Board of Commissioners - Regular Meeting

Good evening everyone. Happy Monday.

Welcome to the Spring Lake Board of Commissioners regular meeting. Time is now 6 p.m. and we call this meeting to order. I would like to invite Pastor Williams to the podium to lead us in our Pledge of Allegiance and invocation. Please stand if you choose to. Pastor Williams, do you mind introducing yourself and your church?

services they uh quote out there they are every sunday at 11 a.m um and we do also receive them every thursday if you need information i can give you information as well thank you to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god and invincible with liberty and justice for all Father God, we come before you today with humility, honor, and expectation. We thank you for the time that's been laid for every person who calls this community home. We love this town. We lift up as leaders, elect officials, administrators, first responders, educators, business owners, families, churches, and every citizen here in this town. The word declares that in 1 Timothy 2, 1 through 2, that we should pray for those in authority. So today we pray for wisdom, discernment, integrity, courage, and understanding to rest upon every person entrusted within our leadership role. Father God, we thank you now, Lord God, for all the things, Lord God. Father God, that this community will continue to be strengthened. We pray, Lord God, that just as your word says in Proverbs 11 and 14, where there is no guidance and people fall, but in abundance of counsel there is safety. We know, Lord God, that amongst these leaders there is safety. And we thank you for the safety now. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

All right, I will now call for additions and deletions to the agenda. Mayor Bergen.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

I'd like to add, I'd like to add resolution 2026-18, application of North Carolina Department of Commerce.

Okay, and we will put that As agenda item nine, let's go nine after resolution. We're going to go nine deep. Commissioner Jackson.

I'd like to delete, um, up under number eight, all business, number C, draft policy 43, public record request.

Uh-huh.

And I'd also like to delete up under nine, budget amendment B-A-6-F-Y-2-2027, budget amendment B-A-7-F-Y-2027, budget amendment B-A-7-F-Y-2027, if there are no other additions or deletions I will entertain a motion to approve the agenda deleting agenda item 8C 9D 9E 9F 9G and replacing 9E with the resolution

for the rural transformation grant. No, all the amendments are gone. D-E-F-G. The roll transformation grant will now be agenda item nine B. Second. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? The motion carries. We'll now move on to our uh consent items and this is the approval of the draft minutes of the august 18th 2026 special meeting uh draft minutes of august 24th that's another day work session draft minutes of august september 1st 2026 special meeting minutes commissioner jackson

I'll make a motion that we approve draft minutes of August 18, 2026, special meeting. Draft minutes of August 24, 2026, report session of Mayer's birthday. Draft meetings of September 1, 2026, special meeting.

Commissioner Burgess? Yes. Any discussion?

All in favor? Aye.

Any opposed? Motion carries. We will now move on to our public comment section. Remember that all topics must remain on Spring Lake business only. Speakers are only allowed three minutes and the screen in front of you will blink very aggressively to let you know when time is expiring and commissioners and myself will not be able to respond during the public comment section. and we will begin with Ms. Nubia Mitchell and her topic of concern is Pablo.

Mayor, board, everybody in attendance. So I'd like to speak on the meeting that was held on September 1st that I was not in attendance to. But I did listen to the same video and I listened to The board talked about a mysterious individual that had no name, but talked about being able to control what is said by individuals that come here to speak. Being respectful. Keeping it to town business, not being personal. i listened to the conversation repeatedly point to how many minutes i had to speak for two minutes and 42 seconds but i listened to this board for over 20 minutes talk about me personally so what i see is a conflict I see that you're not practicing what you are trying to preach. So if you're going to hold your public to a standard of what can and cannot be done, should not the board be subject to the exact same standard? Should you not have to follow the rules, period? Are you exempt from that because you're the board? Are you exempt from that because you have personal feelings involved in the situation? That shouldn't be the case. Everybody should be held to the same standard. If you're not comfortable in yourself dealing with the situation, then that's a personal situation. But if it's fought here, The board should not have the ability to talk for over 20 minutes about anybody. Bringing in volatile conversation even was brought in. Paralleling events, they had nothing to do with town business. So that was allowed to be brought in by even your attorney. So I would ask that you all consider when you vote on making those changes, that you consider yourselves and hold yourselves accountable as well as the public that sits here and the public concerned.

