City Council - Regular Meeting

That's what you want.

Testing, testing.

Thank you. Thank you.

We'll go ahead and call the meeting in order. I'd like to say welcome to everyone here tonight. Thank you for being here. We've got a pretty good little agenda in front of us, but we'll try to get through it as quick as we can. The first item of business tonight, we're going to have Pastor Alec lead us in prayer. If everyone stand up, please, for invocation. Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor Simons, the city council, and all the city staff. It's always an honor to be here with you and also with all the citizens of Lowell that have shown up tonight. I'm grateful to represent my church, St. Mark's, well, in Belmont, but I'm particularly prepared to represent my church here in Lowell, which is Lowell-Smyre United Methodist, right about a block down And we're also always grateful for our city council member, Chip Wood, who is a member of our congregation. So let us bow our heads together and pray. Oh God, we are grateful for the day that you have provided us. We thank you for all the many blessings that you bestow upon us and for your beautiful creation all around us. We give thanks to you for this city of Lowell, for its history and heritage, for all of the people who call it home, and for those entrusted with the responsibility of public service. We ask, O Lord, that you grant wisdom, integrity, and a spirit of cooperation to our mayor, city council members, city staff, and all who work for us for the common good. As our nation approaches the 250th anniversary of its founding, we remember with gratitude the generations who have labored, sacrificed, and dreamed to build a more perfect union in our nation. Help us honor that legacy, not only with celebration, but with renewed commitment to liberty, justice, civic responsibility, and respect for one another. Bless our community, guide the work of this council, and inspire us all to be faithful stewards of the freedoms and opportunities that we have inherited. Particularly this evening, we pray, O Lord, that you will allow our representatives to hear from our citizenry about their concerns and their input. And we pray all of these things in the name of the one who comes and all God's children assembled said together. Amen.

I will have the pleasure of allegiance. Everyone, I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands,

one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you. Thank you. All right. Let's see, the next thing on the agenda is going to be public comments tonight. If anyone would like to speak, all you have to do is stand up, walk up to the podium and state your name and address, and we'll give you five minutes, and we appreciate all of you being here. Go ahead, sir.

Richard Lynch, 613 White Oak Drive, Lowell, North Carolina. I apologize ahead of time. I just want to say a few things and then I have to leave. I don't want to be a hit and run, but I had a previous engagement. First, I want to talk about the proposal that we're going to shut down the recycling center. I do not think that's a good idea. That's taxpayer funded. And if we're going to do anything with the recycling center, we would want to look at maybe finding some other bids for disposing of the material there or maybe even finding out if we could do it ourselves, if we could save money there. Another issue I think we have with the recycling center is that people from other towns use it and If we're going to do that, then I think it should be something where the county might want to help lift the load on the cost of running that recycling center if other townships are using it. Another thing we should consider is that only Lowell residents can use it. And you could monitor that by having stickers for their cars or whatever. And if you're outside the township and you wanted to use it once again, That would fall back on the county. Now, what I'm about ready to address, I'm going to make a lot of enemies tonight, and that's okay because I'm used to it. We're talking about pay increases and there's all types of numbers that are being thrown about. And I have a real problem with considering pay increases if town council has not taken the time to evaluate the positions that we're looking to increase the pay in. We currently have It costs us about $3,500 a week just for our accountant and our city clerk. So that's $175,000 a year for those two positions alone. When you look at the private sector, and that's what I think we should be looking at is the private sector, compare what they make in the private sector to what they make in government sector. And I can just give you a few comparisons. In the private sector, on average, there are eight paid holidays. Here, we get 12. City employees get 12. They get 12 paid sick days. The average is seven. The average rate increase or pay increase in the private sector runs anywhere between 1.5% to 3.5%. In our police department, in just 2022, it was a $72,000 a year job for the chief. That chief now makes $102,000. That's a 41% increase in four years. Nowhere in the private sector would that be allowed. We have our city manager. Four years ago, that salary was $80,000. That is now $120,000. That's a 50% increase in wages. I think that when the citizens elect a council with the understanding that that council is going to do one thing, that they're going to employ a city manager, and that city manager's job is to do one thing, to make sure that the funds and the taxes and the revenues of the citizens of this town are spent responsibly. I do not think in all consciousness that you can sit there and even consider giving a pay raise to anybody unless you could answer the questions, what is their job description and what are their qualifications? If you base your qualifications off someone's resume, has anybody looked at the resume to see if the qualifications were actually real? Before we go into just wanting to throw out money, increasing government spending once again, I think we've got to consider who actually pays those bills. point out Councilman Bates who made a very great statement one day when he said, Council's got to realize it's not their money, it's the people's money. And that's what we need to look at and that's what I hope you will look at. Don't just consider raises. Don't just say, well, it's time for a raise. Evaluate what they do. I would like to strongly suggest that we bring in a job consultant and what they do is they come in and they'll spend about three And they will spend three months with the employees in this area here and everywhere else. And they will give you a report on the efficiencies, what they're doing right, what they're doing wrong, how they could do it better. I understand we spent $27,000 for an upgrade in a software system that was supposed to help us cut back on the expenses in the office. Not only have we not cut back, but we also hired more people. That doesn't make sense to me. So that's my two cents, and like I said, I hate to eat and run, and if I didn't have this other engagement, I'd love to sit here and hear what everybody has to say. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Anyone else like to speak? Yeah, just one at a time. Just one leaves, someone can come up, but we don't have any direct order. Just the next one serves. So thank you.

My name is Tommy Cloninger. I live at 312 West 1st Street in Lowell. And I want to talk about an ordinance that's been on the books in Laurel as near as I can determine since 1995. It's been 31 years. And it's called 130.01, Unnecessary Noise. And I want to talk about Section B, Paragraph 3 in particular. And it says... Let me get my glasses here if I can find them. The use of operation of any piano, manual, or automatic phonograph, radio, loudspeaker, or any other instrument or sound applying device so loud to disturb persons in the vicinity thereof. or in such a manner as rendered as the same in a public nuisance, provided, however, that upon application to the chief of police, permits may be granted to a responsible organization to produce programs in music, speech, and general entertainment. The reason that I bring that up tonight, about two weeks ago, I spent one whole day starting at 1 o'clock, and it went to 11 o'clock at night with music. It was not my music. It was a neighbor's music, and I went next door after a couple hours and asked them to please turn it down. They acknowledged that they had it loud, and they would. They did not. I didn't bother the police until 10 o'clock on Saturday night, and I asked about having somebody to go talk to them about it. It didn't work. It was 11 o'clock at night when they turned it down. And I want to know how this ordinance can be applied. Who you need to talk to, how you get it done. Talking to somebody on Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday the next week doesn't work. Because it sends my word against somebody else's word. But it's like I said, this is an obsolete, somewhat, innocuous ordinance because it doesn't really give you any real guidance about anything. And you can tell it's old because the fine was $50. 1991, $50 was a pretty good chunk of change. Today, it doesn't amount to anything. So, all I want to know from somebody in the City of Loyola, how does it apply? When would it be applied? How do you get it applied? And I'll leave you with that. I don't like to do blindside, so you know what my concern is. I'll leave my phone number with the chief of police. Somebody from the city of Lowell can call me and tell me how I'm going to deal with that. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Cloninger. Anyone else like to speak?

Hello, my name is Patrick McGann. I live at 4032 River Falls Drive. Been a Lowell resident for about a year, so I'm coming at this a little late. I've got two concerns. One, I understand that the recycling center is looking to be removed for the $28,000 that's going to save us annually. My question would be, did we go back to waste management and try to renegotiate that, see if they'll give us a better rate, because it's a loss of income to them. We're not paying them anymore, so they might cut us a break for that. Second thing is I understand that we're looking at farming out the sanitation work to waste management and thereby eliminating our current garbage disposal gentleman. Is that correct? I don't know if you can answer that question or not.

I don't think it would be waste management.

Or another company. I've lived with... people like Waste Management and Republic Services doing trash pickup for 40 years in California. I moved here, and we actually have trash guys who pick up the trash. And they do an awesome job. Jeff is my regular guy on my route. And I can tell you that he takes great care of us. We seem to have a general fund that's unobligated with $6.7 million in it. We've allocated $4.5 million to the budget. I'm trying to catch up on this today, so I'm coming at it a little behind the curve. but if we have an opportunity to keep those gentlemen employed and serving the community because they're going to do a much better job than the guy who drives by with the truck picks it up dumps it and leaves whatever falls out of the trash can on the ground and then someone else is going to have to come by and pick that up i'd appreciate it and i'm about as far from being a socialist as you can possibly get but if i can keep these gentlemen employed i think it's worth our time and effort as a community that's all i have thank you excuse me can i have your name please Patrick McGann, M-C-G-A-N-N.

Clerk, I couldn't hear you, but I appreciate that. Thank you for your time. Thank you.

Can I address that, Mayor?

Yeah, go ahead. My name is Michael Spargo.

We are looking into possibly contracting the trash service from the outside of the proper county. However, that would not cost the resanitation workers. They would still be employed. They would just be moved to another spot within the Public Works Department. So these guys would not be losing their jobs. however they was requested in this proposed budget two new positions I think we held off on the two new positions because if we would have granted the two public works positions then if we did go with the contracted trash service in the next budget then we would have to lay off at least two of the veteran workers we have so we held off on the new positions this year Just in case we did do a contracted service, we can keep our current employees employed. So that's the reason behind all that. I think there was a lot of misinformation.

Well, and I did talk to Josh. And he understands that he might get another position. But he likes the job he has. And I realize that you don't always get to get the job you want. Right. But as someone who witnesses the job that they do, and I don't know how much money we'd save for this farming out of the contract. Thank you. Thank you. Go ahead, sir.

If you would state your name, please. No, you're fine. Name and address, please.

My name is Michael Spargo. I actually don't live in Lowell, but I have had a recent situation where I've been involved with the town of the city of Lowell. And I felt like it was something that needed to be brought before the council. It was pretty important, I feel. I'm a licensed general contractor for 26 years in Gaston County. I build north of South Carolina. My son is works with me and he's also a licensed general contractor with the highest limited license you can get unlimited and commercial license. So he and I both work together. We were contacted by the city of Lowell about a community center project that they wanted somebody to give them some quotes on bids on. We showed up at the job. We met with Justin and another gentleman. I don't know who the other gentleman was. First thing Justin said was, when we got there, was, I don't know why I'm here. This is Andrea's job. So I didn't know who Andrea was. Still don't know Andrea. Never met her. Never seen her. I don't know who she is. But anyway, so we went into the project, walked underneath the house, underneath the community center, where there was the floor in this community center was pretty serious. It was sagging. Walked in there, and I noticed that the floor joists were eaten up with power post beetles. They had decimated the floor joists through the whole thing. That's why the sagging was happening. So I told them I would give them an estimate. And the second time I came, they gave us a list of what they want you to bid on. That time, they didn't give us a list. So I could have bid one thing, and another guy could have bid something else. So it was really very unorganized. So I went in and I said, based on what I feel like it needs, I went in and I figured a quote in replacing all the floor joists. putting piers down the center, doing a drop girder, which if anybody doesn't know what any of this is, just ask me. But it shortens the span of that room. So basically, I put a drop girder in, put the piers down the middle, and replace all the floor joists in this unit. There were going to be 40 floor joists, 2 by 10s. And all new peers, I got a very descriptive, everything I do is in a very detailed quote. Every line item I do, it lists the price for each thing, what I'm doing, why I'm doing it, everything. So I didn't hear anything from them. Two months later, I get another call. Justin. And he said, hey, we want you to come bid on another job. I said, well, Justin, I really don't want to come bid another job. I said, I didn't even hear about the last one, at least a yes or a no or nothing. I said, we didn't hear anything about it. Have you got somebody else to do it? He said, yeah, some landscape company did it. I said, well, OK. And I said, do you know what was done? He said, well, they put piers in. And I said, well, a pier requires footing. He said, they pull permits. I don't think so. I said, OK, that's a big problem right there. And first item on every one of my quotes is a permit. I pull permits on everything I do. Everything needs to be looked at and inspected. And city of Lowell, no matter what Andrea says, is required to pull permits. So we went in there and quoted it. I quoted replacing 40. Well, the gentleman that got the job, I have to know him, and found out he got the job. And I called him. yesterday, and he was in Las Vegas, and I called, I said, Conrado, did you get that job? And he said, yes, I got it. I said, what was your bid on it? He said, $9,000. Now, I don't know if that's right, just what he said. It was $9,000. And he said, I said, what did you do? He said, I met Andrea there, who I've never met, and he said she wanted us to replace seven floor joists. for $9,000. I was going to replace all of them, 40, for $23,000, which I come in almost half, a much better deal, and it's done right. And a permit would have been pulled. So the funny thing is, I was told Justin said I was a disgruntled contractor. I've got more work than I can do. I don't need any more work than I have. But I was asked by the city of Loyola to come look at this. by somebody that I know very well. And I said, I'll do it for them just to take care of it and look at it. Well, when I came back, they called us again about another project. So we showed up out there. I wasn't going to do it. My son said, Dad, they're just getting a bid. You're just another person. They're not going to use you. So I've still priced it. Well, I got out there just and said, hey, we've got a project. I want you to look at it. He said, we've got a $50,000 amount of money that we're going to lose if we don't get it done by the 15th. We're going to lose this money. And I said, well, I don't let that number base anything on what I'm doing. I'll give you my quote based on what I think needs to be done. So the first thing I do is I walk in, and the list they have is demo the ceiling. So I looked at it. I said, we can't demo that ceiling. I said, that's asbestos shingles. Those are asbestos tiles. You can't touch that ceiling. And I said, so I'm not going to demo it. I will build a drop ceiling below it, and I'll insulate it, and I'll put new sheetrock in. I'll do it the right way, but it's going to save you a ton of money and time on abatement. And so, um, so that, oh, I'm sorry, keep going or not.

But I'm not, I'm not, if you can turn that thing off, I'd like to follow up with this. Your last name was Spargo. Spargo, yes. Yes. I went, I stopped by the community center today and they have two stop orders on there, one in Spanish and one in English. So I asked the city manager about it today and he said that they had some kind of something resolved. But you know, and I know, you can't resolve asbestos. Asbestos has to be properly done away with. The total bid, what you're talking about with the total bid in the project for $9,000 with the floor, the floor was also sagging.

The original bid for the original floor, two separate ones, was not that well. I came in at 23.9. I was doing everything. This person just put in seven. I needed 40. I quoted 40. They quoted, they did seven. They did it for nine. I did. I was quoting the whole thing for 23, nine. So I won't go any much longer. But the chief building inspector I'm very good friends with, he was my electrician. I'm being transparent. I called him, picked up the phone. I said, they're up here working at the city up here in Lowell on the community center. And I don't think they pulled a permit. Can you check? He looked it up. He said, nope, I'll be there in 30 minutes. And he went up there, and I told him to let Justin know I called. They shut it down, shut the job down. The heat and air guy didn't pull a permit. The electrician didn't pull a permit. Nobody. And Andrea told them they didn't have to pull a permit, that that was not part of the city's responsibility, and told Mike Roper, the chief building inspector, permits weren't required where they are. Now this job is shut down, and it won't be open for a long time. He said he will not allow a permit unless he sees it first now. So it's a mess. Is poor management what it is?

Here's our biggest dilemma. We have an acting city manager at this time. We don't have a full-time city manager. I don't know where to get the public works director to come in and take bids. I think the community center project would definitely be underneath the recreation people. But nevertheless, all this over expenditures and under expenditure are not not paying enough to get it fixed. And the floor, listen, if you go upstairs in that attic and that part and the upstairs floor, it's horrendous. And what you've been speaking about has been going on for years. Asbestos and things like that should have been cleaned up years ago. This project's been going on since 2021. I spoke with finance officer today and also The HR person gave the money, the how much money they spent on this project since 2021. It's a horrendous amount of money. This thing should look like a like my house down here on the corner of the greenhouse. It should be beautiful, should be out of this world. But this thing is a mess. The whole thing is it's been a joke that still still has original windows. Am I correct? Yes. And we and we paid out money to pay for these new windows and never been replaced. And these contractors got the money and gone. But we have no way of

getting getting anything done until we get a city another city manager here a full time city manager they got the state coming in now the state's coming in because of this the tiles they removed the ceilings got took it away from the property they're nowhere to be found and and so you can't dispose of them but a certain way but these I pulled up there was a a company, a Latino group of guys there who are working in another company there, but nobody pulled permits. So they stopped the job and they got the state involved now with the so whoever told you it's been resolved has not been even begun to be resolved.

I know the stop order is still there and I don't know if people are still working there or not but the stop order has been issued and I understand from you Ben that everything has been taken care of.

With the first I told you that was my job. We had three different people that come in. I met with the second group that come in. I was like, this isn't right on what you're quoting. Same thing I told you. This is how I would do it. I would put the drop in. No, that's not what you said, actually. I said I would put the computers, I would put the girders on the outside, and I told you all that because it wasn't sitting on two and a half inches on the outside. It has to be treated. So I said all that, but I said that was not my job. I don't have anything to do with that. You'll be quoting to Andrea on that part. This last job was my job. Like I told you, it would be up to the individuals that are quoting to get the symptoms tested. which they actually end up getting it tested afterwards. After they are reported out, which is wrong, they should have done that first. They should have put a permit. They did put a permit, talked to them about all that. They do have a permit now. They do have a scheduled electrical inspection for tomorrow.

Well, I'll talk to Mike about it. He said that there's nothing been allowed. But they said no permits have been allowed to be pulled yet because they weren't being pulled. I talked to him yesterday.

They're pulled. They're good. They have the asbestos testing. There was no asbestos.

