind of create the way we want to move. But just think about it and we can decide that at our next meetings. All right. Is there any other questions or comments? Let's move on to our updates. And I only have a few. Happy Juneteenth from last week and happy Fourth of July in the next week and a half or so. So it's been a very, very, very, very, very, very, very busy weekend with all of the celebrations. I do want to commend the county. This is the first time that we have worked together across municipalities to make sure that every municipality was having a Juneteenth celebration that didn't overlap It was a time to be had in whole meals in Fayetteville and out here in Spring Lake. So it was just a really, really good Juneteenth and I am excited and tired. We also have a new driver's license agency, full service driver's license agency on Fort Bragg. There used to be one many, many, many moons ago. And thanks to our current Garrison Commander, he has worked diligently to bring this service back to soldiers, veterans, and their family members. So this is a huge win for our soldiers, our veterans, and their family members, and DOD civilians. we have also been asked by and i will forward this email to you all um i just received from our carmela county mayor they would like uh support in uh pushing for a consolidated 911 center As you guys see, we pulled out of the 911 agreement due to double taxation through the tax that comes from your cell phone, plus the taxes we pay to the county. So we pulled out of the agreement and how they are encouraging the other municipalities to do the same and then consolidate the services under one umbrella. Right now, they're getting a bit of pushback from the city of Fayetteville, the discretion of the board if you guys would like to I do recommend that we do support the county in this consolidated 9-1-1 service center it is a service that the county provides and To put it plainly, people really don't care who's controlling the calls. They just want to make sure police, fire, and EMS respond when those calls come in. And so I am in support of the letter to the counties expressing that Spring Lake will back them if it's at the pleasure of the court. So if you have any questions about that, I'll open it up to your questions.

Why is the city of Fayetteville not on board?

They run their own non-loan law operations. That's where I would like to get more detail before I say or agree to this. I want to know why. Why is it important?

Understood. And I'll report you all the background information. So we don't really have a dog in that pipe. It is a finance issue with the city of Fayetteville and Cumberland County. So we pulled out and Cumberland County is providing our calls regardless. But it's pretty much a unified effort with all the municipalities to say, hey, let's do this. This is a service that the county provides. Let's let the county provide the service. And I'll send you the background information. I'll send it to the board.

If they already do it, then why do we have to do it?

It's just a letter of support. Yeah, I just wanted to make you guys aware of the request. I just got the request, so I wanted to make you aware of it, and I'll send you the information that I have, and we can come to the determination if we want to provide this letter of support. Again, it's something that I do support, but I have the pleasure of support. Again, lunch with the mayor is on the 24th at 12 at Rice Roots and Rolls. And big meeting on Friday. We are meeting with PBOT Natural Gas to finalize the agreement for the natural gas movement. So I'll have more information after Friday on where we stand with that. I will be out of office from the 9th to the 11th. I received another scholarship from Local Progress to go to their national convening. They are a grassroots organization that really teaches about policy development and those hard-pressed issues that municipalities oftentimes struggle to address, and they really teach you how to get inside the policy to help strengthen the municipality, so I will be attending that from the 9th to the 11th of July in Baltimore. Baltimore. And that's all I have, Mayor Pro Tem.