Thank you, Ms. Mitchell. We'll move on to Mr. Reggie Thompson. The topic of concern is multiple consent.

good evening everybody good evening i'm reggie thompson i am a resident of spring lake uh or at least at least 52 53 years so i grew up on diane bought a house with diane My concerns, I have probably three or four concerns. One concern is Spring Lake, we're not springing forward, we're springing backwards. Because all the figuring that's going on with the commissioners and town manager and everything else going on, it just needs to stop. We can never move. Never move forward with all the people. I think that us town people, we should be, it should be transparent on this hiring environment. I think we should know exactly how you all pick people, how you all are letting people go. I think we should know. I don't think it should be heard in the street. I think all you all up there should be able to come together and say, hey, come to me. This is what we came up with. Because the last time I was in When y'all had a special meeting for the town manager, you had another guy that was interviewing. I don't know Mr. English. I didn't know the other guy. I don't see where the other guy even had a chance because pretty much y'all had already made your mind up because you already had him in your place. So I don't even see where he even had a chance to even, a fair chance for you to even get the job because your minds was made up. And our taxes and our infrastructure and everything in Spring Lake, we're paying more tax and everything, but I'm not seeing nothing happen in the town. I'm not. When I pay my car taxes, I got four cars that I pay. I pay a double tax, Spring Lake tax, my house tax went from $1,300 to $2,600. Where's all this money going to? Where's all my tax money going to for the town of Spring Lake? Grow this town, but we're not growing. Because when people see us in the newspaper every week, why would I want to go there? Why would I want to invest in Spring Lake? Last and final, I really wish you all considered with doing two years versus four years. I think four years is too long for everybody to for us to wait another four years before or three years down before we do another change i think four years is just too long and it used to be two years and i think uh i don't know the last the last term they changed that i just think it needs to be two years and whoever wants to run again right again it just shouldn't be four years it's just a lot a lot transpires in four years thank you

Thank you, Mr. Thompson. Our last and final speaker is Ms. Mary Jackson. And topic of concern is available local news sources.

Hello, hello, hello. Good evening. My name is Mary Jackson. I live on Goodyear Drive. Good evening, Matt, Mayor, and members of the Board of Commissioners. Spring Lake is facing serious budget challenges. And this community deserves more than another discussion about what services can be cut or what additional costs can be passed to residents. Before we say we cannot afford something, we should be able to demonstrate that we have pursued the resources already available to us.

We are surrounded by institutions that exist in part to support the community and local government.

Fayetteville State University has students, faculty, research capability, public service programs, and experts in business, data analysis, technology, economic development, and community engagement.

Fayetteville Technical College has work-based learning opportunities that could potentially provide the town with students assistance while giving students valuable real work experience. The UNC school of government specialized in helping the north carolina local government improve budgeting financial management governance purchasing and municipal operation the nc state extension provides community with economic development resources that could help spring lake strengthen businesses develop its workforce, and grow its tax base.

So the question tonight is, have we formally asked them for help? If not, why? During the budget crisis, taxpayers should not be the first resources we use.

They should be the last.

I'm asking the board to direct the town manager to conduct contact these institutions and establish a spring-linked higher education partnership initiative, giving them specific assignments like review our spending trends, identify operation efficiencies, research grants, evaluate technology and administrative process, develop internship opportunities, and help identify strategies for increasing revenue and economic development. This should be something that the board should assign to the town managers and also ask for a written report in 60 days on who's been contacted.

All right, we will now move on to our presentations. And our first presentation of with a coin presentation. Good evening.