But we don't know if those were the tiles that were removed because y'all took them off site. where you hired a guy that did and I told you when I was there I explained to you I said these are asbestos you need to this needs to be done the right way children families come here and use this and they didn't they went in there and ripped it all down took it all out put it in bags and so you know that's just I don't think it's I don't need the work it isn't a money thing for me I just want the county to know that they're not doing their job I appreciate what you're doing also Justin you're a general contractor correct so you know what the laws and rules are as far as asbestos goes and things like that that's the reason like when he calls

I know but the contract the contract you're awarded a bid to you ordered a contract that's nine thousand dollars correct no that was the first one the second was forty forty thousand the second one was the second one was mine with the ceiling tiles that's going on right now okay and that's really not you know I'm not upset at all but I am I thought I'm upset because I talked to the finance officer today and said you're spending seventeen thousand dollars and the nine thousand dollars twenty six thousand dollars total Now we're getting totally different numbers. This is the whole thing about this whole deal. When you advertise for bids, everyone should bid on the same thing. There should be a whole line item deal for everyone to bid on and equally bid on it. And also have the insurance and have all the necessary

facility and take care of that but get rid of that but get rid of doing the floor system just like when you hire any contract but I have to know but you your general contractor and you didn't require a permit that no it's your it's your responsibility actually the town is the city's

Okay, listen. No, I'm saying.

Let's get back.

Let's get back in order. Listen, here's the question, Dustin. How much money have we awarded on bids up there to take care of this, the girders underneath and the floor system?

Underneath, I do not know. This right here, I think, is $16,500. And then they're also putting in the candle lights. And that bucks up another $3,500, I think, for the candle lights.

All this money that we're spending without nothing really defined as far as what you're bidding on and everyone bidding on the same thing. How many bids did you have?

Three.

We need to get a list of what you have bid on and let the council look at it because right now we just haven't acted.

I've got mine and I think you'll be impressed with what I do. I list everything. I don't think anybody else does it like I do.

The bid procedure should be whenever Justin goes out and takes a bid, he should have everything in order. Everyone bids on the same thing. That's what it should be.

They were requesting me to bid on tearing the ceiling down and I said I can't tear the ceiling down so my bid is going to be more because you know and if you tore it down the abatement would have been more.

Right now we're in a dilemma and we're in a big dilemma but we have to deal with it as best we can without you know we have an Agnes City management I hope we're going to hire one soon and then we can proceed with what we have to but in the meantime I think Justin you need to get with the building inspector and inspectors and go over everything. So you're saying everything is good?

Let me ask you this.

Why has it got stop order on there today?

Because there was a stop order.

It's still on there. If it's gone, why is it not removed?

Because the department's board. Sir? Because the department's board. That's what I was told.

But you can't even, no citizen can go in there right now with the department's up there. Whether it says stop order, that means stop.

I want you to take those things down

this is important everything here is important I don't care if it takes to three o'clock in the morning I want I want everything resolved as we can this is a hoax this is a joke this is sadness we are with the council we're sitting up here listening to all this knowing that this has been going on since 2021 it's not your fault Justin you just got here on the latter part of it so what you what you are in charge of you are responsible for

but thank you and thank you but we'll get to the bottom of it I'm going to get you the answer on the permits thank you God bless everyone we got to get this thing resolved thank you next thank you hello my name is Bill Knox I'm at 5105 Meadow Woods Drive and I'd like to speak on the recycling center keeping the recycling center and then I'll speak on the contracting out the waste management or the garbage service I wasn't really planning on that but I got figures from Justin that cost $28,000 waste management annually and then about $17,500 in labor for three days a week. The recycle center is an asset to the community, to the residents. Now, don't come and say it's an asset in terms of to the city. But the residents really, really do love it. And they use it. And I'm suggesting that maybe we go to just Saturday. That would reduce about $12,000 in labor costs. Or we could even, if you guys will continue to run Put it back in the budget because the budget says that it's removed the LCC I've already talked to people in there. I think we could get enough volunteers to do a rotating volunteer schedule I use the recycling center twice a week once during the week once on the weekend and I can tell you I There are a lot of elderly people that use the recycling center. And I just think to pull it out of the budget without any real discussion is is not a good thing. Now we'll move on to the farming out the the solid waste. I don't ever remember that being discussed in any meeting. So I guess y'all are having those discussions behind the scene. But I will tell you that I manage a property of 81 unit condo in Charlotte that has 18 recycle bins that waste management is contracted through the city of Charlotte. The one-armed bandit destroys trash cans. It breaks lids. It crushes them. It pops holes in them. So when you're negotiating a contract, if that's the way you're going to go, you need to work that whoever that contractor is, when they use a one-armed bandit, because I'm sure that's the way it's going to go, that they bear the expense of replacing the cans. Because if you get a cracked lid or a cracked side, then the flies get in it. It's a mess. I think the quality of service with a one-armed bandit The service is going to go down. Windy days, trash is going to fly all over. We have elderly people. I have one in my neighborhood that the trash men have got an agreement with the city where they go up the driveway and actually roll the can down. Jeff does. So they're still going to have to pick those up. And if you want to find other money to help subsidize the recycling center, I think Mr. Lynch's idea is good with a sticker to make sure it's only Lowell. We were doing quarterly bulk pickup, and it was working fine. And then all of a sudden, the new council, Chitwood, Bates, and Shane came in and they moved it to monthly. That ran up the sanitation cost exorbitantly. When bulk pickup comes down my road, it's three men in a trash truck and two men in a truck and a trailer picking up metal. That went from 12 days a year to 36 days a year. I mean, it's got to be tens of thousands of dollars. Does anybody really need bulk pickup every single month? I don't think so. I think quarterly. is is certainly sufficient. It was. So that's that's another source of revenue that could be moved around. So I appreciate you listening to me and thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else like to comment?

Steven Arteaga, 1203 Jenna Lynn Court. I wanted to change up the topic a little bit, talk about something interesting. I don't know if anyone's seen these flock security cameras. They're going up all across the country, automated license plate readers. What I'm proposing that we consider is a community control over police surveillance ordinance. This would be something that would require oversight and a public hearing if we were ever to bring these cameras into the town. We're seeing a staggering proliferation of automated surveillance technology in these license plate readers. They're in over 5,000 communities in 49 states, over 90,000 cameras that perform a massive 20 billion vehicle scans every single month. We don't have to look far to see them. Right next door in Gastonia, there's 40 cameras right now constantly reading your license plate for their real-time crime center. Most everyday citizens are completely unaware of how prolific these mass surveillance programs are, and they've become quietly right on our doorstep. I want to be clear about what this technology does. These aren't standard traffic cameras. The AI builds a massive data profile from every single vehicle that passes, creating a unique vehicle signature. It logs your make, model, color, roof racks, bumper stickers, and body damage of your car. To illustrate what this might look like in practice, consider an average citizen driving through the town saturated with these cameras. Without ever being pulled over or suspected of a crime, an automated database could easily map out the exact route you take to drop your kids off at school, what time you get your groceries, or who you might be visiting based on how long your car is parked on a particular street. Consider what happens if your vehicle's signature triggers a camera near a specific medical specialist or a family counselor on a Tuesday morning. In a vacuum, this is just a data point, a time-stamped license plate outside a clinic. But flock's power doesn't stay local. Because of flock security's national lookup feature, data captured on a public street can be shared instantly across a nationwide network accessible by thousands of out-of-state agencies, federal departments with the click of a button. Landmark privacy studies and legal audits show that automated systems allow users like police officers and agencies outside of our state, outside of our city, to run retrospective pattern of life searches. This means investigators from hundreds of miles away without individualized warrants signed by a local judge can retroactively map out every time your car was parked near a sensitive health care provider, a place of worship, or a political rally. By allowing an algorithm to stitch your physical location history across state lines, an isolated scan of your car on a public road instantly strips away your expectation of privacy, creating an intimate profile of your health habits and beliefs without any individual suspicion of wrongdoing. To my knowledge, Lowell doesn't currently operate any flock cameras within city limits, and I want to commend the city council for that. However, if the city or police department ever considers adopting this technology in the future, the decision making process must be entirely transparent to the public. Decisions that track and log daily movements of Lowell residents should not happen through closed doors, administrative contracts, or quiet budget allocations. A CC-OPS framework would simply ensure that if mass surveillance tech is ever proposed in the future, the process must include mandatory public notice, independent privacy impact assessments, and an explicit vote by this elected council. As Lowell grows, we have the unique opportunity to lead Gaston County by example, proving that public safety and constitutional privacy can coexist. If anyone's curious about where these cameras are, there is an app, a website called Deflock, D-E, and then Flock, F-L-O-C-K. And you just type in your zip code and you will see thousands of these cameras, almost a million littered across the country, 40 in Gastonia alone. They know where you are, they know your habits, they know everything about you. And these are quietly happening behind closed doors. And I think Lowell needs to take a proactive stance, creating an ordinance to make sure that this doesn't happen here as well.

thank you that's a great statement chief I'd like to ask you a question please if you don't mind along these lines do we have any of those flock cameras operating in our city now we do not okay if they ever do we'll have the council have a vote to take care of it thank you for bringing that to our attention thank you god bless you anyone else have anything they'd like to say go ahead just state your name and address please

Hey, Candy Funderburk, 600 Robeson. I'd just like to say thank you, Larry, for doing the new mural. That's going to be amazing. And I appreciate you paying for it. I do believe the city could have paid for it or paid something. And so next time you want to give the Lowell Community Committee my little group some money, come and talk to us because we could have put it into our budget and and helped you out. But I appreciate you doing that, Larry. I really do. It's going to be gorgeous. And also, The trash being farmed out, y'all may not remember it, but a long time ago that happened and it didn't work out, being that they did their job, waste management or whoever did it, But the sanitation crew still had to go behind them because trash still came out. So there's time they are not know. You guys will research it and everything. That's something to look at. And also the community center. We had our meeting up there several weeks ago, and I was terribly upset because there was an original floor. When you walk in on the right side, that was an original floor. And here they're going to cover it. I mean, I almost cried. And I did talk to Ben about it, and the money had already been allocated, and it had been ready to go. But that hurt my feelings that that floor was going to be taken up or covered over. So hopefully next time whoever's in charge of that can do some research on it. That's a historic building on the Gaston County list. It might be on the state list. I'm not sure. But that's a historical building. OK, thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else like to speak?

Rick S. and mine, 605 McAdamville Avenue. I just have questions. Do we have an ordinance in this city about upkeep of private property?

Yes, we do.

Well, we have two abandoned houses in our neighborhood. Stuff is growing on the houses. Looks terrible. There's a house with junk cars behind it, and grass and weeds is high. Thought I'd bring that up. My other question is, I know Route 7 is a state road. Is there any way we can get a three-way stop at Stowe Drive so we can get out?

I think the best idea, I talked to the council about it two years ago, Right here on Main Street, we turn right to go on McCamber Road. That should be a sign that says no right turn on red. To give the people an opportunity to get out of their driveway, especially at Christmas time when 85 is blocked and everyone's using that. That should be... a no brainer. And but they got the no right hand turn on the main street coming up from the camera rope, which is good because people they tend not to merge over whatever. But all that together can coincide make one beautiful thing. No right on read, period. And that gives people time to get out of their driveways and courtesy, they should we should have sizes courtesy, you know, courtesy, like we had back when I was growing up, people would kind of stop slow down, let you get in, get out, and give you an opportunity. But it all goes back to how we were raised. But in the meantime, we do need to put that no right on red, but I think it's something the council can take care of. But that is a state road.

There's no courtesy involved. When you're pulling out of Stove Drive and try to turn left, there's a curve. You can look. There's nobody coming. You pull out, and they're on your bumper.

here's thirty five is just a suggestion through there I think you got you got a great idea but the best idea would be no right on red and also just this little sign that is this courtesy traffic entering the highway whatever you know remind people just to be you know slow down a little bit let folks out of their driveway everyone work together without having to put all these new stop signs and stuff that you have to get used to. But I know right on red would be beautiful. I think that would be good. And also the folks coming up McCamber Road from McCamber, they have they have different ways to, you know, get to the boulevard and bypass 85 and things like that before they get to 85 and also after they pass 85. The law only has Oak Street, I think Third Street, right? Whatever it is. And then that's all we have. And if they cut through your street or Stowe Drive and go down that way and go around and go down Spencer Mountain, that's going to create a big problem as well. We just have to have a little bit of common sense.

Yeah, it's just turning left out of our neighborhood and add rush hour. I understand.

And it's only when you have rush hour traffic and Christmas traffic. You're right. But we need to do our part.

Well, I know a back way for Christmas, so I'm good.

I understand. We need to do our part for the folks traveling through Lowell and to help our citizens live in Lowell and McCamber Road. You're 100% right. And thank you for bringing it back to our attention.

Thank you. And I'm hoping you guys keep the garbage guys. They're really friendly and do an excellent job. And I've become friends with quite a few of them already.

That's something that has to be discussed by the whole entire council, the citizens, about being informed. It's not going to be an overnight deal. It's going to take time to figure this thing out. But once we get a city manager, whenever he or she comes in, they'll be the one to help lead this rodeo. But we appreciate you.

Thank you for listening to me.

Yes, sir, and God bless you. And thank you all for being here. Anyone else have a comment? Thank you. And go ahead, Mel.

My name is Michelle Sebastian. I live at 2017 Marguerite. What drew my husband and I to Lowell in 2014 and prompted us to relocate here was the quaint small town feel of the city, the positive energy of the community, and the bright possibilities for an even better city in the future. It was a city that embraced its past and looked forward to a future. There were leaders in place that were talented, educated, experienced, dedicated in their fields of expertise. They held public forums to gather ideas from residents, met with small business owners to promote investment, created community involvement committees, and garnered millions of dollars in grant money for infrastructure and improvements. That came to a halt with the slash and burn actions of the council in 2023. The elimination of personnel and reduction of taxes by 13% they celebrated. Celebration time is over. Their fiscally inept actions have put this council in a position where they're scrambling to provide for basic services our community deserves and needs. But I'm getting ahead of myself and want to go back a decade or so when I came before a different city council and spoke for the first time similar to what I'm doing today. My concern then was over the removal of a recycle dumpster. The next day city council member Candy Funderburg reached out to me and shared why this had occurred and what plans they had for a better recycling option for Lowell. and now here i am once again because the recycle center is in jeopardy and is not included in the proposed budget that might be voted on tonight convenient and effective community recycling programs not only send less waste to landfills but also minimize community impact on the environment this is not forward thinking this should be expected in the twenty first century for communities and neighborhoods Remember that original dumpster I mentioned? After its removal, I temporarily had to use another facility in the county. What had been a 10-minute activity became a 40-minute chore. There are many seniors who rely on the Lowell Recycle Center. They may not be able to store large quantities of recyclables and haul them to distant locations. And busy families are also likely to find the process too arduous and opt out of participating. we appreciate the clean convenient facility and find it irresponsible for the council to shut it down you have a budget in the seven million dollar range and you can't find twenty eight thousand dollars for the waste management contract or seventeen thousand dollars to pay the employees to run the facility We don't know who on the council supports this closure because there haven't been any discussions in a public forum for residents to know about the potential change. Had you considered saving money by going back to bulk trash pickup quarterly rather than monthly? Or how about the center open only one or two days rather than three? Did you reach out to the Lowell Community Committee or to the Lowell Women's Club to help brainstorm ideas on how to save this service or lean into the large volunteer ship these groups provide? The behind closed door only discussions that must have occurred now feel sneaky and cowardly. Chief Moore presented to this council data that showed that the Paloa Police Department employs fewer officers, are paid lower wages, and answer more police calls than the police departments of neighboring communities with similar demographics. They shared hard data, calculated formulas, and personal stories of officers arriving on a scene singly. I found it interesting in their budget notes that their request for two additional patrol officers would only get them closer to the recommended staffing levels. This also would provide for two officers on duty at all time. And they requested a salary increase that would put them competitive with other police departments. Neither of these requests are included in the current budget. The security of our residents provided by our police department and the safety of those police officers who put their lives on the line daily should be at the forefront of this council supporting financially. So let's talk dollars. How things could look different if the 2023 slash and burn would have been 10% rather than 13%. or if the council would consider increasing taxes. One cent provides $68,500 and would keep the Recycle Center fully operational as is. The additional two cents would cover the additional patrol officers. With the median property tax bill for homes and low at approximately $2,400 per year, the 3% additional taxes would come out to be $6.25 per month per household. seems like a small price to pay for the benefit it would provide. I encourage you to reconsider this proposed budget.