Okay. How you doing? Let me thank you and your officers. I think you stated at one of our budget meetings that you had over 900 calls. The town had over 900 calls. And speaking of 911, with that 900 calls, it is important that when the citizens call, that you respond. So let me thank you and your officers, because that's a lot of calls. And I think you was asked for one month, and you stated it was for one month, and I see that being a lot of calls. So again, let me thank you all for that in the beginning. A drive-thru window has opened. The citizens are very grateful and thankful, and it slowed up some of the traffic in there, out here. As well, I was approached several different times, and I've been hearing this over the years, that the individuals that watch the meeting over YouTube, they say they cannot hear. they said they cannot hear so whatever we can do to look into that to get it fixed but please hear me if you're listening i did state your request that will town manager look into that to get the so they can hear us speak but they are very interested even though if they're not here they are looking at it on the youtube as well as i'm grateful that i've been working on the audit with the town manager as well as a finance director and i think we've had the documentation that we're looking for and we're moving forward as i stated when i went off this board was behind in the audit and i didn't want to come back on the board and still be behind but we are moving forward on the audit Again, if this budget is approved, then I know it's going to be approved. Because we work very hard on this budget. But each department is trying to do what we need to do. And again, Mr. English, okay, we're good. We're going to get through this. came, you stayed overnight, and all the other board members came. We asked questions, and we thought we was at a point where we were going to be able to vote on this tonight. Well, we're going to be able to vote on this tonight, but with this first audit, I am pleased. I'm pleased for our employees getting raises, as well as our water bills did not go up for our citizens, as well as our taxes did not go up for our citizens. So we're going to get this passed. Miss Jackson, you are in August, you're planning a back to school giveaway, as well as you say that these children are going to be in uniform. Mr. Sullivan and I would like to sponsor. some children and um give you monies for that to sponsor i'll be working on behalf of sponsoring some of these children because i'm thinking you're saying that the uniforms about fifty dollars a piece could be but Okay, so I want to let you know that and continue to put this out in the community because we do have some children who are going to need some uniforms, but we will be sponsoring uniforms for the children as well. i think that's about it but anyway thank y'all so very much thank you for working on the audience thank you for being here and uh we want to continue to try to work together as a board we need to try to work together as a board it's not a power struggle up here uh sometimes it's best to be quiet and i like to if I need to let any of you all know, I'd like to let you all know ahead of time and not get you here and put you on the spot. And that's how Ms. Southern will continue to operate. If I have a question, I'll give you a call. I think that was said to me when I got back on the board. Ms. Southern, why don't you call them to ask that question? And here we are now, not calling. So I will try to do my best. If I have anything that I know prior, but if I don't, then... we'll have to deal with it at this point but again thank you all very much for attending and let's continue to try to work together for the better of this great town springland mr thompson the only thing i have is there will be no town cleanup for the fourth of july weekend um so we will resume cleanup um the following uh first saturday in august that's all i have Commissioner Jackson.

I want to see if we can get a resource, maybe a manual or some type of thing because it's been put out in Spring Lake from what I've got today that we don't have any resources for people who need food or people who need clothes. There's a lot of organizations here in Spring Lake. There is churches here in Spring Lake that feed every month. They have uh pantries where you can go into so i would like for the town of spring lake and i will hit it if it's okay get a resource guide what we have to offer to our citizens in spring lake and i'd also like to mention again the back to school event it is august the 15th it will only be for the spring lake residents i do a back to school event every year but this one is personal to me they closed the school and they forgot about wt brown is a uniform school So parents are already having a hard time getting supplies. Now they have to get uniforms. So we have two campaigns going. One is they close their schools, but not our hearts. That's for the book bags. I've had very, very good response from Sandhills Heritage, from Spring Lake Ministerial Alliance, from Burgess Boxing. Lord, forgive me for forgetting y'all. But there have been some huge responses of donations coming in for that. Everybody's getting receipts. Everybody's getting what they need. Just now with the generous donation from Mayor Pro Tem. This is about our children, our community. And let me let you know right now, the fight is not over. Because they closed the school, now they got the rebuilders going.

And we are on it.

We are on it. So come on and count it. Commissioners, if you hear me, if you can hear me, Commissioner Jackson, while you vote me and Black for a dollar, build us a city. Where am I? I just want to say we're moving forward. I think we are where we are.

We're getting grants for more bureaus. Divided housings are coming down. Code enforcement is coming down on them now. We had a meeting today, and I feel like the town group in Chief Jordan, I know you want to say something about what y'all got going on. Would you come forward and let the board know what you showed me? Thank the board for what you're doing. what you showed me today oh the traffic yes it's okay when you come up