So, I am sit on the Military Veterans Advisory of Affairs Advisory Committee, and I would like to call on, we're going to present Carly with the coin, if you would come up front, Carly. This coin right here, it has all the branches of the service on it, just like a poker coin, and they are numbered. And Carly does so much for the organization. Anytime we need anything, she's always there to do it for us. And so it would be remiss for us not to give her one more. So thank you, Carly. Thank you.

Well deserved.

Let's give a round of applause.

She was here tirelessly for this town. I do not want to be a clerk. I promise y'all, she's my right and left hand sometimes. Our next presentation is the Spring Lake Rooted and Ready Summer 2027 Community Partnership Proposal.

Dr. Raines is not here. Did you know he was hiding behind the back?

So, we will continue on with our Peabody Natural Gas presentation. This is something I am looking forward to. I know the town is really excited about hearing where we are. So, I will invite Antonio to the podium to present his presentation. Talk to us a bit about our natural gas project for Spring Lake with FEMA. Hello there.

So I want to help everyone to kind of be more familiar with this project that I have been working closely with Manhattan U.S. to bring natural gas infrastructure into the town of Spring Lake. So a little bit about Piedmont Natural Gas. We are owned by Duke Energy. Some don't know that, so we work as an entity of Duke Energy, but we provide natural gas.

Can we get you to pull that mic up to your mouth just a bit?

Thank you, sir. Can you hear me better now? Yes. Okay, so we are an entity of Duke Energy, so we work on the natural gas side. Duke Energy is an electric company, and we serve in North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, as well as Ohio, and we can touch them. So basically with this project, we have to meet a minimum required rate of return in order to do a project at no cost. For the Spring Lake project, there is a cost of 1.34 million in order to bring the natural gas infrastructure into Spring Lake. But this project definitely will benefit the town. And just to show an overview, We will be coming from Fort Bragg, what was formerly known as Bragg Boulevard, and we will extend our gas line up Bragg Boulevard and Fort Bragg and then come into Spring Lake that way, right at the gate there of Fort Bragg in that area. Bring it on into Spring Lake, along Main Street, of course, as well as going down Bragg Boulevard in Spring Lake and 210 in Spring Lake. Knowing this, we'll be able to hit all of the hotels who have shown interest as well as spring lake middle wt brown elementary also here service in this area here as far as the fire station and fayetteville tech community college has also expressed interest in switching over a lot of businesses use propane which is very expensive natural gas is cheaper than propane so what this will do is save businesses money so that they're able to keep the employees that they have. So it will definitely help to enhance job security, but also a lot of businesses will not open in a certain area if natural gas is not available. So this will give businesses an opportunity to come into Spring Lake, such as your Chick-fil-A's, for example, to use a lot of natural gas, and other businesses as well, not just fast food. And this would be beneficial for our soldiers, because Spring Lake is right outside Fort Bragg. They can come to Spring Lake like they do now for lunch. So again, as I mentioned, anchor customers that we have, of course, the town of Spring Lake, and then Federal Tech, as well as the other public schools, hotels, restaurants, and also the retail shopping centers, they will be able to switch from propane to natural gas. Some of the obstacles, of course, which we've overcome is how we're gonna serve Spring Lake. We're gonna do that via Fort Bragg. Once this project is approved, we will submit Now, some of the benefits from natural gas, as I've said, natural gas, of course, is cheaper than propane. In a lot of cases, it's cheaper than just being all electric as well. So this also will benefit residential homeowners as well. Once we get the infrastructure into Spring Lake, then we'll be able to continue and branch out into existing homes, people that may be interested in natural gas, people that may be using propane or oil, they'll be able to save money. Natural gas is roughly about 30 to 40% cheaper than propane, so definitely good cost savings. It's really beneficial for heating, cooking, generators, people that have pools, outdoor fire pits, things of that nature. And in our company, we do offer appliance protection plans once someone becomes a customer of Piedmont Natural Gas. And also, we know natural gas is right here in our country, so we're going to have to worry about outsourcing it. We have plenty of natural gas reserves to be able to serve our customers. And that is it. We're very excited about this project. Once it moves forward, we'll be, like I said, submitting permits and things, and we're really excited to start saving businesses and residential homeowners money. Thank you. And also, I'm sorry, I wanted to introduce Jennifer McNeil. She will be handling the residential side. You haven't met her yet. I'll be handling all the commercial things, but she does residential and existing homes.