Thank you. I'd like to answer one of those questions for you. As far as the recycling deal, who do you think makes the money as far as the recycling? Waste Management is the biggest company all over the whole United States of America. And whatever you do that you think you're doing to make things better is not any better than anything else. Whatever goes into that bin, whatever you put in the garbage or whatever, when it gets to waste management, wherever it goes, they take that stuff out. They recycle. They make trillions of dollars off of what they do. I have no pity for them, but I do have pity for our citizens here. And also, don't make fun of being reducing your taxes. We didn't reduce your taxes. Listen to what really happened. what really happens is the city council did reduce taxes from 49 cents to 35 and a half cents correct but also we inherited an expense to the county for our police for our fire department 11 and a half cents that's 47 cents we're only saving two cents if gas city of gastonia had lowell just look at the benefits this city would have you'd have transportation for the seniors to get to the doctor and things like that with these little vans that they have and all the things that Gastonia offers, the arts and the crafts and all the things that they have. We're just a small city with big hopes and dreams, yes. But we've inherited one of the biggest albatrosses in the history of Lowell. When you go down Spencer Mountain, all these houses, which that's great, listen, you want growth, but you want to be ready for growth. Without being ready for growth, this is what you get. You get slapped in the face with expenses. And all this expenses mean that everything is going to go up. And once we get the money coming in for these houses, you can't just keep pushing this thing down the road and say, well, it's going to get better. It's going to get better. No, it's not always ever going to get better when you take the bull by the horns and understand this. See the new people come in. The old folks pay for the infrastructure here. The old people have been here for hundreds of years and since 1870, the families have paid for all the infrastructure. So these folks come in, these builders and contractors, they come in and reap the benefit. and rape the city with their you know with their they make a big profit but the poor citizens of lowell they've lived here all their life without nearly nothing just like the ballpark and no one ever talks about your ballpark out there being a gravel parking lot you don't talk about anything that makes sense and what we have to do is rebuild this city a little bit at a time which this city council has and we have made listen there's not a council ever set up here that hasn't made mistakes And I'll be the first to admit, we all make mistakes. But listen, like we're having tonight, is this not beautiful? Having people come out and express their opinions, I think it's the greatest thing I've ever seen. And I love it. And I don't care if you stay here at 4 o'clock in the morning. I love hearing from the people. Because without hearing from you, we don't have no input. and what we make my decision we make is based upon what we know that we put in now with all this information you brought us tonight it makes us smart we have to listen and i'm willing to listen and god forbid that we ever have a call and no police department no policeman shows up and i'll tell you right now we need 13 But we don't have the money for 13, no matter what. If the tax rate was still like it was and you had the increase in the fire department, you'd be paying an enormous amount for taxes. But this council's taking the bull by the horns. Don't throw off on them. Understand this. I don't know what that lady's talking about in education or whatever. I've been in business 51 years, and I've never asked no one for a dime as far as helping me from grant money or whatever. I think grant money is good in its place, yes. But to go out here and create infrastructure for citizens like we have would be great. We have a, what is it, a million dollar grant or whatever we're paying for. We have to pay it back every time we use it for the new sewer system. And we're growing. And things are getting better. But listen, it's no expense to you. We don't want to be like these other cities, like Charlotte come in, they just hit you all at once. They don't care what your name is, where you live, or nothing else. You're going to pay whatever they say. But this council takes into consideration of everything. Bear with us. It's a young council. They're still young. I'm the oldest one here, and I'm going to be gone for a long time. Up in heaven, I hope. But anyway, they're going to still be stuck here with taking care of things. And always come to these meetings and offer your expertise and whatever you think it is, and the council will listen. And I'll shut up and thank you, and God bless all of you. Anyone else have anything they'd like to say?

all right thank you all right there being no other comments we'll go ahead and move forward with the agenda all right we need to adopt the agenda for this meeting I'd like to make an amendment to the agenda I would like to add closed session reference one forty three dash three eighteen point eleven subsection six

that'll be at the end of the meeting that'll be in closed session section eight so that'll be at the end of the meeting correct yes okay that'll be at the end of the meeting okay we have a motion to change the agenda I also would like to make an amendment to the budget if we could move to the agenda

If you would make that in the form of a motion to act both of them together and just change the agenda be fine. Who wants to make the motion?

I'm just going to add this to your motion what he said okay I make the motion with his addition with with the councilman Smith addition to move item 6C to 6A and 6A down to 6C

Okay. Second. Second. Have any discussion? All in favor? Thank you. That's great. All right. And then the adoption, knowing how to have the adoption of the agenda is written, correct?

Approval of amendments.

Approval of amendments. Okay. I'm sorry.

We'll make a motion to approve the amendments on May 12th.

Second. Okay, any discussion? All in favor? Thank you. All right, then the presentation of the Juneteenth. Scott, if you'll take care of that. My eyes are killing me, you know that. Thank you.

It's going to be a proclamation for zero four dash twenty twenty six recognition of Juneteenth twenty twenty six proclamation as read. Whereas President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, declaring the slaves in Confederate territory free, paving the way for the passing of the 13th Amendment, which formally abolished slavery in the United States of America. And whereas the celebration of the end of slavery, which became known as Juneteenth, is the oldest known celebration commemorating the ending of slavery in the United States, when Union soldiers led by Major General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas on June the 19th, 1865, bringing news that the Civil War had ended and that the Emancipation Proclamation had declared all enslaved people free nearly two and a half years earlier. And whereas the first Juneteenth celebration was a time for reassurance, prayer, and together and family members and neighbors. And today is a time of remembrance and celebration within communities throughout the country that promotes and cultivates knowledge and appreciation of African American history and culture. while encouraging continuous self-development and respect for all people and cultures. And whereas this year's Juneteenth celebration takes place in Gaston County during the period of June the 12th through Thursday, June 27th, on June the 27th, the chair will have a celebration at 406 South Jacob Street from five to eight p.m. Bessemer City will have their eighth annual Juneteenth Festival at Centennial Park 114 West Virginia Avenue on June 12th from 6 to 10. Belmont will have their celebration at Stowe Park, 24 South Main Street on the 20th from 2 to 9 p.m. Gastonia will celebrate their annual Ebony Fest Juneteenth Festival at the Renlo Ball Field in Renlo, North Carolina on June the 13th and the Rotary Pavilion in Gastonia will be held on the 19th. Randle Mill Town Night will be held on June the 19th from 5 to 9 p.m. See gogaston.org, I'm sorry, gogastonnc.org for other events. Now, therefore. Hey, Simon, hello. do hereby declare June the 19th, 2026 as Juneteenth in the City of Loyola, North Carolina, and urge all citizens to join in celebrating a day so significant in the history and heritage of our nation and city. In witness thereof, I have hereunto set my hand and call Cecilia, City of Loyola, to be affixed this ninth day of June 2026. Thank you, Scott.

And we need a motion to adopt this plea. make a motion we accept the Juneteenth proclamation have a second any discussion all in favor unanimous thank you It would pass this down to the part where she can file it. Thank you. Thank you. All right. The next item on the agenda will be the consent agenda. The motion to adopt the consent agenda. make a motion we adopt the consent agenda second Mr Smith any discussion all in favor thank you unanimous in the new business we were talking about a while ago you want to move six seated at the top correct yes sir okay let's move six seated at the top and talk about the grant who's here tonight with that

Hello, Mayor and Council. My name is Bill Knox. I'm the chair of the Lowell Community Committee. And tonight we have a facade grant applicant that we would like to present to you. You should have everything in your packet. The applicant, Jake, is here tonight if we have any questions for him. But he has purchased the, I guess, Larry, you told me his old movie theater across the street. Yes, that's correct. And he is going to turn that into... a Pilates studio, and a really nice workout spot. Gonna spend a ton of money. We're planning on spending about $100,000 just on the front facade. So obviously our grant would be smaller compared to that, but yet it would be something meaningful and form a good relationship. They plan on doing health clinics with the city and really partnering with the city. And by restoring that building, it's going to be a great thing. So we've got two quotes here, one from Rockhill Glass and then Mullis Construction Group is going to be the the contractor on there. So If you have any questions, be glad to answer them, or have Jake tell you a little bit.

Who did y'all recommend, Mr. Knox? Who did y'all recommend to do the job?

We recommended the Mullis Group, Mullis Construction Group. That quote is a little bit lighter, a little smaller.

You already have the money in the LCC to take care of it? Yes.

It's just the facade grant. We're awarding him $2,500.

Okay. Yeah, it's a $2,500 maximum.

We need a motion then to go ahead and take care of this and award it to the Mullis Group. Is that correct? Award it to them.

to Jake Hoyle, the applicant, and then once the work's complete we'll go through the whole process of settling up with him.

We just need a consent and a motion from the council to take care of this.

Any discussion? Motion to second. Motion to debate? Discussion? All in favor? Thank you. I want to give you a big hand. Everybody, we need to thank you for coming. Thank you.

so much thank you council thank you mayor thank you for candy for making the connection so give you guys I know you guys have your minutes just give you a blurb about myself I've been in business since two thousand and nine I'm the product of a two thousand and eight auto relief from Freightliner my father lost his job I built this business then I grew up in Dallas, North Carolina. I've been here for six years. We've been able to employ seven people. We have some amazing, amazing plans for this building. We really want to see Lowell grow. We want to be a big part of that, be a big pioneer here. We know that what's coming. We've got house developments. We have a lot of opportunity to grow. And someone said something earlier about, you know, seniors not having access to things. And this is a big thing we want to do. We actually have many affluent people that come to our facility. We service 350 to 400 sessions per week. And we have a revolving door in the little location we have right beside you guys. But one of the partners that we have is the nurse educator for Belmont Abbey. And what we want to do, absolutely free for the city of Lowell, is give an opportunity for people to come by and do health screenings. You get your A1C check, blood pressure check, know your numbers. We're going to do that quarterly free. So it's just some exciting news, I want to tell you. We're more than a gym. We're a place where we transform lives. We bring out the best in people. And we couldn't be in a better place to do it. We're excited to bring it to Lowell.

Thank you so much for taking that building and doing something with it. We appreciate all of this. Thank you, guys.

Appreciate you.

All right, and then the next thing will be, I guess, the public hearing for the budget, correct?

For Brownfield.

Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, my eyes are killing me. Public hearing for Brownfield agreement. Do you have a motion for that? Any discussion? I guess you got that Ben.

We have individuals here in the office Mr. Mayor.

Anyone like to speak on that?

You first need to go into public hearing on this.

Public hearing for the brownfields? Yes sir.

I make a motion we go into public hearing for the brownfields agreement.

Any discussion? All in favor? We're now in public hearing. Who would like to speak first?

We have Greg Eisenhower he's with I'll just do a brief background for Mr. Mayor.

Go ahead. This is the Brownfields Agreement, as the council knows, would acquire the old Yorkshire America site. Prior to that, Crumpton and Knowles site, which the city acquired. several years ago by donation there's been a substantial expenditure on an effort to demolish the previous chemical plant that was there and so the purpose of the brownfield agreement is twofold because one is to it sort of provides a balance between protecting the public interest in this property in terms of not allowing uses that would endanger the public while protecting the city's interest in being able to develop that whether it's a public works facility which is one of the plans or park or if the city would ever decide to sell or dispose of the property to have some liability protection to the seller so we have two individuals that have worked for a lot of time that the brownsfield agreement is a contract between the city and the state of north carolina that provides those protections Greg Eisenhower, who is with Mid-Atlantic, he's our environmental consultant. Steve Weber, who's an attorney in Charlotte, has done a lot of municipal brownfield agreement legal work. You all had the draft agreement last month. I think there were possibly some questions about fees or other issues.

DQ has already signed off on everything, correct?

I'm going to defer to Steve and Greg, if that's all right, Mayor, to sort of explain where we are and how. But yes, this has been reviewed and negotiated with DEQ.

That's good news. Mr. Eisenhower, I guess if you'd like to speak first. Thank you. Just state your name, please, for all the folks here tonight and who you're with, please. Sure, absolutely, Mr. Mayor.

My name is Greg Eisenhower.

I'm the Mid-Atlantic Associates in Charlotte.

I'm a professional geologist in the state of North Carolina and manage our Charlotte operations, and we've been working with the city of Loyal for probably about four or five years now on this project. The main takeaway from an environmental perspective on this property is that You folks are in just an absolutely unique position in that when Yorkshire Americans went bankrupt, set aside of monies to deal with environmental issues on all of their facilities. And that doesn't happen often. To date, the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality has spent out of that fund somewhere in the neighborhood of $1.1 million on this site. It has been completely, thoroughly investigated. There's nothing on this site environmentally that we don't know. What this agreement will allow you to do, as John had mentioned earlier, is give you a path forward for safe redevelopment of this property. And it will provide an opportunity to make the property reuse. It's safe for the intended reuse. And it does provide liability protection down the road should you need it. The main takeaway is all the heavy lifting has been done. The last part of this process is the execution of that at that brownfield agreement Which I think is largely done the drafts been reviewed and I think the state is about ready to sign off on it and That will be a real asset for the community

The money is still left over in the bankruptcy deal where this grant money was paid. Is there any money still left or has all the money been exhausted? I know they had a lot of lawsuits and things that they were trying to settle.

I don't know for sure. One thing is that Yorkshire America's parent company had multiple facilities. So the money that was set aside, I believe it was about $4.7 million, four and a half, $4.7 million was set aside. That was to be applied to all of their different facilities. I mean, not just the facility here in Loyal, but I think certainly Loyal got its fair share of those funds relative to what needed to be done, you know, to understand the site environmentally and also make it safe, safe for reuse.

Thank you. I'm glad I'm glad that, you know, people finally stepped forward and let us know that I've been talking about this for three years. How much money would we get? And if there's anything still left, I know they paid for the initial cleanup out of the $1.1 million, which is great. Like you said, now the city can move forward once they get the Clean Bill of Health from DQ. And then they can move forward with whatever they want to do, build a public works whatever, sell part of it, and pay cash for the rest of it. What do you want to do? It's a great asset now, thanks to being cleaned up the correct way. And the only way would be to do it the correct way. And y'all have done a great job doing it. And I personally appreciate it, and I know the council does as well. And do we need any motion for anything on this, Mr. Turner?

You will need a motion to close the public hearing. And then to approve the agreement. I didn't know if there were any other questions about... What kind of time frame?

So the only question I have is... So I don't know if this is a generic. It's 75 pages. This is quite large. 70-something pages. This is quite large agreement. So what kind of time frame are we looking at? The reason I ask is... the council is looking for a new city manager. And, you know, I don't know if there's something that he may want to incorporate with that agreement or not. If this is kind of a fine print that's similar for all agreements or if this is strictly just all the details between law for that site or

Well, I'll defer to Steve because he's the legal expert here for sure. But generally speaking, all brownfield agreements have some commonalities to them. But they are tailored specific for the site, the uses, the contaminants you have there, and then what your proposed uses are. So it's not a, it's not a boilerplate one size fits all. Although each agreement does incorporate, it's essentially a covenant not to sue and embedded in there. So we're going to be some land use restrictions, what you can do, what you can't do. And if you want to do something, this is the procedures you follow. Those are common to all agreements, but to your point, no, it's been, it's been tailored specifically for this site. and the conditions of this site, and you know exactly what you can and can't do, and it specifies.

If the council approves this, Yorkshire, America will be relieved of all future, I guess, lawsuits or potential lawsuits. Is that correct? Yeah, Mr. Turner.

Thank you.

You look like that guy from South Carolina that's trying for murder.

Well, I got out of prison for this evening's conversation.

It kind of made me nervous. I can't hardly see, but I thought, man, Murdoch's coming. I get that sometimes. I thought we needed a little bit of sense of humor. Thank you.

Yes, absolutely. Well, so your question was if Yorkshire Americas is off the hook here. They got off the hook in bankruptcy. And it just so happened that this property was essentially donated to you all. um what you did is get the all the protections under the brownfields agreement which is greg mentioned it but it's one of the best deals i've ever seen and i've done hundreds of these brownfields agreements the fact that you all got got the property for a donation then you got the cleanup of the property for the donation and now you're going to be able to develop it it's just extraordinary you guys have done well

Yorkshire. Don't fail to neglect this. You know, they're pretty sharp. They were looking out for their best interest, as you well know, and I don't. That's good. It's a win win situation. Don't get me wrong, but this is not a one sided deal. This is tremendous for all their parties and our party because we can do something with it. And this once this public hearings closed this public hearing part was closed. Council can vote on it. And if you want time to study those 75 pages. Mr. Russell, have you looked at this?

Sir, I have looked at the...

Anything standing out as far as anything we need to be aware of?

I think the main thing that I would take away from the city standpoint is there are use restrictions that are part of that. That's part of a Brownsfield agreement. So this property could not be developed as a residential property. It couldn't be sold to a residential developer. And so there are and that's part of the reason why I think over time public works would be one possibility. Parks with hardscape in certain areas would be another possibility. But There are other things. So one of the things that Greg and Steve have done have baked into the option of doing some commercial things, some other things that maybe if you had questions, they could expand on that. I didn't know if like if your question Shane had to do with could it be amended if if the city wanted to go in a different direction at a later date? Yeah.

Is that what you have to be sealed? I mean, once we approve the agreement is that pretty much set in stone?

Can you answer that Steve on like, is there a process for amending? And how would that work?

Yeah, yeah, happy to. I mean, the brownfield agreements can be amended at any time. It's an agreement between the city and the state. And so as long as the city keeps its obligations, the state's going to stay away from us. State's not going to sue us. We have protection from other people suing us. And the good thing is that there are a number of uses baked into this agreement. And I have them listed. And I'll just read. These are the uses that you all can put to this. Institutional, office, parking, public facility, retail, warehousing, entertainment, event space, greenway, public park, open space, recreation, and other commercial uses. So it's really the gambit of uses. And if there's something in there that you decide to do later that's not in here, we just go back to the state and get it amended.

As far as the property over there, it's got to be something really industrial as far as for the city to come out with tax base or whatever and also to pay cash for our facility without having to borrow money. uh selling a portion of a half of it whatever and that's the win-win situation also dq dq's already signed off on their part of it and then when they when you first initially got the uh ground field got it cleaned up everything's been met and satisfied to my knowledge and i know the previous city manager mr attaway and after he was here for a while under us all that was signed as you know mr russell all that from dq has already been in place and it's been okay And then the final thing will be them to sign off after this public hearings over whether the council voted up or down. They'll have the final say so, correct?

That's it. DEQ would also have to approve.

Yes.

They have been involved, as you said, all throughout all of them. But and they've been involved in negotiating it. And so we have, I think, every expectation they would approve. Yes, we'll approve it. Yes.

As far as those people, you know, you did a hell of a job.

Well, see, the excellent thing about this is usually you have an environmental consultant like Greg clean it up, and then you take it to DEQ and say, is this OK? And DEQ says, well, here you have DEQ cleaning it up, taking it to itself. What is itself going to say? Of course it's good.

so we take away that element in that which makes it really extraordinary that's why i said they're already committed so they're you know they're more committed than we are we're reaping the benefit from what's already happened like you said is true that's right and it's up to the council to you know prove this but i think we need a motion to go out of public here unless the council has any more questions i've got a question go ahead i'm sorry what prevents that property from

residential houses or whatever being built. I guess my question is you can do parkways, parks, greenways, whatever. You can have all this stuff, but you can't put houses on it.

That's right.

I guess I don't really get the concept there.