uh just very quick another hour is late um one of the things that i recognize as your chief and our department recognizes is that we are having a dramatic change in our traffic accidents here in our town uh we're having a uh outcry if you look at our residents about speed today in spring lake Today we had a targeted traffic operation that started at 7 o'clock this morning and ended at 5. A few of the staff from that today, and all this is an investment to slow our water traffic down and reduce those traffic taxes, which also reduces our insurance for all of us at the end of the day. We had five officers running radar. We have radar service officers today. We brought them in over time. Because we still have to answer the calls for service, when 911 calls. That's the 900 we talked about last month. But for today, our officers conducted 56 traffic stops, wrote 40 speeding citations to require them to report to the court. The highest speed recorded was 8 miles an hour in our town. Other citations issued by our officers were eight expired registrations, two inspection violations, one no insurance, Intent violation, a stoplight violation, unsafe movement violations, driving while license was bugged, three of those. Resist, resist a land obstructed by some kind. One lady called her a significant other to come pick her up at a traffic stop. Well, she was released privately and ended up being arrested. And so there's a significant other who tried to interfere with that. All that to say is that we recognize in this department that we have some disservice to our citizens. We're aware of that and we're addressing that. So, in English, we're going to get some calls tomorrow complaining about traffic citations. And I expect the people who are our efforts to make this a safer community will spring later. So any questions about that? So we were running throughout the community from Main Street, Highway 210, 87, 6th Street, over in the Holly Hills area, and Deerfield as well. Plus, these officers are also running radar on a regular shift. They wish to stay, get out there, be seen, let the citizens know. A lot of these, though, are our citizens. They're people passing through our community, causing issues with our community. So we just wanted to educate them and get their attention, and we started that today.

Carry on. Please do it as much as possible. How much money do we have for overtime pay so we can keep as many officers? No, seriously. I am saying this lightheartedly, but it is a serious problem. The amount of fatalities we have had in this community is unreal.

So we have applied for a grant with the And how many officers do we have left to be radar treated? My goal is to have at least one officer radar trained with every shift, at a minimum, so that we can conduct these operations on a daily basis and slow off traffic and protect our community. I would like to get, at the end of the day, I want to have every officer radar certified with radar for the car. Of course, there's an expense to that. And so we will expand those radar units as we can.

Thank you so much. You guys got the tough one of the toughest jobs and we genuinely appreciate it. Is there any other questions or comments?

Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate you putting them on the spot. That was great information.

Thank you, Mayor. I also want to say thank you to all the staff for all the work they do. It was much appreciated. And Jackie, I have some stuff for you because somebody told me you were doing something for back school. I used to do it, but I ordered some stuff to bring you. So I will get that to you. I appreciate that. You know, I love my kids.

It takes a village.

Yes, yes. And I attended the brunch that the mayor had yesterday for Juneteenth. And I'll just say, if you didn't, if you weren't there, you missed a great event. We had spoken word, great food from, what are the Bougie Bites and Boards? Bougie Bites and Boards. And I mean, people from all over the county were there because this year, you know, the Juneteenth, all the municipalities worked together. And I received a Community Excellence Award, as well as Deborah Johnson. Deborah, well, I said that. Okay, so, and it says for steadfast leadership through Spring Lake's hardest chapter. I don't know what that says.

It says, for steadfast leadership through Spring Lake's hardest chapter and its turnaround, and for never being too busy to stop and listen to a neighbor with gratitude of service for the town she serves. Excuse me.

So I want to thank Serpent 1865 and the mayor, but I'm telling you, make sure, please, don't miss the... The events, the mayor was the title speaker, and she talked about the enslaved cemetery, and many, many of, I know my relatives are in that cemetery, and probably Commissioner Thompson, but she said their names. It was powerful. And so I just want to thank you for that. I didn't want to say I've been working full time as well, but I am happy to share any trainings I take. If they send me the videos, I'm happy to share. I'm happy to share. So all you have to do is tell me what, and I responded to your email. Just tell me what you're interested in and I'll forward it to you.

And I do want to finish.

I also did get a scholarship for Local Progress to go to Baltimore on July 9th and the 11th as well.

Where's my scholarship? I want to go to Baltimore.

Local Progress, I'll send you their information.

I am.