Yes, hello, hello, hello. I'm excited to be here. I've been with Piedmont for 17 years, and again, my name is Jennifer Woodard McNeil. I am the specialist who will handle your conversions and your new constructions, though you people will see me. Again, this is exciting because I've been in this position for 11 years, and you don't know how many phone calls that I get. It's gas and string late. When is it coming? Is this, is this? So again, this is an opportunity to grow, and I'm excited to be a part of that. I brought some business cards. I didn't bring a lot because I plan to see you guys again. I have to bring some more, so again, This is exciting and I'm excited to be a part of this and look forward to meeting with you all again in the future. And let's get this natural gas rolling in the area.

See, this is how I feel. I'm so glad that you came and brought this. I want to stand on here. I am here for that. Because this is bigger than just Spring Lake. It is. what this is going to do for our county this is spring lake's contribution to our county all the northwestern side of cumberland will be affected by this harnett county will be affected by this we're bringing redundancy to fort bragg this is this is how we build community this isn't just you know, lowering gas rates. This is us preparing for our grandchildren to have growth and stability in Spring Lake. So you got, that's what I feel right now. I can stand on this chair and swing something around.

It's just like we all do our portfolio mix. You want to have a combination of a little bit of this, a little bit of that. You don't put all your eggs in one basket. So having natural gas, we have electric. So, again, it will lower the rates for these new areas to come because we're going to have that mixture. So, again, as you said, it's just not for the kids. What we have going on now is for our kids, our grandkids, their kids coming to where they can stay. You know, so, again, let's do this. Thank you.

You have some questions from our commissioners. We'll begin with Commissioner Jackson.

What is the title of our commission?

So basically, once the agreement has been completed and we start the project, you're probably looking at, from the time the project is signed, maybe six to eight months they may start. They have to have all the necessary permitting approved, and then they'll start from Fort Bragg, you know, come into Spring Lake.

Is there a lot of building turn-up stuff to get ready to do? What's the process?

No. So we have a contractor that installs the gas infrastructure. And a lot of it is bored or drilled in. So they don't dig up roads or streets or anything like that.

The only thing you have to deal with is spot like traffic. And they have, like I said, their crews, they direct traffic. So they make it to where it wouldn't be a headache. But again, we all know how construction can go. But we just ask that you just bear with us because, you know, it starts off. It may start off ugly, you know, as far as that goes. But they work fast to get the gas in in a timely fashion. And, you know, once they're done, you don't even know they've been there.

Mr. Cooper.

Thank you. I love the name for gas, Haddon and Greensboro. But my question is, how long before residents can switch over?

once the infrastructure is put in place and they have uh tested all the gas lines and everything that is active so businesses and residential homeowners if it is uh there you know for them to access it like i said it won't be in all the spring lake initially but once we get into spring lake as more people show interest we'll be able to extend it you know into different subdivisions that may not happen initially

And also, new subdivisions would be able to maybe tap into it from the beginning?

That's the thing, yes. We have some residential developers that have asked us about Spring Lake. Is gas available? I build with gas. No, it's not. So, yes, exactly. I'll bring an opportunity to bring in more new residential into Spring Lake as well. Thank you.