So there are certain areas that still have low levels of environmental impact on the properties or in the groundwater. And so there are some land use restrictions that don't allow things like playgrounds and homes, those sorts of things, because there's vapor intrusion fumes and such that come up. But what you can do is for commercial properties and other sorts of uses, you can put down barriers that don't allow that. It's just that. The evaluation is people come on to parks, they leave. They come into commercial places and they leave. In homes, you're staying there every day, all day for 30 years. And so it's just a restriction. Now I will say, if that groundwater contamination ever goes away or anybody decides to clean it up, we can go back to DEQ and actually allow houses. So there is an avenue to do that, but it takes a good bit to clean the rest of it up.

and the beautiful part Scott the beautiful part about this thing the river right behind all that property that's the most beautiful piece of property in Gaston county and it's unmolested it could be something tremendous like boat docks whatever you know people want to invest the money there's plenty of things that could be done legally and it's not going to hurt anyone like Scott said but it takes like a thousand years maybe for the red dyes and all that stuff to get to where you can really have people you know, folks living in homes and things like that. As far as walking on top of the ground, things like that, it's very accessible and it's very, and those people, if you get a DQ sign, DQ signs up on something, they've examined everything, you can believe it because they're like Roto-Rooters. And we got their blessing, and I know we have. And then once we turn this over, back over to DQ, I'm sure they're going to sign up because we really got them by the toes, the elbows, and everything else because they've already initiated this thing, and they understand it. This has been followed all the way from A to Z through the state, and the folks up there in Morrisville, they've been right here with us. and I know for a fact they would not sign off on it in the interim any time when we've had tests things that have happened that's been signed off on and completed as you well know so it's really a no brainer so it's up to the council do you have any more questions I'm sorry

So one other thing I have is, like, some of the fees that are, you know, if you're developing it and you go over a certain amount of time, the fees, what are those based on? Is that like a standard fee that gets paid to DEQ, to the state? I mean, how exactly is that?

Yeah, so how it works is you all paid $2,000 to start, and that was paid a long time ago. And by the way, DEQ told me they'll sign this if you sign it, so we're good there. But once both parties sign it, another $6,000 seals the deal. Then if there's any active construction, that period of active construction, it's $10,000 a year. And what that is is that's for DEQ to watch over the site to make sure the construction is going okay. It doesn't start until construction begins. So if you hold the property for 10 years, you pay nothing. once construction starts, $10,000 a year until you stop.

If you were doing a phase one, phase two, say, of public works, does that phase one, that's $10,000 a year, you build phase one, and there is no $10,000 a year? Or is that $10,000 every year until you get completely built out?

It depends on how you phase it. If you do phase one and stop work, then the money stops. If you pick up phase two a year later, the money starts. But if you do phase...

If you go a year in between, then you wouldn't pay for that year.

Or ten years, yeah, exactly.

But that's for them to come out and check everything, the fees and things. That's for them to monitor what's taking place, correct?

Yeah, there's something called an environmental management plan that your contractor would have to have, and they would just have to follow that, and DEQ would make sure they followed it.

Any more questions from any council members? Attorney, do you have any questions? Mr. Blackburn, do you have any questions?

Is that a public comment?

Yes, you can ask a question. It's a public hearing. Anyone that has a question, yes. It's a public hearing. Thank you, sir.

Steven Arteaga, 1203 General Inn Court. I had a copy on my phone. Does anyone happen to have a copy of the actual large page document? If not, no worries. May I borrow that? Just briefly. You can have it.

75, isn't it? Okay. You've got to hurry and get back down to the jailhouse. Work with it. Work with it. I'm just kidding.

I think I was just looking briefly earlier at 13Q. It was the section that had prohibited any sort of occupation from any future enclosed buildings until we got a professional engineer to do a vapor intrusion mitigation system. I was just curious if... I mean, this question might not even be applicable, but what the projected structural engineering and long-term costs are for an engineer to do something like that, and if that's something we have planned out into the budget, or if that's something we would address later down the road.

I can address that if you'd like. Go ahead. Thank you. Oh, yeah.

I'll start with you.

Y'all must stand together. All right.

Stay here if you have more questions. So what he's talking about is the section on vapor intrusion. And that's basically like I talked about when the fumes could come up from the contaminated groundwater and get into a structure. And so it's very, very common in a construction that you fold what's called a vapor barrier into the cost and the budgeting. And it's essentially a liner that goes down either beneath the slab or on top of the slab, prevents the vapors from coming up. And so that would be designed and in the bid process.

It's also like a natural spring. You'd have to fix the problem so the water wouldn't come up through your floor or mess up your structure. And also the vapors, like you're talking about, you wouldn't want no one dying from some contamination. And that's a building, and that's for our benefit, because whoever did the building would have to have the permits, and they would have to know what they would be up against. And then they would all be included in the price of whatever we did with the property or someone else, correct?

Yeah, because the contractor would get this contract, and then we'd have to bid based on the specifications from the contract for vapor intrusion. So it'd be part of the bid process.

Just like any process on any part of land in the city limits of Lowell now, it has to meet all the zoning ordinances of everything that adheres to what it has to adhere to, correct?

That's right. Right. Yeah.

And thank you. Have any more questions? No, ma'am. Yes. Do you want to keep that? It's all yours. No. Okay.

Thanks.

Yes. Mr. Mr. Murlock, you're a special guest and I thank you, sir. And anyone else have questions? Any citizen can ask a question about this and you're quite welcome to. And that's why public hearing is so important to get the input from the people. So if you have any questions, now's the time to do it. I see no questions. I'd like to recommend we have a motion to go out of public here.

Make a motion. We close public here.

Have a second. So any discussion? All in favor? Thank you. Unanimous. All right. Now it's up to the council to approve this or put it off. But I strongly suggest that the information we have is good. I have a motion to approve. Have a second. Second. Any discussion? All in favor? Thank you, and thank all of you. Thank you, Mr. Eisenhower. You worked hard. And Mr. Attorney, thank you. Thank you. God bless you. You're behaving in jail now. Behaving. Thank you. All right. The next item is going to be the public hearing for the budget, correct? Yes. Okay. We need to go in public hearing. We need a motion to go in public hearing and discuss the budget, upcoming year's budget.

Make a motion. Go ahead. Make a motion to go into public hearing for fiscal year 26-27 budget. Second.

Okay.

Any discussion? All in favor? Thank you. We're now in public hearing. I don't know if, Ben, I guess you can take it to start with, and if citizens have any questions.

Okay.

Thank you.

Yes, sir.

The city council and the mayor and staff have worked over the past four or five months on this budget.

And first of all, I'd like to really commend the council and the staff for working together in this time period, especially with that myself as an interim manager. But the budget presented to you that you have and it has been advertised in his own line for public consumption as well. If you look at it, it is for the general fund is $4,535,720. and then you have in the water and sewer a $2,065,750 budget. I would note that this proposed budget in comparison with the budget that we're currently under is 14% less than it was this year. in the general fund and it's also 15% less in the water and sewer fund. Some of the highlights that I'd like to let the public know, the council knows, obviously the recycling center is not included in this fiscal year budget. I also would note that sanitation has not been farmed out. It has not been discussed in the last couple of months, so the sanitation department is still intact for that. The only increase, there's no tax increase, there's no fee increase with the exception of water and sewer. That's a 5% increase and that's coming through two rivers where we receive our water and then of course with the inflationary cost in treating our wastewater as well. Also, another highlight, the only capital expense that we have is a new patrol car for the police department. There is an additional employee that will be going into the Parks and Recreation Department and there is a 5% COLA or cost of living increase for our employees. That is the highlight. I'd like to state this also after thanking the staff and the council for working together with this. I want to let everyone know and I think the council would also agree that this budget was put together in with the taxpayer, our customer, and our residences, thinking about the impact it would have on them. So from the staff perspective, it's a fair budget across the board. It is less, and that's probably on me as an interim manager, because an interim manager should not be tasked with doing great things, because that should belong to your full-time manager and your council members and your community. So it is a bare bones budget, but it does address the operations for the community in that regard. And so I would leave it up, Mr. Mayor, council members, for any public comments at this time.

Do we have any public, any concerns from the citizens? You're more than welcome to speak.

Can I ask a question?

Yes, if you would just step up to the podium and just tell us your name again. We just want to do things by the book. We've only got one book. It's a little simple.

Patrick Gans, 4032 River Falls Drive. Yes. I've run retail businesses for 45 years, so I'm used to reading the P&L. This is a little different. Can you explain to me the difference between the general fund, unobligated, with the $6.7 million? We have a CIF fund. which has 4.2 million in it and then we have the operating budget. Where's the extra money that's in the general obligated fund?

It's all budget in there with the SCIF money and all that stuff. It's all self-explanatory. The money is there in case we need it. We don't have a line item budget where we have to adhere to that budget. If we need to move money around at the council's discretion, They can vote at any time if they have an emergency or something to move money around. So we don't obligate ourselves and hold our hand down to where we can't do anything with your money. The taxpayers own this place. This is a business. Like I thought with Ben earlier today, this is a business, correct? Sure. This is a business. And the P&L is right there in front of you. We can't have a loss. It's your money.

I see income, I see expenses, I see whether I'm over or under the profit or loss. We don't have that here. We have the various expenses from the various.

Yeah, you base your numbers on what the costs are through the research from our department heads and the staff. Also, you look at past expenditures. and how that's been. You look at your consumer price index and inflationary rates. And then you look at a crystal ball to try to get a budget together. But when you talk about some of the SIF and the unappropriated, that's kind of like your household where you've got a savings account. So any time that we have where revenues exceed expenditures, That excess money goes basically into the savings account. So, Lowell has been fortunate over the past number of years that revenues have always exceeded expenditures.

That was my bottom line question.

Yes, sir.

Are you running at a deficit

that's correct yes sir we're spending less money this year we did last year but the money is still there everything is there we haven't no one's taking any money we're not obligating ourselves to where we cannot you know we have to be able to operate this city and by moving money whatever but hurricanes come in and that's why you need a healthy fund balance in that savings account is called fund balance yes sir thank you and that's a very good question thank you very much

Good evening.

Lynn Brown, McKinney 5001 Roper Court.

And thank you very much. This is a very inclusive budget and very complete. I have one recommendation on presentation. I would ask if you could put you have the full year 2526 and then full year. I mean, fiscal year 2627. If you could add another column that says percent change, either plus or minus. because that'll just give us a quick overview of how much we're going up and how much we're going down so we can zero in on where the big changes are. And then where you do have the explanation and the comments, you can use that more to explain why that is. And I want to sort of emphasize one of the points that was made by, I can't recall, I think the first gentleman about when you do an increase in salaries, that there should be, and I agree with him, that there should be an evaluation of the employees. And I'm sure that you do it, I'm sure. I worked in corporate for years, and I'm sure you do evaluations of people before you give them an increase, which is why at one of the last meetings you talked about just giving across the board the same increase. I'm totally against the same increase for everybody because everybody is not doing the same level job. I believe that people should get an increase based upon how well they're doing the job. People should be evaluated and rated. If they're doing a number one performance, a great performance, then they get whatever. They get 10% increase. If they're doing a level three or four performance, a lower performance, then they get a 5% or no increase. So I agree that there should be some sort of evaluation but I'm assuming that you guys are already doing evaluations and I'm hoping the management team, the interim or the manager is ensuring that there are that yearly evaluations going on. On the recycling, I'm in favor of the recycling. I would expect that maybe once a week would probably suffice. On the bulk pickup, now I'm single, I don't have any children living with me anymore, so I don't generate a lot of trash or a lot of bulk pickup. So, you know, once every month, I don't need that, but there may be other people that need it once a month. But once a quarter, four times, five times a year is fine with me. But I do appreciate all the work that goes into this, and I do appreciate the detail that goes into this. When we get into all of the other levels of detail and some of the technical terms that were being talked about, can't address some of those so I know all of you guys are smarter than me on some of those so you have to make those kinds of decisions but I appreciate the hard work that you're all putting in on this thank you thank you thank you anyone else Bill Knox 5105 Meadow Woods Drive concerning the budget I just would like I really have I guess have questions about the police

Jeff Harrison and Chief Moore presented a pretty detailed proposal about wanting two more officers and to get the patrol officers up to par with surrounding counties, which would have been a 15% pay increase. I understand you're doing a 5% COLA across the board. But Chief Moore and Jeff Harrison did not even ask for a raise. But there's going to be about $9,000 or so in there that they didn't ask for, it would be nice if we could distribute that back into the patrolmen. And then I don't know if anybody's... I don't know if anybody's ever heard how we got to 35 cent tax cut. It was in 2023 when Mr. Chitwood, Mr. Bates, and Shane were elected. It was in the first budget session, first budget meetings. They went line by line by line item with the then city manager. And they were able to cut $0.05 out of the tax rate. They took two cents out of the SIF fund. It was six cents. Then they took two cents out of that, so it became four cents. That's the infrastructure account for future needs that really probably should be fully funded. think one of the nine budgets had two more cents coming out of that but it doesn't look like this budget that's proposed is doing that so at the end of those budget meetings the then city manager looked at everybody the late Phil Bonham was here rest his soul Travis was here and ask everybody about five times if they were good if they were good with that are you good with that ask everybody individually and everybody said yes yes yes yes so At the end of that meeting, walked out, $0.05 tax cut, $0.02 out of the COLA, dropping the tag fee, which is about $31,000 in revenue. Then about three weeks later, the story goes, I don't know if it was Chitwood or Bates or Shane, which one of them at 4 o'clock in the afternoon walked down to the city manager's office, asked to have an appointment, and cut six employees, fired six employees out of the budget. after the entire budget meeting that was never brought up. So I just felt like that was disingenuous. I think, Ben, you as a city manager could relate to that, that coming later after the fact, knowing that you were going to do that because you told the city manager that you did not want any department heads in that meeting in 2023, the three meetings, Because you knew at that time you were going to get rid of those people. So it just seems like it was disingenuous, dishonest that you beat all you could beat out of the budget, and then later came back three weeks later or whatever it was and dropped the bomb on defunding six positions. The six positions, fine. They could have been cut. But I think we're facing an issue now where we're lacking revenue. The police can't get what they want. You canceled the canine program. The day you walked in, it cost $15,000 in one of your meetings. The Chief Harrison and the city manager at that time, this is the second city manager, came with two different proposals for police vehicles. They wanted V8s. They gave you the research on it. You guys made them get V6s. You saved $3,000 a unit. So it just seems like at every turn the police are not getting what they deserve. Crime is up. We just had a bust in Riverview, 15 kilos of coke. A week later the feds busted a house down in there, I'm told. So I would just like to see whatever we need to do to support our police officers. We need a couple of more officers. Mr. Mayor, you said we need four more officers. We don't need four. Even if we got one more, that would be great. So anyway, thank you for your time.

Let me answer. Yeah, go ahead.

Make a statement on that. So what he's failing to tell everybody is the year prior to that, re-evaluations hit. And when your home got re-evaluated, your taxes skyrocketed. So what the city done was the next year, they went revenue neutral. They didn't cut back 17 cent, 14 cent, whatever out of the budget. They went revenue neutral. We actually took in more money the year that we dropped the taxes than we did the previous year. On top of that, the council sent the fire department to be funded through the county, which now you have an 11 cent additional tax to that. Or 11 and a half cent additional tax to that. So it's not like the council just cut money out and, hey, we went from positive to negative.

I didn't say you did. I just said what you cut. I didn't put a dollar amount on it.

Well, you said how we got to 35 and a half cent.

Well, I told you exactly how you got to it. You got to it by taking the 5% out in the budget meetings and then coming back and dropping the hammer on the six people. That's it. It's it.

And that was no... that we were looking to get rid of those positions. That's what we campaigned on. You're right. You're right.

But it was never discussed, Mr. Bates, in the meetings as a respectful thing to the manager and all of the councilmen. That's, I think, what the problem is. There's a lot of stuff done between the back door, behind the scenes, when it's not talked about in the meetings.

is that that goes back to the point you say you made about the trash earlier going to contract that we discussed in this room about in a meeting that you weren't in about contracting services i believe he went out and got a contract from bees something bees busy bees or something he came in with a proposal or asked for a quote for contracting services out we got multiple different quotes after that so it's been discussed not that we're doing it maybe we do maybe we don't there's nothing set in stone about it but correct and we just we just heard about that whether it was in a closed session or not I don't know it wasn't obviously top sensitive information but we you know we only heard about that as a community on a live

So that's why people are talking about it.

But a lot of problem is, and I'm going to address this, because it's becoming a problem. Nobody wants to call the council and talk to them. Nobody wants to come to these meetings and listen to what's going on. And sometimes I understand they can't. And I think recently, last couple meetings, we've just started putting on YouTube the budget meetings. But there's a lot of misinformation going on.

I come to every meeting, Mr. Bates. You know that I missed one meeting with back surgery.

That's really what I'm saying, people in general, citizens.

Okay, well, I'm talking about the stuff that I'm talking about here.

Well, I'm talking about how all this misinformation is getting out on Facebook, and certain people are only telling half of what's going on. If citizens want to know what is happening and what is going on, I assure you, you can call all five of the council members. They'll be transparent, upfront, 100% honest and tell you what you want to know. But you need to quit listening to the hearsay out here when you're only getting half of the information or you only want to put half of the information out for political gain. I'm done with it. If you want to know the truth, call the council. That's why we're here. Our numbers are listed. Everything's public. I'm like Councilman Chitwood. I would rather you call than sit here and go into a long email or something like that. And I try to respond every once in a while on Facebook, but it's just a whole different show when you get on Facebook. Everybody wants to argue, and everybody knows all the facts and the truth, but they don't. They don't come to the ones that are making the decisions and ask us what's going on. Call us. Quit listening to everybody else, what they think's going on. All of a sudden, we're going to contract trash. No, we're not. It's just a discussion to see if we can save money. So that's all it is. But yet you got people on Facebook. We're losing our trash man. It's going to be contracted. No, it's not. It's just a discussion to see if we can help the citizens and save this town some money. That's all we're looking for.