It's really good. And I want to also pledge our support from Circa 1865 to make a donation to

Mr English so I won't be long but thank you chief for that report and I want to echo Commissioner Burgess and the work we're doing on the code enforcement next our water infrastructure I've taken many many tours around this town and I just can't sleep at night this is I would say the top priority of mine in this role is gonna be nuisance as well as just overall making sure that we address code enforcement. We're working on bringing you all some new ordinances. The ordinances that we have in place for this town have no teeth. have you all something here, I would say by the next meeting. It's just that much of a priority for me. We are fortunate. We're going to name another porter, Tony Porter, an alum of Spring Lake who's coming back. He was with us many, many years ago working in cold enforcement. You all know him. He was a police officer as well as cold enforcement. We have the best I would say we went on a tour today and looked at, I would say, a roll of trailers that must go. like yesterday, and y'all know what street I'm talking about. It's like D Street. It's just absolutely not acceptable. And so under my watch as town manager, this is gonna be one of my top priorities, is code enforcement, nuisance, minimal housing. So yeah, we're on it. As the commissioner said, as far as this big grant, we're excited. We will submit on the 25th. Madam Mayor will be having a support letter. Looking forward to that and get that submitted so we can move forward. With that said, thank you all. Thank you for this opportunity. I do appreciate it.

Mr. Ward?

I have nothing to add, thank you.

Okay, we will now entertain a motion to go into closed session pursuant to NCGS 143-318-1181, confidentiality. And this is for our closed session minutes, to approve our closed session minutes. And then NCGS 143-318-1183, attorney client privilege. Commissioner Cooper? So moved. Commissioner Thompson? I second. motion carries thank you all for coming out tonight we are now in closed session I will now entertain a motion to come out of closed session. Action was taken to approve closed session minutes. No, Mayor.

We decided to hold off.

Oh, that's right.

We did.

Sorry. Oh, the closed session minutes. Oh, we did it.

Second.

Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. All right, we are now out of closed session and we can move back to agenda item. Nine J. Nine J. We were informed by our attorney and our finance officer that it is absolutely okay to approve our budget tonight without having listed the org chart

and the fee schedule was already listed and then mr overton can explain if y'all have any questions exactly where that information was so the question was because the proposed budget ordinance that was posted along with this agenda and provided on june 1st to the board and to the public because it didn't have three things organizational charge position yeah and the budget message um so while i was up here and uh mr overton i think was doing his own research back there too we were both doing it but long story short um the budget message uh there's I mean, the statute mentions it, but I think that's more aspirational. Like, there's nothing in that that controls the numbers. That's just literally, I think, trying to encourage good communication between the town manager in this case or whoever the finance director is, however town's organized, and the board. But then the fee schedule, maybe not in that format, but was listed and Mr. Overton actually talked about it because the reason that's important is the budget ordinance does have to have your projected revenues, which is one of the ways you project revenues is by knowing your fees. But that was presented. The other thing was the salary by position for each literal position. There's nothing in the statutory scheme that I can see that requires that. It just says you have to have it by basically department and line item, which Mr. Overton and Mr. English did have in the ordinance. And the organizational chart is certainly nice. They're helpful for attorneys, but there's nothing that requires that. NAP by statute. NAP. y'all as a board can make whatever additional requirements beyond the statute that you want i have not had a chance to look at whatever our town policy is or our ordinances as far as what y'all expect in a ordinance presentation but it did be statutory minimums mr overton do you agree with that analysis

Those other things that were not in there, they can be posted on the website tomorrow. The public will have a full week to look at it. But the fee schedule that affects the citizens, the water rates, the stormwater rates, The property tax rate and the garbage rates were all in the budget worksheets. They were all in the ordinance. They were there. There's a fee schedule tab in the budget worksheet that's been posted since July 1. And all the other fees, like building inspections and police, in fact, none of those changed. That fee schedule from last year has been on the website all year long. So... And the only fees that change are assistance development fees that you adopted last meeting. And the overheels, which only affects Mr. Wells and Cumberland County, and doesn't affect any of the other cities.

and if we don't pass it we're going to either have to do a special meeting or our interim budget which is fine so i will not entertain a motion to adopt the town of spring lake budget ordinance i love every light is on to adopt the uh budget ordinance for fy 2025 20 20 26 2027 Mayor Pro Tem.

Thank you Madam Mayor. Madam Mayor I'd like to offer you a motion that we adopt the budget POSL budget ordinance for 2026 and 2027.

Commissioner Thompson? I second. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? The budget has passed. Wait a minute.

I said aye.

To the pass? Yeah. Make sure we make it clear. All right. The budget passed unanimously. And that is all.