Here's the things just not been mentioned at all. You know, when we when we first got elected in 24 when we actually had our first meeting in January, We didn't have a meeting on January 24. And all these folks that were up here working, they were working on this government contract called ARPA and all these things. But all that was coming to an end. And what would have to happen to keep their jobs, the taxpayers would have to pay those funds in private sector to these jobs. This council did make the right decision as far as getting rid of those ARPA employees and the government employees where they get government funded. But listen, all that's good is smoke and mirrors. It makes you look good like, oh, yeah, you got all these people working. I don't care who's paying for it. you're paying for it one way or another through state and federal taxes local taxes whatever and that's what that's what I've always aired on the side of Mr Knox is to give you the proof how much it really cost to operate this city not hypothetical see we get an audit every year it's real simple if everyone would look at your last year's audit it tells you plainly how much money you spent for the entire year and then you go forward and set your budget the next year with the old audit correct if you don't have information if you don't have your bank totals you don't have your bank statements you don't have all this stuff in front of you when you're discussing the budget you can't possibly pass a budget you would never have a budget and here's the good news yes we do need more police officers we all know that I know it believe me we need it and here's another thing yes and like I said we make mistakes I don't care what you say what you think there's not a person up here we've all made mistakes I'll admit it But in the future, and going forward for all of us, this is the greatest thing that ever happened, to have a dialogue with the public. And also, people are informed, like Scott said. It's a simple procedure. And folks get out here, and they misconstrue whatever they want to. They can tell you, we're going to paint this ceiling purple in here or whatever and block out the windows, but we're not going to do it. but still we just want to make sure that we have enough money in here to fund what we have to have to fund all the stuff we've inherited like the recreational center and all the stuff all this extra money you're spending out there for the roof for the parking and all the things that we're that we we get blindsided we got blindsided with yes you have to have the money but you don't have to waste your money either you need to when you spend the taxpayers money it needs to be bringing something back good and the more property that the city owns or the county or state and federal government owns you don't get any taxes from that just like our ballpark out there I get so aggravated every time I ride by that place which is daily to see that mud hole over there and to see what we're trying to do make parking out there why in the hell can't we pave that parking lot why we got a million dollar grant we've already blown two or three hundred thousand dollars not put the first wing in those are the questions I have and we need to be monetarily responsible we need to let you see that we care about these people that don't take care of their property and yes we do have ordinance and they say I don't care if it's the council members I don't care if it's me whoever if you violate the ordinance and there's a fine and you don't cut your grass find them, collect the money. If they don't pay it, put it up there and let the courts decide. And it'll get so high, and the interest gets so high, and whenever they sell the property, you'll get your money back. This shack out here on Church Street, can you imagine? This deal over here in front of Dollar General, can you imagine? This deal out here on Mill Street, in front of those nice apartments, nice homes, new houses being built, shacks everywhere, telephone poles laying in the middle of the street, right up here on Highway 7. You got a guy that's had the guts to put a fence up to where you can't even use the street beside the Presbyterian Church. We've failed in a lot of ways. And to make it simple, when you do get a city manager and you do get the people in the right positions, they need to go out and enforce these ordinances, just like the police department. All this stuff is policeable. It's all ordinances. And in the future, I think this council will. You'll see a cleaner town, because once you get people in place, they'll be able to find. Candy got a fine one time for $100. you know it's the truth and it's terrible wasn't your fault but you you know you just people just neglect things and they get fines and that's and that we don't want to find no one we want you to keep it clean everyone but thank all of you being here and if anyone else has any comment yeah can i address something like you were saying bill about the uh sorry about the uh police the two positions uh it was my understanding that

the previous city manager tyler had went to chief moore and asked him which would you rather have because you can't have both would you rather have the positions or the money and if i correct me if i'm wrong uh chief you said the money that's correct correct so that's why they're not in there i want that brought out because you're making it sound like the council has taken them out of the budget

it was not the council that's all I have on that I just want to make a correction Mr Mayor the six positions that were either left or terminated were not harper funded none of them were so they had already come off the harper program we were just paying them out of general fund

I stand corrected but it was ARPA in the beginning but it did come to us to where we'd have to pay for it and we didn't need it so that's why the council I'm sure eliminated it correct the six positions were city funded taxpayer funded they were not ARPA funded I thought we had ARPA people everywhere I don't know I stand corrected on that but that's that's neither here nor there we didn't need those positions go ahead you have another question

This is more just a couple of questions than anything. I'm not super knowledgeable with the budget, so you might be able to help me understand it a little bit. So is it, I was trying to understand, is it the case that we got approximately 9.05 million in state appropriations for the capital water projects? Is that correct? Whatever the grant's for, how much is it?

I think it was 8.2.

But plus the $800,000 for the pump station? That was for the pump station.

Total $9 million, you're right.

I saw that the interim city manager had explicitly noted that our local utility fund is sitting just over $135,000 and desperately needs to grow to handle basic operational emergency repairs. My understanding is that those state grants are separate and can't be used for that. I know our developer fees are collapsing by over 80% next year. Is there a reason that we're only dedicating about $40,000 to that water sewer CIP to fix this vulnerability while we're still doing that? 5% pass through, I'm concerned that we're not going to have...

It's the good news, young man, the good news. When those houses come on board, they're going to be paying more water, more money could be coming in each month. That money will be acquired once those houses are finished. Until they're finished, we're still going to be operating on the present money that we have. You're 100% correct. But as the growth comes in, the apartments, the houses, things like that, yes, it's going to be a naturalization for money to come in. But that's what I kept trying... get the folks to understand before you have the infrastructure problems that we are inheriting these things should have been addressed before you ever issued the first permit to let anyone come in and build that number of houses our schools they don't have the facilities to take care of what they're already taking care of and our streets are just simple streets where you can get up and down the streets out here and get by with it here's the things that really drive me crazy We got the recreation program, right? We got the recreation program. We have a nice concert out here at the ballpark, beautiful. Listen, we had three or four hundred people. The next day after that Monday morning, I'm talking about just in general fund money and information, the people called me and they said, Larry, we went to that concert, it was beautiful. but the bathroom facilities were terrible people had to sit beside each other and the way they described it was terrible so what I recommend we do is have enough sense enough of us common sense to make sure anytime we have a function that we get with our recreation director and let her know without facilities you don't need to have a concert you don't have anything first just like infrastructure that's the infrastructure have the facilities use the bathroom and wash your hands and take care of the public because we can be sued if you know an outbreak of some kind of something you know could cause you sickness you know we're responsible for it and that's the ultimate that's what I that's what I want to govern for is to be responsible in every facet of our government which is concerts anything recreation anything for our children especially the sports events and things like that and to honor our schools and things like and to show them that we care and also to encourage us as leaders to show people how we really do care and that's by taking care of business I'm sorry to interrupt you, but that's something I want to get off my chest.

Yeah, I wanted to piggyback on what the mayor said. That's a very good question about the fund balance that's there and the $40,000 into the water and sewer SIF. This is a very conservative budget. we're expecting our revenues and we're already seeing that that the revenues are exceeding the expenditures. Now again this is where you go into the crystal ball portion of getting the budget because Western North Carolina experienced a horrible hurricane unseen or unheard of and that's why you build up those fund balances. the city has been very fortunate to get these grant monies to address some of the infrastructure needs that we have already nearly nine million dollars that's that's great and that's going to address a lot of our concerns especially some of the primary concerns facing us but that being said we want to be conservative We want to be able to put back into the fund balance so that can grow because we don't want to be hit with a Helene here in Lowell, North Carolina, where we don't have the monies to pay up front in expectation to be reimbursed by FEMA and North Carolina Emergency Management.

That makes sense. Sort of following up on that, and this might just be a result of my ignorance, is it the case that Gastonia, true customers directly through Gastonia, is their water rate actually $3.53 per thousand gallons, while ours is $10.28? Or am I missing something there? I'd be really curious to see one of their bills, because it seems like...

350 for what?

353 per 1,000 gallons. That's the rate I saw online, unless I'm misunderstanding something.

I'm not sure what Gastonia charges their residential customers per 1,000. I apologize for not knowing.

No, you're quite all right. I just know with this 5% pass-through, we're at 1028 on 1,000 gallons, which seems quite high for water. And I don't know what the plan is on that in the future to ensure that residents aren't constantly growing in water bills. I know we had a huge thing last summer where A bunch of people moved in, watered their lawns, spent a ton of water, and that was a blip on their part, but still, you know, you get rid of these ridiculous bills.

Well, we purchased our water from the city of Gastonia, but then we also maintain our own water and sewer departments. So that's where you see an increase is that we can cover the city of Lowell's water department.

That makes sense. Another question. I saw our general fund unassigned balance. I know someone had mentioned it earlier is up 33% to 6.7 million with about 73% of the operating budget. I was just sort of curious because I know our city's official policy is to maintain a 50% reserve for resiliency. And now we're at a

i think 73 percent reserve i was curious like how much of a rainy day we're baking in i know we need to bake it for a rainy day but it seems a little bit excessive unless i'm misunderstanding good question small towns like lowell across north carolina need at least a 50 percent um a fund balance because all it takes is one major ice storm and were expended monies, whereas a city of Gastonia could have an 8% fund balance and they could withstand that type of financial hit. So the 50% is is really good. But you always want a little bit better just for the unforeseen events that could happen. And also a lot of that money or some of that monies are out of the sale funds, which is the community investment fund. And that would be monies that would be used if the council and the wanted to go forward with the public works facility and to build other special projects.

That makes sense. We're at, what, 4.2 million on that SIF fund, and we're still collecting a 4.5 cent property tax on that for an extra $300,000? I mean, how much more do we need in that SIF fund? We still have the Part F and the LWCF matching grants for Harold Rankin and other capital projects. Why do we need that 4.2 million and still collecting another 300,000 a year?

Well the three hundred thousand is is a contribution from the city back to itself. Okay. Yes sir.

And another thing.

Some of it is like the public works facility they're looking at building that four point million you know four million plus is not going to pay for that so those contributions are kind of tied in with that and if they're looking at doing a town hall new police department other things for future development

another thing that you know is really ridiculous the state of North Carolina don't require any municipality to have about an eight percent fund balance so that's required of us and we're far in the way.

The North Carolina State Treasurer's Office and the subdivision local government commission a request that all towns maintain at least an 8%. And that's ridiculous.

I mean, you know, can you imagine if we had a problem and you know, we're in a bad we're in a better situation and folks can imagine for a town this size, we're really doing tremendous job. Overall, if you look at the whole picture versus even the city of Gastonia, you look at them, even though they have better activities for the public, things like that. But as we grow, as we get Smarter and smarter, I hope. When the new properties come in and requirements are, you know, people want better things, yes, you'll be able to do it with growth, but you have to keep growth in a comparable manner. You just can't rush out there and say, okay, we're going to hire 40 policemen or 10 policemen or whatever. You have to be smart and grow like you should grow, but once you get the money, then you'll have the money to appropriate future people, future employees. Listen, it's a sad situation. Mr. Pearson knows we've got three garbage trucks. And most of the time, if they're down, we have to borrow a round load of North Carolina's garbage truck. Biggest embarrassment in the history of Lowell. And we don't need that. We need to be on top of things. Our vehicles need to be cleaned up, maintained, tires, things like that. Where people see our vehicles go down the road, they say, they're taking care of business, just like our police cars and whatever. And I want to see things cleaned. This place over here is a rental. You've got the people over there two hours One day, all of it, four days a week, two hours. Clean that damn place up. Put some fencing around that thing. Hide that junk. Move those old trucks up on the mountain where we got that property. Let's make Loyola look good. We can do it. Get rid of this junkyard over here behind the police department. Get rid of that crap. Let's be smart. We utilize what we have and make this city beautiful. And that's what we want.

To get back to the SIF fund, it's taken us four years to get to that $4 million-ish range. I'm just a public works facility itself is seven point five. So that's why we continue to grow this. If if we were to start a public works facility now, we could not start a new project in law for ten years at least. That's probably closer to 15. But that's more of a future planning.

budget that makes sense uh last question i had hopefully this one's quick uh regarding our sanitation services my understanding is that the the ideal is that sanitation services are 100 self-sustaining but i know our user fees are only uh covering about 56 of the department cost um i was curious if we had a clear roadmap for bridging that operational deficit unless maybe i'm misunderstanding the numbers there you might be able to help me out no the uh the property tax revenues uh

They help support the sanitation. It is not a self-sustained department.

That's like the conversation Ben and I had today. Listen, it's horrific. Common sense will bring you home. On our water bills and our sewer, our pick-up garbage fees, you got a water bill and you got a sewer and you also have a garbage fee to pick up your garbage. If we had just a simple amount of money or a rate where you could eliminate the garbage pickup fee and all that stuff to where you just have one water and sewer bill, then our charter requires us to pick up the garbage. Our charter requires police protection. Our charter requires street lights and things like that. So what the old council did over the years They want to buffer the thing they want to see. And this is another tax. And this is what tears me out of the frame. That $12 of how much we charge it on the water for the garbage pickup each month. How much is the garbage? How much is it?

$12 per.

Okay, that's per person per family at all numbers of homes. That's that's nothing but a tax increase is what it is. It's a built in buffer that you keep talking about. They got all kinds of things in here to rip the nail you with. The common sense will bring you home. And if you just take the time and understand what the budget is by going back to the old outlets and setting your budget in the future and knowing how much it costs. Listen, it's simple. Look at the money you could save just on fuel alone, getting Sam's Club cards or whatever. We could save a lot of money, but there's no one. They don't want to take the time to do that. They give them a credit card or whatever. They run out here and they go buy the gas. They don't care what happens. They're just going to get gas. If it's you and I, we're going to save all we can, correct? And that's what we should be doing as well. Correct? Yes, sir. Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

Yes, Steven Ron, 808 Rogerson Boulevard. First and foremost, I just want to state that I appreciate every single one of you sitting up here. Our attorney, city manager, each one of you, council, the mayor, all of our staff, even our law enforcement, despite what people say on Facebook, I It's a thankless job, and I really appreciate you. Also, I'm very proud of you for standing up tonight and setting rumors straight. And that took courage, right? You stood up there and you said, hey, this is not right. You're getting misinformation. You reiterated again that, hey, this is my information. Call me if you have any questions. And you threw that back out there for the citizens to do so. When it comes to money, Just because we earn this money or this money comes into this city through taxes doesn't mean it has to go right back out that revolving door. So I commend you for saving some of that money for rainy days and so forth to better this town and this city. Did not think that 250 years ago we started a revolution in this country mainly over taxes. And here we are. We have certain people that are practically begging to raise taxes. And it baffles me that you have a council that is standing up, saving the taxpayers money, seeing a hit from the county, trying to alter their budgets so it's not so much of a hit to the citizens of this town. And when you hear comments like, oh, well, it's just six more dollars, or it's a latte, or I don't go out to eat once or twice a month, that's great. And financially, I'm glad that you're able to do that. But to certain citizens in this town, in this city, that's whether or not they put food on their table or whether what medications they get that month because they can't afford to get them all. So they have to handpick and choose. So I want you all to think about that, and I commend you all for doing what you're doing, saving this town money, saving the city taxes, saving its citizens. And so I just wanted to stand up here and tell you thank you, and I appreciate you.

Thank you. Anyone else have any comment during the public hearing for the budget? Anyone?

Hello, I'm Brittany Hanson, 8033 Camden Crossing. First time ever doing this. But I moved here from Springfield, Missouri. And unfortunately, Springfield, Missouri only has like two areas to do any of our recycling. And they're always far and few between. And then we did move down to Ozark, Missouri, and they didn't have any sort of recycling. I thought that's pretty sad. I kind of like that. So when we moved to Lowell, I thought this was super great. Little tiny Lowell who would have thought, you know, that we would have something like this. And I don't want to be redundant, but, you know, I think I don't stand for everyone that's sitting here, but there's a lot of people on Facebook that are expressing how much they love it. And, you know, I think about the two gentlemen that are working there, too. Where are they going to go? I mean, their jobs are just cut then in this economy. I mean, we talk about tax dollars and saving people money, but, you know, we're taking two gentlemen's job away. So I don't know where those two guys are going to go if we shut down, shut it down. Is there a position that they're going to go to after that? What happens?

One of your gentlemen is going to go part-time four hours working for Park and Rex. And the other gentleman that I think he works there mostly two days a week, I think, he is retired.

Yeah.

He's retired from the city. So he came back and just does that part-time.

Mm-hmm.

So, I mean...

So we're doing him a blessing in a way, or...?

they're moving on to bigger and better things or him i don't know and like i said i know the other gentleman has requested to move to park and reps okay he actually wanted away from recycling that's just my understanding yeah and then annually what does it cost i mean just total sum what is it costing the city it's a hundred and No, it's twenty three hundred twenty eight thousand dollars.

Twenty thousand dollars.

17 with plus 17.

Forty five thousand dollars. OK. Thought it was going to be bigger than that. It doesn't sound.

Here's the thing that folks, the common citizens don't understand. Like when they go out there and they cut up these animals and things and they dump it into the recycling bin, stuff like that that you don't know about, you know, it's just horrendous. But you need to talk to those operators out there and they can tell you what actually, you know, goes in. It's not just cardboard and things like that. whatever they want to dump in there they have to clean it up and see and just leaving it open like it is another thing and i get you know really i can get upset and hurt if you go out there that's a loyal ballpark and you've got a electric charging station on city property that we get no money from no taxes not anything if they would use this little thing up here between the ears and say okay you need to be paying us a fee taxes what it is like you or I if we went out there and put something on that property we'd be required to pay property taxes and also operating expenses things like that and whatever came in you see I don't know who owns it there's an LLC and I've asked an attorney about it And this is what that's what drives me crazy. You could have a whole lot more if you get money for what you're you're doing. It's like you can introduce to pay us to cut the grass on roads and Boulevard. They own the property. They paid us taxes. Now they don't pay us anything because we all accepted the property and we still maintain the the grass. I mean, there's no common sense. And that's the thing that it tears me up. You'd have plenty of money for your recycles and things like that if people use it the right way and use it just for recycling. Not all this. girth and things that go in out there from animals and people to chop up deer. And it's, you know, let's see.

Well, I would hope not. I know those two gentlemen definitely work there. And I mean, I have definitely been scolded for placing something that I shouldn't have.

So and you should be.

So I removed it. But, you know, it's all it's always reduction reduction. But I mean, kind of what we discussed, too, of, you know, why is there not another option that whole bulk pickup once a month, honestly? It's kind of gross. I don't need to see everyone's insides on the outside every month on the side of the road for five days while they wait until the first of the month. You know, is that going to be an option? I mean, is anything that we've discussed going to be an option or is this just mad lib right now and you guys are going to vote yes and it's going to pass and then we're done?

If the council would make those people the charging station, just for instance, the value of that charging station has to be something outrageous. Just like your home. You pay property taxes on your home. The people on that charging station, they pay nothing.

Yeah, but she was asking about bulk pick up.

Yeah, bulk pick up. Once a month. I think it's good for once a month. I think it's good.

no matter it's no charge to the people and it's not really it doesn't cost us because they're working anyway and along the way they can pick other stuff up and it seems to be a charge you know no matter what it's there's always a charge nothing there's nothing free in the world uh we definitely are learning that because we're trying to cut the recycling center right now so and i think what we done reason we went to monthly

Because what you're gonna have is, if you go back to quarterly, you're gonna see more trash sitting on the side for longer.

For a longer duration?

Yes.

Yeah.

I mean, right now.

I mean, we never had that service in Missouri. So it was a very interesting thing to see once a month on the side of the road. But I mean, ultimately, I guess your guys' mind is made up that the recycling center is gone. And I don't know. I mean, you guys are a board of men. And I think this is kind of a woman's item. be nice to have womanly things that are pretty here to have pretty flowers on the road and have recycling and to have you know different events and different things you know what is what does the community of Lowell look like I mean it's a point of convenience it's an easy exit off the highway but ultimately you know what is it that We can have. I mean, I go to Belmont all the time. Love that place. I go to Cramerton all the time. Love it. And I always look at Lowell when I come home and say, man, I wish we had some of their amenities. And I know we are a growing town. You've addressed that many times. And there's more taxes to come. But, you know, we're taking this away. What, to bring it back in a year? Is that what we'll discuss next year is to bring the recycling center back once those houses are completed and we are seeing the revenue or... How do we place this back?

No decisions have been made until this budget is voted on and approved by three council members.

And is that happening this evening?

I could not. We'll find out. Stick around. But if this budget. No, it it's presented to the council. I have questions. I don't like things. They know things I don't like. There's things they don't like.

Yeah, I mean people want to be discussing it so much and I don't think I would be even here because I mean I've only been here for two years if it wasn't something that I kind of felt something about. So you know you guys stuck you know struck a chord with me I guess and I wish you know to be heard.

I would like to address that because it's the thing that got put on Facebook either late last night or early this morning. Calling out Councilman Chitwood, myself, and Councilman Robson. These three people are going to vote to shut down your recycling center. But not one of these people that put that out has called the council to ask them what their thoughts was, how they were leaning towards you. So you're automatically going to accuse three of us of voting for this. And you're going off hearsay or going off what everybody else wants to say. But they never called us to ask us, how do y'all feel about this? I'm going to tell you, I'm for keeping the Recycling Center with the provision that only the loyal residents are allowed to use. The loyal residents are paying taxes. Let's keep it and let the loyal residents continue using it. and stop the outsiders. I don't know how many people come from the outside.

We had that in Nixon, Missouri, where you have to show your identification with your house ID. You know, obviously your driver's license has that. And then, yes, to your point, have people come here, register for $5 annually. You can use our services or for 10 or 20 just for the convenience of, say, Cramerton. I don't know if they have their own recycling center.

but you know that's a good idea to pay a five dollar fee pay something for family is a good idea yeah and also that someone comes out there and dumps illegally that uh you know we set a fine a rate a hundred dollars whatever if you if you make a mistake and also the person operating that needs to be there when it's open and that's exactly that's the whole thing for having someone out there because they come out animal guts and things like that we don't need that and you don't want that either but they should be fine when they do it and that should be included in the ordinance If you do keep the recycling thing and set a $5 fee per year, that's not bad. Yeah. And that's just common sense. And that's why that's why you talk about things. And also, why would you let a business come in here and operate in a public park and get money in the city and not get anything for that? I mean, that's to me, all this makes sense. But yeah, it's up to this board. And that's and that's who we depend on as counsel. I don't have a vote. I do love this place.

Yeah. I just hope that, you know, we see additional options to continue to add not to continue to take away, which I understand there's a budget.

But here's another good, especially when we already have it. Here's some good information for you as well. We got orders on the book. When a business comes in, a new business takes over. They're supposed to pay the parking lot. These people come in, they buy these businesses downtown, lease them or whatever. I guess I guess they've been in the same people's name. But all these gravel parking lots downtown, like you talk about Belmont, Belmont's beautiful, yes. And we're trying to have things, we rent a park over here that people don't understand, that's a rented park, that we pay fees and we pay people to maintain it. And when you have a function over there, you should have, you know, the portagines, the things that take care of facilities for people where they don't get sick. And that's, Belmont, you know, if you go downtown Belmont and they're having a concert, it's beautiful. And we need to get rid of these old dilapidated buildings and work hard and encourage these people and pass orders that make sense to where they have to take care of their property. Because why should you take care of your property? 15 people on the street and one idiot down there has got a dump. That's not the way it works.

Well, that's where community comes in and we all help each other.

Thank you. And thank you for bringing this stuff up. Thank you. Anyone else have a comment?

I just have one question. us on the charging station?

That's a good question honey I don't know I've asked them all.

Duke Energy.

It's nowhere on the tax map Candy.

I was on the council when that came in Candy Funderburg 600 Rogeson Boulevard they approached us and wanted to do that and at that time our little town was kind of hopping and that and we thought that'd be wonderful it's not going to cost us anything and Hopefully these people that have an app on their phone with these expensive cars will use our downtown. That's that's what happened. Okay. A couple of things here. Mr. Chitwood asked the chief. What did you want? Police officers.

Tyler.

Okay. But you just you. Okay. And then. Okay.

I'll reiterate.

Right. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. So the police officer said they'd rather have their pay raise or officers right they wanted to pay raise and that pay raise they asked for was 15% so my question is if you're not going to give them two officers which would cost a lot more money why don't you give them their pay raise excuse me a 15% that they asked for okay that was that's one thing recyclables when I was on council we did have a horrible spot right down by the community center that was unmanned and it was it did get contaminated animal dead animals got thrown in there we thought about our employees first we cut that out and come back and talked about it and we developed this little nice little recyclable center down down there and i hate that outside people come in there but maybe y'all could do something get a sticker on the car that that's the only people and there's no contamination that i know of down there None. There's no animals being thrown down there. Okay, that's recyclable. Bolt pickup. We had it set at quarterly. It was once a month when we came in and we set it to quarterly because saved our employees. The trucks were torn up more, and our employees were hurt more. Their backs hurt. More work on them. So that's happening, again, in my opinion, because I see it and I talk to them. OK, that's a bulk pickup. Recyclable, $0.15. OK, in 2023, when I was on council, I did try to cut taxes, $0.02. Nobody else didn't agree with it except Mr. Gillespie. And I had a phone call and said, if y'all don't cut taxes, we're going to come in there, and we're going to cut them and cut these employees out. And it happened, and that's OK. You did what you said you were going to do, and I appreciate the honesty. But what's happened with cutting those taxes, the city is stagnant. We can't move forward. We can't do anything. It's almost $1 million a year. Yeah, one penny equals $68,459. Figure that out. Over $900,000 a year. So that's where our money is, and that's why we cannot give our employees their raises, and we cannot move forward. And then the CF. We created the CF, Community Investment Fund, for future building, building a new city hall and police department complex. We inherited by the federal government ARPA funds. And people, some of y'all were saying that we raised taxes to do this. They gave us money. We purchased with that money, not taxpayer money, the property right beside the Methodist Church. And that was our plan then for uh the complex and that's okay if y'all change it and go somewhere else that's fine and we also purchased the first recreation center in loyal north carolina the first and only one that was the boys and girls club while i was growing up here that was purchased by opera funds and not local tax money so with with that being said uh um i'm just very concerned about the future of the city and i know you're saving taxpayers money and then then um But for me, I can only talk about me because I know the value of my house went up almost doubled when the reval happened in 23. Wait a minute, Larry, I know you're getting ready to say something, but it almost doubled. But that's when y'all came in and cut taxes. And then some of you, not all of you, and I'm not going to call names, went out and saying that we raised taxes, city taxes. We did not raise city taxes. The county did it to everybody. Not my council. We did not raise The city taxes. So when the reval happened, it went sky high and we got the blame.

think your council didn't cut the tax rate if you cut the tax rate I said you did your council did not cut the tax rate y'all took the full board and that's why things are like it was and that's why we came in this council here and I applaud this council for saving money you cannot do what you did Candy listen y'all paid the tax y'all paying eight and a half cent fire tax 49 cent municipal tax, 57 and a half cent. Now you pay 35 and a half cent, 35 and a half cent, 11 and a half cent, 47 cents is a tremendous reduction. Anyone's got property here, Ed, you know it's a savings, a big savings. And listen, you cannot afford to keep putting money back into the city if you can't. It's just unconscionable to think that you could come in here and pay the kind of taxes you were charging and expect people to come in and build business and things like we need. That's what we need. And now the growth is coming without the infrastructure being in place that you had the money forever. Other people have been here on this county, not myself, but some of these people sitting here today that worked here in Lowell when they had re-evaluation, they didn't cut no tax rate either. And that's when you have all these big increases in revenue, but it's on the backs of the poor people out here that's lived here forever. that built the infrastructure that was paid for, the water, the sewer system. We had textile plants in another city that would take advantage of our sewer plant. You wouldn't have Lauren Woods. You wouldn't have Riverview. You wouldn't have none of these subdivisions because they had all the sewer. People don't know what the hell I've been through, and I'm not crying on your shoulder. I'm telling you, leaders lead and followers follow. And I want to lead, and that's why we're going forward because we're not raising our taxes to hurt people. Money is coming if you've got to do it in small spurts. You don't rush out here and take a big hit like your property value goes up next year, doubles. and if this is this council any council sitting here doesn't set the rate accordingly you can't afford to make your mortgage payments a lot of people are you know just like an 09 you remember that when people lost their properties and things because that no one had nothing in no safeguard we do this council and i applaud them and people get mad when i say that the greatest thing they ever did was set the tax rate like they have and appreciate it and understand this no one's going broke everyone gets paid The vehicles out here up to these people that run these departments, they should maintain them and take care of them. That's on them. Once you get a city manager in here, hopefully, and I pray to God, that whoever takes this position will lead this city back to where it used to be back in the old days when people sat on the porch and could shoot the bull, laugh, kid and cut up, go to the ballpark and enjoy recreational softball instead of having all this crap come in here. And just like at the recreation center, they call it the recreation center. Listen, Joe Hudson built that building and paid cash for it. Court Robinson donated the land. But what they did, this group prior to us, went out and gave them a half a million dollars for their own property because it was all donated. In 1987, when Harold Rankin and that group was in here, they gave the Boys Club to the Salvation Army, which is the biggest mistake. See, our children still need a place to come and play and enjoy the facility we have. But they want to talk about recreation for older people, things like that. Yes, we got a beautiful ballpark on top of the hill. Like I've tried to explain to these people over the last 50 years since I've been on this council, we inherited that post and park up there. While I had one vote away in 1997, We were going to build a Lowell Community Center out there at the ballpark, a new police department, city hall, swimming pools, and tennis courts on the Harold Rankin Park. That's what we were going to do. It was voted down three to two. Nothing's ever come about since. Can you imagine what this would look like if this was gone, that old library building was gone, the community center where we funded all this money to all these years, a new facility sitting out there in the middle of that ballpark, and no one, the Poston family, donated that park up there on top of the hill, which is in Lowell. So why don't we utilize what we have? Today, we could do the same thing right now. This council could say, OK, Larry, we're going to make a motion that we appropriate money to start building all these facilities on the Harold Rankin Park and use our posting park and make that the loyal park where we have all these facilities, the ball fields, the walking tracks, the tennis, and everything that's over there, soccer. in a beautiful place and have this over downtown at the ballpark would be beautiful and get rid of this old building and get rid of these facilities and look at the money we generate and look at the commercial park out there at the ballpark you'd have businesses coming in and stuff like that rather than a dark parking lot think about what I'm saying and understand I care about this place and I mean it and until we get a board in here that understands how to make money with money and business not my business we have to make money we have to pay our bills you can't borrow yourself rich can you Ed You cannot borrow yourself rich. But you can't. Nobody can. And I'm sorry if I offended you, but you can't borrow yourself rich. I can't either. But you have to utilize what you do have. That's for sure.

Mr. Funderburk, I would like to address the 15% pay raise for the officers. North Carolina League of Municipalities has done a PACE study this past November twenty twenty five majority of our officers are well within where they should be compatible with other maybe not necessarily right here but statewide I think we've got two patrolmen that's making under, a sergeant that needs to be brought up and possibly a captain but the rest of the officers are making where they should be or even more than what they should be making. we don't have a problem with doing that. But what's being posed was 15% all the way down. And if we raise the officers 15% What do you do for your other employees within the city? How's that fair to the it's not

Did you ask for it in twenty twenty one and got it?

Did I ask for fifteen percent candy?

You got a big old increase though in three new patrol cars and three new officers.

Equipment and officers. You're right. You're talking about raises.

That's two different things.

Do what?

The taxes were raised six cents. Pre-evaluation would have been about four.

But you know what? I was a department head that asked for equipment.

and the city manager put it in the budget and the council approved positions were not put in the budget this year to be approved that's why that's why councilman Chittwood he knew the money wasn't there that's why he gave it an option pay raise or officers because he knew he couldn't at the current rate get both and the top three that's it y'all are the ones that are not telling the whole story the top three did not want to raise

And you're giving them the 5% call up anyway, so they're going to get a raise and they didn't even ask for one.

They did ask for the 5%. They did ask for the 5%.

The chief and the captain?

Yes, they did. They wanted 5%. They didn't want the 10%. So please don't use that misinformation. They were asking for the 5%. But it still was not fair that they get extra, from the captain on down, 10% extra where the public works are working just as hard as what the police are.

Give them a raise too.

Well that's what we've been trying but it didn't work out because the city manager did not do it so I can't do it. I understand that. I'm tired of all the misinformation that's going on.

We've let you talk for a long time. I want to help him.

Well, here's I'm tired of the misinformation that goes on around this place. It's just a lot of the stuff, the stats that I get from the police where I asked for each individual officer for what they do. Some of them do not equal out to what they should be doing.

That's

That was proposed and never put in the budget.

Okay. I didn't hear that.

There again, y'all don't call us. Y'all just go on Facebook and start talking about it. I don't respond on Facebook. Say that again.

You don't go on Facebook?

I don't go on Facebook. Because there was one incident on Facebook that there were several of them that said that I said something, but that was not what was meant. You know what I'm talking about, Bill, because you were part of it. What was that? We'll discuss that later in the day. But what I'm talking about now is the budget. You had no business on that lady's page. Right.

You had no business on that lady's page.

Y'all misconstrued. But that's fine. We're not talking about that. We're talking about budget now. The stuff is not y'all spreading stuff on Facebook that is not the truth.

I'm saying that everybody I don't care who it is it's everybody that misinformation is getting put on Facebook I want to reply to some of Larry's comments when the thirteen and a half cent tax break was brought you said you know it brings in builders and all that stuff there's been no builders brought in by current council and even probably previous council before me brought in some of the builders that are still waiting to build so I don't think the tax rate has an issue part of that Poston Park is county-owned yes it is in the city of Lowell but we do not have nowhere near the resources or money or employees to maintain Poston Park so that will always be a county park that will not be a city park it is in city

I agree. I agree 100%. But the county has to pay for it at this place. Listen, Poston, the family donated it. The land, the street should have gone through down there where you live and back behind the Oakland chain. All that should have been opened up. But Judy Horn, the old mayor, God rest her soul and the council, they didn't want to go down. They didn't want to go down through the rural areas where you don't have sewer and things. And it would have brought sewer in and brought up and up down there where you live. Mr. Smith, all down through there would have been sewer open up that street all the way into the back of Poston Park and you'd have had a great big park and you've gone through the rural areas in which would have been beautiful. People over there still don't have sewer. It's a sad situation. I'm glad you brought it up. Thank you. That the county has to pay it for and maintain it. And the people on Oakland still to this day, they have nothing. And that's why I got so pissed off at your mayor, the old Mayor Rankin, when he went out and took up the petition to build this humongous water and sewer system in the city of McCownville that we had no rights to except to use our sewer. But as well, they did as well. They could pay for the whole city of McCownville, pay $2,500 a month to use our sewer system. So Larry got elected mayor. In 1991, the first thing we did, we raised our sewer from $2,500 a month to $15,000 a month. You thought you'd kill someone. All of them raising came. The guy that owned the mill company, he came to me and he said, Larry, you can't do that. I said, let me explain something to you, pal. I said, all municipalities, the only thing that we can set in this municipality is our water and sewer rates. We can't set the phone. We can't set the power and the gas company. But we set the water and sewer rates. So he said, I'm going to the governor. I said, listen, here's his number. Call him. He called him, and you know what he told him? Larry is right. The city of Loyola sets their municipal rates, water and sewer. That's all. You know that, Ben. That's the only thing we can say. So the $15,000 a month, they paid for it for about six or seven months. Then they put it in their own system, allegedly, which I still don't think they do. But they're off of our plant. See, we had 450,000 capacity to use our sewer plant. So once they got off, Lauren Woods built all those houses down Main Street, down there where you live in Riverview, wherever y'all live, and all these subdivisions where you live, Bill, all that stuff is because we have facilities. We have water and sewer. Just like when we put in the original, the night, those people in here speaking tonight about the chemical plant, this old retard here, Said, well, listen, we need to put in a major water line down Main Street all the way up the mountain for that chemical plant. They looked at me, the council, it cost $38,000. They said, Larry, you're crazy. You're like a fox. About five years later, after we put it in, the chemical comes, and guess what they needed? They could no longer make red dye out of a county well. So they had to buy our water. We brought in hundreds of thousands of dollars, Ben, and that's how we ran the city like we did without raising taxes back then, Candy, and people had the $8, $9 water bill, Candy, because we utilized what we had. Now these people pay, some of them paying $100, $200, and $300 a month water and sewer is ridiculous, and I agree with that 100%, because we're in control, this council's in control of what the rates are. And please understand, if you ever want to make the city grow, just like Donald Trump tells you, you don't raise taxes. You don't run businesses out of our country. You encourage them to come in our country and spend their money and hire people and put people to work. Just like oil. What is our industry? We got Sun Drop. We got Hardee's. We got Hillbilly's. And we've got a few power companies over here in this little complex over here. Thank God for whatever we have, but just think what we could have if we opened up Oakland area, all those hundreds, I'd say almost 1,000 acres back there, Shane, behind the post and park, and you could put sewer in there and let the government come in here and pay for it. And those people have been maligned for all those years and still have septic tanks. No city of sewer. And that's what tears me up. And all these people, they say, all these great people, great leaders, it's why Lowell has nothing today. But thank God that people have come forward to come to this meeting to ask questions and understand the truth, not listen to these bullshit, blown-out politicians that have been set up here for years to understand this. All they know is increase your taxes. That's not what you need. What you need is to be treated fairly. You, myself, everyone on this board needs to be treated fairly. That's the whole truth and nothing but the truth. And thank you. that includes you much yes what is not that he said listen you got part up to the railroad track down behind his store that is true but all the whole areas is in the is in rural area that ATJ to where we have listen we just had a person dying a fire out there for no fire protection think about it yes you're in the county too this is Gaston County right here this is Gaston County I'm just telling you, I'm getting upset. That's his Gaston County. No, you don't. That's what y'all did. You went down here and annexed this property. Listen, you went down here and annexed this property on Spencer Mountain Road without no money. Now you're paying for it. That's the truth. Go ahead. Anybody else have any more comments? Thank you. I need a motion to close the public hearing.

I have a motion to close the public hearing.

I have a second. Any discussion? Second. All in favor? Thank you. All right. Ben, you want to take the lead on the budget?

I've already made my comments, and you've heard from the public. It's in your hands now.

Thank you. All right.

Mr. Smith? Again, Ben, thank you for everything you've done. It's not what you were hired for. We're just in a rough spot as far as that goes. My issue is, yes, I would like to keep recycling, Ben. I have no problem with that going down to one day a week. I think that's feasible. Um, as far as employee raises, I would like to see the police department get a race. I would also like to figure out a way to get other departments raises. Um, I don't see an option to do that without a tax increase. Um, That's where I'm at. I think we need to bring back our services, definitely back our police department and public works admins, everybody. But, you know, we keep on getting into this, putting the police higher than public works or the admins, you know, and If a man's going to step in front of a bullet and save my life, I think he needs to get paid for it. Not saying that Public Works doesn't risk their lives daily. And as Mr. Bates mentioned, there was a pay study. Uh, that pay study was statewide and there is towns on both sides of us paying a lot more money to their police officers and our police officers could go right next door anytime they want to and leave us stranded. Well, a very short staffed police department and um, that's, that's the issues I have with the budget.

Mr. Mayor, I would just like to say that I'm so proud to hear about the desire to keep the recycling center. And it's a very, very good thing. And I was happy that Councilman Bates said that he had not, you know, shed it out. He said one day I think he said one day would be good, and I like what Mr. Lynch said. He had to leave, but he said only loyal residents could use it in a sticker or something like that for their car or whatever. But that's very important. It's very important to the citizens. I just hope we can keep that recycling center. And I don't like the fact that contract services will be farmed out such as like waste management stuff, I compare that to two rivers. These gentlemen on the council kept our sewer plant and hopefully that we don't have to farm out waste garbage pickup to another company. I just hope we can keep it. That's basically what I have to say. I'm always in support of more police officers for public safety. So I know it's a generic saying, but I support our police department 100% and whatever it takes to keep them and make them happy. That's what I'd like to do. Thank you.

Like Mr. Bates said, I brought it up to him about the recycling center. that our tax dollars i thought about it i didn't i wanted to get rid of it i didn't want to be spending almost 60 000 but our tax dollars are paying for it here's the problem i have the city of gastonia city of belmont city of cramerton everybody coming up here they're not paying to put that in there it's the that's our tax dollars our tax dollars that is paying for that facility Yes, I was the one that brought that up to Bates about a sticker. We'll get a sticker. Bill, I'll give him props. He come up with something with trying to get LCC to come and volunteer to help him. That cuts down on some of the stuff. So the recycle center, if it stays, it will be, I say a sticker is given out to loyal residents. I like what, I forgot your name. Brittany. That's a good idea of Gastonia. If Gastonia wants to come, they come and pay a fee. But it has to come and get paid here. It's not going to be collected at the facility because there's no money. And so I have no problem with that. When it comes to the raises, like I just argued, there are some officers that is not up to potential. Pollock Works, and I keep pointing to I forget your names. Pony. I don't know why I forget that. Pony, they're out there working in the heat just like the police officers are working in the heat, the cold, but yet the police officers can jump in and out of their cars. Police officers can go back to their office. Public works, they're out there digging them holes. They need more money. My proposal, which... Like Travis just said earlier, it was in a bad situation. My proposal was to get everybody up to a certain amount of what the pay study was. Anybody that was over the pay study, they was only going to get a certain amount. Then we go to a merit raise like Ms. McKenna. When she said that, I was proud to hear that. Finally, somebody. That's all I had at the sheriff's office was merit raises. I never had COLA raise. You had to bust your butt to get that merit. So my other issue with the budget, when Ms. Dumont was moved over to, what is her position now?

Planning.

Planning. She was in stormwater. I told the previous manager, I said, we need to keep that person, that body in there, that way it's not asked for again, keep that body, have a body in there, then that person, while they're out doing stormwater stuff, they can be looking at code enforcement stuff instead of this code enforcement complaint-based situation that is going on right now. There are a lot of code enforcement issues in this town, in this city, I'm sorry. So that's where I'm at on that budget.

And I did forget about stormwater position. I agree 100%. Next.

Go ahead, Scott.

pretty much said what I had to say throughout the meeting I mean you know I think we definitely need to the city at one point had performance based raises I think we definitely need to go back to that I mean that's that's for sure I will say that we've kind of got we got put in the position with our previous city manager when we were in the middle of the budget and he kind of he left and nothing on being being just kind of got caught up in a lot of it. Some of the numbers I still question some of the revenues, some of the expenditures. For me, I would like our incoming city manager to look at some of this. I'm good with keeping the recycling center. I mean, I don't have an issue with that. It definitely needs to be either on a pass base, car base, license base, something. It's got to be for city employees only. I mean, citizens only.

I don't know. At some point, I think it's can the county get involved with this and I don't have a problem with all the other municipalities coming in. I don't know. I just now thought of that. Hang on, Ron. I didn't mean to interrupt you, Shane, but it's just a thought.

you open the door of the county they're gonna run you over like a snow plow and at some point I think it's got to be moved I think the way right now it kind of separates our park from our especially with the redoing of the park I think at some point it's definitely got to be moved can I make a comment Mr. Mayor and council members

I think we've heard from the citizens this evening and I think I'm hearing from each of the council members that the recycling center should remain in the budget not taken out but added to the budget for continuation am I hearing that correctly from at least the majority yes okay staff can make those corrections when it comes to raises for particular groups of employees as an interim manager I don't feel comfortable because I've been here a little over a month in order to make those adjustments based on my limited knowledge I think that should be addressed by your full-time or permanent manager that comes in raises can be addressed anytime during the fiscal year and i would i would suggest from my position that y'all look at these address these concerns with your new manager uh if you're talking and obviously you mentioned that you'd like for the new manager whoever he or she is to look at these numbers i don't know when that manager is going to start but yeah i don't think they're looking at things that would be very prudent for that new manager then to look at what y'all addressed about raises for certain individuals or certain positions or certain departments that can come later staff would really appreciate that the council vote on the budget tonight one way or the other in regard to what I've heard from the citizens tonight and you've heard from the citizens tonight

I think I think you hit the nail on the head we could put the rock on back in there at a you know a fee for especially outside of people and we really don't want to open it up I would just say no outside people I think show your driver's license just be here just keep it loyal and let loyal operators on deal and not not have to fund the whole county and also it's like you just hit the nail on the head we can set salaries anytime and if you wanted to and really to study this thing like one lady suggested tonight we do a study and she's right Miss McKinney you're right they should do a study and then that way we can evaluate this thing at a later date we don't have to set this tax rate I mean set the tax rate yes we have to set a budget but we don't have to set salaries or nothing like that tonight but we can include keeping the recycling open also that we and my suggestion for the whole city no one in that public works department should make less than twenty two dollars an hour that's only eight hundred eighty dollars a week and after they take their taxes out they still have to maintain a family rents fifteen hundred eighteen hundred dollars a month They have to have a vehicle. And we can't rule their life for them. But we should provide a salary that they can live in North Carolina, especially Gaston County. And if they wanted to live here in our city, that's wonderful. But here's the thing about it. There's young police officers out there just becoming police officers. And they have a young family. They need to be compensated where they can feed their family and where they can pay their houses off in a 15, 20 year time limit. see that's what just our whole country suckers people into believing a thirty year mortgage now they're talking about a fifty year mortgage why the hell don't you just rent a place and not even own nothing that's not the American dream you want to own your home as leaders in the county municipalities whatever government state and federal we should provide housing the right way to where people can afford to live without government assistance and that's the whole truth and nothing but the truth I would set this budget tonight status quo like it is with the tax rate like it is and also in preparing and prepare and be prepared in 60 to 90 days after the new city manager whoever he or she whoever y'all hired to come in and do this sit down and let them evaluate this whole program and evaluate the what what the employees are making and the young folks are just getting started and it's and it's listen Here's what I tell people. I'm fixing to go have this eye surgery. The old guy I got, he's 50-something years old. I wish the guy doing it just got out of eye school to where he could do this surgery, the youngest one, because this old guy, he's got a record. He's already got his money. But the young guy, he's going to have to start with his old eyes here and fix me. But anyway, that's selfish, but that's true. But anyway, that's how you mold this. And listen, we could be leaders in this county, not the followers. And that's what I've always said. We could be the biggest, smartest group of people that's ever been on a board if you just give yourself enough credit and enough time to understand what really the needs are, and you hit the nail on the head. And I appreciate it. But set the tax rate tonight, and go ahead and keep your recycling at $28,000, whatever you need to put in there. $45,000, whatever it is, and then set your salaries at a later date. Just keep the salary status quo and let these folks know that, yes, help's on the way, but let's do it the right way and give you enough money to be smart. Not just give you a Band-Aid, but make it in the future where it's acceptable. And that's what common sense and good government is. That's my suggestion. That's all it is.

Ben, would it be easy for staff to add in merit raises to be distributed this coming budget year?

Yeah, the council staff can get that together upon council approval. But right now you have a balanced budget. We just have to tweak some of the revenue numbers to meet the 45,000 if you continue the recycling center as it is. If you wanted to cut it back down to one day a week, you just do a pro-rated version. But that's not a hard fix with your recycling. You've got the best compared to your raises. You can address, as the mayor said, you can address raises any time of the year.

So what you're saying is that the 5% COLA tonight would not be in it?

I would recommend that the 5% COLA be in the budget. I would accept the budget. with the amended version of the recycling center be put back into it. So what you do is you increase your revenues by $45,000 and then increase your expenditures by $45,000.

And then what Ms. Lynn McKinney said, then we can still go and look at the budget for merit raises. Absolutely.

The consumer price index showed a 3.6 or 3.8% inflationary rate, and that was in March. Well, we all know things kind of spiked. beginning in March and it's not really gotten any better except till the last week or two. We're seeing some leveling off and decreasing especially in fuel costs which governs everything. So the 5% was to include that 3.6% inflationary rate that goes all of us in this room it's affecting us all so I would look at it the next year or even this coming fiscal year with your new manager look at your employee evaluations look who needs to raise look who's doing the job and who needs a maybe a little bit more incentive

to get that merit pay but they're still going to get the five percent and I don't want five percent on top of merit there's no merit in this and that's where I'm saying but if we ended up going with a merit after the budget is set then that's an additional raise is what I'm hearing you're right but that's where you would adjust your merit pay accordingly

based on your 5% raise.

But you're you're up yourself up for a big can of worms as far as far as how to set this deal with the but let me ask you this man. The public works people are the ones the lowest paid ones. What what is their hourly rate out there now?

I don't have that number.

What's the lowest salary? What is it? I don't know that. You don't have a list of the employees?

No, sir.

Not only right now. If they're under $22 an hour, that's, you know, I'm talking about any person out there lifting a garbage can, taking care of anything is $880 a week. I think some of them, I think it was like $19.75. Wasn't it the same last year or something? That's the thing about it. Once you set this budget, that's it.

You set the budget. Okay.

Y'all get in order because we're trying to discuss this. Thank you.

Thank you.

Mr. Attorney, you're 100% right. Once this budget passed, whatever's in it's going to be in the budget.

I just wanted to make sure that I understand.

Yeah. From the show, if you pass the budget ordinance with the amendment to the recycling center, you do have the 5% across the board. That's going to be part of the ordinance. So that will go forward. What where the council has what you've been talking about, some discretion moving forward. If revenues come in, as then you can do some of the merit increases to certain positions.

The manager reevaluate this whole situation. You just say a 90-day moratorium and then come back in 90 days after the managers had time to work with each department head, all department heads, police, everyone, sanitation, water, sewer, the whole nine yards and the folks upstairs and everyone. It'd be simple just if we just take a little break and set the budget, the tax rate and things, no increases in anything. And bring back the recycle thing. It's only $48,000 what you're talking about. And only for loyal people. Only for loyal citizens. The only way it can be proven you're a loyal citizen, you have to have a driver's license ID or something. Just common sense. And leave the county people in the county. We can't afford to feed them. They're already ripping us off. But that's up to the council. I don't have a vote, but I would strongly recommend no, nothing. Just set the budget. Put the recycle plant back out there. And then... As a new manager comes in, let him tell us what he sees. And that's out of respect. You know we inherited this mess, and thank you for having us. It's just been fast, has it not?

Well, you work together. As a council, you all work together. You work with the public down here.

No one's trying to hurt anyone's feelings. We're just trying to come to a conclusion on how we can operate this place in the future and move forward.

Yes, sir.

And thank you. Thank all the council. Thank the citizens. But it's up to the council as to how you vote or whatever you do. It's up to you all. I enjoy people.

Ben, what was the 5% as far as the dollar number?

It was $135,000, wasn't it?

It wasn't that high.

What's the total of salaries?

What was the total amount of salaries before the raise? You gotta have a total amount in your budget. Whatever it was, times 5% would be the increase of your increase. I understand, but add all three of them up. Call them out, I'll add them up for you.

That's four ninety four what's the next one? Eight ninety four. Streets one sixty four dropped to one sixty. And sanitation went from 153 to 145. But then if you add the 45 back in there or the 17.

It's going to be $2,080,000. Times 5% is $140,000.

And then parks and recreation, it went from 115 to 192, and that was with your extra employment I have.

My thought on that was is what if we reduced it back to 3% with the expectation of within six months merit increases that was just that two percent to wash out the recycling from five to three percent that's why I got that word hard for you with the expectation of paying within three percent right now and then later on let the city of madrid come in

It could be even more. Depends on what they, when they come in and do the study. So that's the good news. You know, you're not locked in because just like the city manager told you, you can set the salaries anytime. The tax rate has to be set tonight. We have to set the tax rate. Correct, Ben? By June the 30th. Yeah, we still got a few days. But once you set your tax rate, and that's the budget, and you know what you're taking in water, sewer, and the whole thing. and what Shane said is true I mean you know you're you're you're not you know you're not denying them a raise like like what you're trying to implicate it's not he's gonna give you a three percent raise tonight is that what you said yeah I was just saying if you all across the board for everyone and then once the city manager comes in and evaluates everything he can come back before the board and say this is what I found out whether it be higher than six percent or lower whatever give him an opportunity to lead us we're paying him that kind of money you know how city manager salaries used to be you came in too early Ben we got him in a bargain here still got him in a bargain but God is our witness. We know what we have to do and make it good for everyone and we want to be fair to every employee we got. Every employee, not just one or two but all of them.

I'll make that in the form of a motion. What's your motion, sir? That we drop the increase to 3% and keep the recycling.

I have a second. With 2% merit.

or the potential of up to two percent possibly even more than that I just leave it like you said motion three percent leave it alone then let the city manager come and tell us what to do I mean it could be more than that there's no limit on the increase and bring back the recycle that's good that'll make people happen in lowell all right so you got a motion you have a second 3% raised tonight with the potential after the city manager comes on board and evaluates everything the tax rate will be set at what is it right now thirty five and a half cent tax rate will be the same reducing the increase back to three percent instead of five and keeping the recycling I'll make a motion to stay at the five percent keep

Recycling being with future talks of merit raises.

Second. A motion and a second. Any discussion? All in favor? All opposed? Maybe we still don't have a budget. So what's next? back for discussions now listen you don't have to pass the budget tonight we can close the but we have closed the public hearing haven't we yes yes okay so you don't really have to pass the budget now you can you can have the call meeting between now and june the 30th and set this budget correct yes we have to have another public hearing or not then that way that way give you time for you know things that way out in each council member's mind but you can vote tonight that's for sure that's up to the council we had two motions and both of them failed I'd like to request maybe a five minute break yes I'd be good we'll take a five minute break thank you and that'll help the citizens too thank you everyone just take a break there's no closing doors tonight All right. I guess everyone's back with you again. Okay. All right, we're back in session, and let's see if anyone else have a suggestion as far as what to do.

Obviously, there's none. Are you working? Are you working? The only thing I know. I haven't done the work session. Well, I mean, I think we've all expressed what we would like to have seen in it. And me personally, if what I want in it is not the same as what Travis wants, or Mr. Gillespie, we're at a stalemate. So we've got to figure something out.

My suggestion would be to reconvene a meeting on, if it's okay with the council, say next Thursday night at 6 o'clock and give you folks time to ponder everything, reevaluate it. If you have any questions, Ben's available, I'm sure.

I'm tired of pondering with pondered for we're on budget number nine.

I mean I don't I don't I don't know the answer to the to the problem you got plenty of time no one has to rush in and make a mistake just take it easy and understand how important it really is and what I want to see is you know the new city manager come in and do the study like everyone's a lot of people suggested I suggested a study is the best thing we could ever have we've never really had an in-house study they Y'all have had some people come in and tell you different things, and y'all looked at the state, and right now you're looking at what the state's doing, and the municipalities beside of us. But we have to make a decision for these folks. This is our city. And I would just suggest that, you know, give you an opportunity just to think, and just table it until next Thursday night at 6 o'clock, if the council approves that, and that gives you an opportunity to ponder things and realize we don't have to pass it tonight. And I think it's a consensus that they're going to keep the recycling. That's good. I think that the employees need to be paid, and that's great. But it needs to be where you don't have to rush in and do something that you're going to be sorry for. If you give the appropriate raises at the right time, they'll appreciate it because the young folks and the people that make the minimum money out there need to be taken care of just as much as the higher echelon. Everyone needs to be treated fairly, everyone. And that's my suggestion, just to take it to the next Thursday night at 6 o'clock.

Mr. Mayor, council, may I speak? Yes, sir. I don't want to speak out of turn, but you've got a new manager, may or may not be starting within the next couple of weeks. And I think it's, and you all know my schedule, I'm going to be taking a family vacation the latter part of June. So I'm going to be out of the loop. That being said, I think it would put the new manager in an uncomfortable position to come here and there's no budget.

Well, it's not going to happen that way. You'll be here next week, right?

I'll be here, yeah.

Okay, that's all I said until next Thursday. I'm not asking for two weeks or three weeks. Just to give them an opportunity for this council to study a little bit more on their own and then come back. And that's like Mr. Knox said, above board. Do it right here in front of the people, not behind closed doors. Do it right here. And everyone have an opportunity to come back next Thursday night at 6 o'clock prepared to hopefully pass a budget. And that way if they have any questions, man, they can ask you what the stuff that you can help them with. As far as the monies you see in front of you, that's all you got to operate with. All we have is what we have. No more, no less. But it's, you know, it's feasible to get this thing done. He had two different motions tonight. Nothing's passed. So why, you know, kick a dead horse, just come back next week, fresh mind and do something. That's my recommendation. That's the only recommendation I can't vote. It's up to the council.

Ben, you came in and helped us. Again, you presented a balanced budget with a 5% COLA. We're adding back the recycling bin as the citizen asked. Yes, sir. I'll make the motion again to pass it with a 5% COLA.

It's already failed you can't bring it back.

There is a procedural motion that you can renew a motion that's failed at any time.

I thought once it failed it had to be one of the other parties that turned it down had to be the one to make the motion. I understand that.

I mean it'll be the same exact motion.

Rule 19 says a motion that's defeated may be renewed I'm sorry, at any later meeting, unless there's actually a later meeting.

Yeah, I've been doing this for 500 years. I don't want to make no mistakes.

He's not able to do that.

So there's no other council members can make a motion. Sure. The ones that are, you know, the ones that have the ones that haven't presented a motion. I mean, she wouldn't. Scott, have you made a motion? And you say there's only two people that's made a motion, so they're technically out of until another meeting, but the other three can make a motion. Yes.

I just say, you know, with with being being an interim and I don't feel like we're going to have a city manager in here by the time we need him. I think we need to get this done. I don't think another meeting is going to get it done.

If you don't pass a budget, then I don't have every requirement.

I understand what you're saying, but I mean, how many meetings have we had and we're still here?

I like this meeting. It's been good on the best meeting we ever had. I appreciate it.

I think it's good to hear from the citizens The only reason I made the motion to drop it back to three percent is that somewhat balances out that budget if you take the forty thousand out and you're basically balancing I understand that but you're also going off of what ifs in the future we're not guaranteeing any type of a merit raise

it doesn't guarantee it we're dropping it back to three percent with no guarantees I thought you said looking or did you say possible took it completely out how did you say your motion originally it was within six months a merit raise

I would just have the motions read.

I guess what I'm asking is when you say potential are you saying potential the employees may get it or not but the merit raised would be there? Is that what you were saying? Well I think you got to look at your funding yeah.

But it really would be a better raise for them if it went the right way, and that's the whole thing about it. No one's going to not get a raise.

But you're dropping coal at 3% for a potential marriage.

That's the good news.

There's no way to go back to the public comment.

It's closed. Sorry about that.

I like the proposal that councilman Chitwood was bringing forward but it never got presented well see the night we were going to talk about it we went into the we had to go do the city manager stuff deal with city manager my proposal was with the pay study all everybody that was under Because there was some that was way under like $10,000. I said a maximum of $5,100. Up to 5,100. So there was somebody that was at 3,600 before their amount. They got 3,600. Anybody that was over, which there are some employees that's $4,000, $5,000, $6,000, $8,000 over their pay study amount, the amount would be $1,500. Next year, we start merit raise only. None of this COLA. We'll set a merit raise, an amount for a merit raise, And that's what my but there again, it got turned down. And I wanted the stormwater person back in there. That wasn't in there. That wasn't even on the original budget. It was brought to Tyler's Mr. Cobbs. It was brought to his attention. So that's where I'm at. We can get that if that can be worked in figured out.

The stormwater lady is doing the zoning and the stormwater. Is that correct? Yes. So in her side, the salary for that is what 65,000. And also, you know, not speaking out of turn, but the gentleman out there running the wastewater treatment plant for us. It pays an engineer out of his salary. Last year's salary, I believe, was $62,000. I think this year is $67,000 this year, a $5,000 raise. But that's a contracted labor. That's not a city-paid employee. But that, to me, the responsibility it has in the work that he does and the engineer does and he has to pay the guy out of his salary, that should be a minimum of $72,000.

Well, the reason why I said the stormwater person being there, I don't know if you heard me a minute ago. I said the stormwater while that person is out doing stormwater duties riding around, they could be looking at code enforcement issues. That way, it's not a code enforcement complaint based issue taken care of. She can figure that he or she he or she could be doing code enforcement also because stormwater is under What is her plan?

And here's here's the thing about what this is not realize that stormwater fee on air brings in four hundred eighty some thousand crack. Now, you know, only pay on one person to do that. And she needs help from public works to get these things done, these projects and things like that. And that's why, you know, I think the biggest deal with trying to get more employees out there in public works is get some people to help her get the things done that she needs to get done. But money's there, and like Shane said, and I agree with you as well on what you said, the way the pay schedule's set right now, it's a very intelligent move because the one that's overpaid will get less. The one that's underpaid will get more, and that's a fair deal. And also this, we don't direct the merit raises. It'll be completely up to the city manager. We'll be out of that part of it. And you're right about the merit raises.

That's good. That's something else I meant to bring up. About the merit raise, I think personally a committee should be made for the merit raises to be evaluated. A volunteer committee, just a committee or something. But that's me right now. Right now we're trying to figure out where we're going to go with the budget instead of keep talking about other stuff.

I think you're right, and what you said a while ago is good. But here's the thing about it. If you're prepared to make that motion, make that motion. If you're not, let's just... Well, he's got a figure.

Somebody would have to figure it out, whether it be an old one or a black one.

What do you need to figure it out?

If that money's in, how they could move that money around.

The money's already there.

I understand, Steve, but it's got to be balanced. Am I correct?

You could balance the budget with that motion. You could just reset the figures, correct?

I mean, you want to be as exact on your revenues as you possibly be.

Revenue is not going to change. Your revenue is already there.

But if your dollar amount of that motion is gone, if the expenditures change.

Yeah, but that's that's why I said I suggested you wait till next week, come back with this, you know, come back with those figures. But it's a good motion. It's a fair motion. And it's it's I like it because it gives merit raises. I think that's good. Rather than just a I thought you said next year would be the next fiscal year but in the interim they could also include it as this year that you see you can set just like Ben already told us all this board can set the salaries anytime they want to up or down but you got to have something to get past and where you can operate this city for a year but in the interim you can do this just to get you buying to them the new manager comes on board and let him do the re-evaluation but you got you got to have some guts to do one way or another but the way the budget is i don't agree with five percent across the board i agree with what what you said was good what i said that's It's a good motion.

I'm not going to make the motion until the figures are out.

Well, then wait till next Thursday night.

One comment on that is like, well, if you can express an intent in the future that we're going to at such and such time, just do merit raises. I don't think you can pass an ordinance that says we're going to absolutely only do that's always going to be up to the board to decide. Sure. Sure. At that time.

I just think suggesting to table next Thursday night, give Ben an opportunity to study this with the recommendations that he's heard and come back with something everyone can live with. And that's the fair way and do it right here, right here like we have to vote right here in front of the public.

So if I understand you correctly, it's no one gets more than $5,100. That's the top.

That's the top.

And then you're bringing up lesser paid individuals to what?

The lesser paid, I would have to show you what I'm saying. If I knew that it was going to be discussed tonight, I would have brought the paper that I had. But I'm trying to remember one incident. And there was, for instance, one of the sergeants. I think she is like 6800 under. I can't remember. But it was like 6800 she would get 5100 pressure on. Then there's somebody that's in public works that's making over what they're making what what the salary study says they get 1500 because you're already making over what the and some of them and not just works. It's a lot of other ones in the city are making over some are making under so depending on if you're less than fifty one hundred you get up to that I'm trying to remember how it is nine thirty at night is that a one time proposal the only question I have to that is that the differences in pay based on your position

and the department heads would have to answer this because I don't know, is like the number of certifications you have. The city of Lowell, like other municipalities, reward employees for certifications that they receive. So I don't know.

if if it's apples to apples or oranges to oranges well when we do the comparison i'm going off of that pay study that i got from mr bates through the league yes through the league sure i think she has access to it or you brought it to and it showed so and so is making this the league says they should be making this or so and so is making this their way over what the league says they're making I just based it off of that what does if it was less than

Yes, sir.

You see what I'm saying?

Yes, sir.

That's what I wanted. That's what didn't come to fruition. And that's where I'm at. And the stormwater person.

Yes, sir.

I don't know how we go with that.

Yeah. And again, that's a one time.

That's just for this, but just for this budget, and then next year, it starts a merit race. We do merit races. We set the amount of a merit raise. A merit raise with no cold. What you're correct.

I think his proposal would pretty much give people

or at least close to where they need to be pretty close to it the ones in the run I understand but it's for a year and you're taking away the code okay well let's put this in perspective there's one person on there that if they got five percent it would only be forty one hundred if they went with the proposal that I wanted they'd get an extra thousand dollars You're up to that amount when you come next year if you're making $90,000 you're starting at $90,000 the next budget until that raise it's not we're only going to give it to you as a bonus it's your raise for the year

And I think, correct me if I'm wrong, we're basically going to do away with the COLAs next year, and it'll be just merit, even though the merit may be a bigger percentage.

No, you just said it's taking COLA away. Yeah, for next year.

That's what I just said. You'll take it away.

I'm taking it away this year. He's taking it away this year. because you're getting a raise you're already getting a raise brought up to where the league says you should be it's going away this year here's the dumbest thing I've ever heard in my life I mean I'm in business and that's fine where are we going to go with this because we keep going around what do we need to do what somebody make a suggestion to do something study the next Thursday night because we've got it's 9 30 and we still got several others I make a motion we table this till next Thursday at 6 p.m. second

Any discussion? All in favor? God bless America. Good night. Thank you. Anybody against? Anybody against?

I'm sorry.

Three in favor, two opposed. We can go home and rest. No, we still have more to do. Oh, we still got more on the agenda? Oh, yeah. Oh, my God. We still got council mayoral report. I ain't going to have nothing. I don't want to know. Okay. Do you want to just table the rest of dinner the next day? All right. Okay, the next one should be simple. Contract for the auditor for the next fiscal year. I need a motion to keep the same auditor, right?

About $46,540.

Okay, got a motion?

I'll make a motion to approve the audit contract for $46,500. Thank you.

Have a second? Second. Any discussion?

What was the previous contract?

It was around the same amount. Pretty close.

Any more discussion? All in favor? Unanimous. Thank you. To approve electrical work, Christmas wiring. Do you have a contract for that, ma'am? Okay, go ahead, Mr. President.

What this budget is actually, or this money is actually going to be doing is moving all of the lines that we have off the poles that new power has changed out. Like right out here, I know there are several poles that need to be removed. We need to move our power for our Christmas lights and that kind of stuff off those old poles and put them onto the new poles and also our brackets. How many polls are you talking about?

A thousand dollars a poll? How many bids do you have? How many bids do you have?

What was the other bid? What was the price of the other bid? It's kind of a hard job and a hard type of niche because you actually have to have a bucket truck for each one of these to be able to move it. Some of them will require two bucket trucks because they're going to have to pull new lines or either stretch the new line on it for the next truck to be able to hook it up to the pole. So you have to have a licensed electrician for a commercial and they also have to have bucket trucks too as well.

Okay.

Are our lines the last lines on these old bowls? No.

We still have, well, all these right here, most of them, yes. Down through there, there's AT&T lines, too, as well.

Most in downtown's just left ours.

Basically, it's from here down, and then there's one pole on the other side, too.

Do we know a time frame once those lines are taken down when Duke Power would come take the old poles out? Not at all.

Duke Power is still on the new poles as well, right? They don't give up the poles, are they?

No, they own the poles, but we have to move our power.

In order for the poles to be moved.

For them to remove the poles, we need to move our stuff off of it.

Let me recommend something to you. Talk to a Duke Power engineer and see if they can't help you. They own the poles. They could probably help us. It's a suggestion that might save you some money. You ain't in no hurry, are you? Does it have to be done tomorrow?

Well, it's got to be done by Christmas time.

OK, well then talk to Duke Kennedy. That's my recommendation. But what's the board's decision?

I'll make a motion to approve to move the Christmas wiring brackets from the old post to the new ones.

I have a second. That's for like a second. Any other suggestion?

The only problem I have is that I would like to see three quotes.

I know that no quote is considered. Yeah, no quote is considered a quote. I contacted I contacted the person that we've previously used on several of our work, our areas and stuff, and and he never would get back with me at all. So I even left him several messages.

The most honest and sincere way that Duke Energy owns that pole. Duke Energy has electricians. Duke Energy can give you a price, and they'll probably be cheaper than anyone because they own the pole.

Duke Energy mostly contracts out their own services too as well.

Listen, please. I deal with them all the time. Everyone that's in construction as well as you, you get quotes. Just like if they tell you you're going to put an underground line, you get a quote. They tell you, Duke Energy tells you one price. Electrician tells you another. You deal with them. You go back and forth. And then they say, okay, we'll meet their price. And Duke Energy does a better job because they own the line. Common sense. Please talk to Duke Energy. That's my recommendation. It's up to the council. Give them direction. Just common sense.

I understand why Chip would say he didn't vote for it, but I'm kind of curious why we've got Technically three bids.

$13,000 is crazy for that. That's why. It's the lowest bid, Larry. It doesn't matter. If you talk to Dick Henry, they give you the right price. They own the poll. They got people working on it every day, setting lines. That's what they do. Let them give you a price.

It is our lines. It's not Duke Power's line.

Duke Energy owns all these lines out here. We don't own anything.

Justin, is it Duke Energy lines or is it City of Lowell? City of Lowell. City of Lowell lines.

City owns the lines. You make the check out to City of Lowell or do you make it out to Duke Energy?

This check would be made out to Lake Welchers. I'm talking about when you get power.

You pay Duke Energy. You don't pay yourself. Mayor, we don't need you yelling. I'm not yelling. I'm tired. Well, you can go home.

I don't want to go home. I'm into it. I would be more than happy to entertain maybe a motion to possibly get a third quote and go. If it's cheaper than this, go with that quote. I'll make a motion that we go for a third option.

I second that.

a third but third quote and want that third quote to be presented to the board for consideration or is that something just in case just in case it comes back cheaper it might come back cheaper well if it comes back cheaper just get with mr pearson permission to just go ahead and go with it and i have to go come back to council

my only question under discussion is why wouldn't you ask Duke Energy what they would charge it's not a big deal you know if they do it cheaper they already got the line anyway they got the poll we don't know that line I don't care what you say I'll make a motion if we go with the third quote if it comes back cheaper than thirteen thousand five hundred and we go with that one

Second that motion.

If it does come back cheaper, do you go with the $13,000?

Yes, because we'll have a third quote.

And I'll still bring that third quote to y'all. Yeah, that's no problem.

Justin, let me ask you this. Last year, the lights didn't go any further than right here.

But that's actually going to be a secondary. The lights from the railroad tracks down did not work last year, and we had to have the electrician remove the remove that light because it kept tripping the breaker so we could actually function. Um, after they move all these lights over, this company is also, it's going to be a secondary, it's going to be added charge or whoever actually ends up doing the work. It's going to be added charge and we're going to have to have them figure out what's going on past the railroad tracks and why it keeps tripping the breaker, whether it's a split in the line somewhere or what's going on. But that is actually going to have to happen also. But that's going to be a secondary type of. Yeah.