Just to piggyback off that. So the way it works is any developers or builders that are looking at specific pieces of land, the sooner they can get in touch with me, the sooner that I can jump on a project to see the cost analysis of it, see what we're looking at, how many phases, things like that. For our existing residential locations, I may send out some surveys. may see me in your area just trying to see who's interested so if you ever get something in the mail don't go away because that's when i'm trying to get numbers because everything has to make sense for us to extend gas in your neighborhood so you you know you may see something so look out for that again you may see me in the area um i may have some petitions you can you may have a meeting and just say can you come you know just trying to explain it to somebody who may not be here today so again we just want to keep this going and again you'll see more of me and more things from us so that's how we're going to get this started in this community thank you thank you that was a portion i was going to ask about public public

get the community involved, get the community to understand, because you're talking about natural gas. I understand the economic development for the growth, for the community, commercialism, the residents. And then when I was reading, you're only doing so many areas. I mean, so much area in Spring Lake, and you said it's real easy to install it. Who will be maintaining it? Because I know in Detroit area and that area, sometimes if it's not maintained, you see houses and everything at the gas lines is unneeded. underneath the road, so I just think for more education, we need to have a public forum. You come out as excited as you are to explain it, and we have a public forum here so our citizens to know more about this natural gas. This is something new coming into Spring Lake.

Sure, yeah, we definitely can do that. We actually maintain our pipelines. P5 Natural Gas is huge on safety, so our pipelines are monitored 24-7. If there's a small leak that needs to be repaired, it is repaired in a timely fashion.

It's a very safe form of energy.

And like you said, it is important basically to educate people on the safety of the entire library.

And it'll also be a chance for you to advertise to the residential customers what it is that you have to offer. Shameless plug.

I just feel wrong for that as well. A lot of times people are scared of natural gas because we see so many instances in other areas. But I'll tell you, It's not natural gas. It's the people that deal with it and how we deal with it. A lot of times we have companies who are pressed for time. They don't want to go through the correct procedures to call 811 and have locates done. So again, they'll get out there with that backhoe. They'll get out there in their yard and want to dig and do yard work. But if you don't do it properly and call to have everything located, you're going to have those instances. So as long as we do that, we're good to go.

Natural gas is the same. Well, thank you. That's why I think that getting the citizens involved in the I think citizens will be interested in asking those questions. We'll be excited to explain them. So we'll understand and be educated about it. We can set up a public forum date for our citizens and we'll go forward with that. Thank you.

Ms. Jackson, do you have something else? So you mentioned the safety part of it. So it's not just going to be safe. So like if something is, you have a leak somewhere, how do we all know it's a leak and where are you coming from to fix the leak?

So with natural gas, we put more captain in our natural gas lines. It is a rotten egg odor. So anytime you smell that rotten egg odor, that's an indication that there's a leak. It could be coming from your house piping. We also have a protection plane that covers at any time. It's just like with anything. You can have a leak at any time. It doesn't say something was done improperly, but over time, lines and things, they have their wear and tear. But you could have a leak and We always advise you to call customer service. We're available 24-7 for emergencies. Anytime a customer smells bad, you can walk her down the street and smell it. It doesn't have to be at your home. You can smell it, you can call and get somebody out immediately. We take it very seriously. We have it recorded, we come out and monitor it, we cut it off and make it safe, and then you're able to have it repaired. So we can do that, customers can hire someone to do that, but we're always available to make those repairs because we are the gas company and we specialize in that. So again, that's something that we can handle. We also have satellite that go around. They can pick up on, especially our large businesses, they can pick up where leaks are detected. And then that's when they can just zone in then, and they can say, hey, did you know you had this leak? A lot of people don't know they have it. So we have that technology to now zone in and be able to jump on things like that, you know, very quickly. So, again, that's something we do monitor and take care of as soon as possible.

So it's nothing that you smell and think it's going to blow up and it gets out or something? No.

No, but you want to, again, we have people, it's like at the gas stations. When they say, do you see people at the gas pumps smoking cigarettes? Again, it's the the knowledge, being smart about certain things. Again, so of course, there's a lot of things you don't want to do around there. So again, we just ask that you just call us. Again, that's us wanting to get out and put this information out to the community. Because if you don't know, you don't know. So a lot of times people will call in and will say, well, are you there? Or just step away from your home. Because again, if you're on the phone, You're talking, you know, it's current things like that. So again, just to be on the safe side, you know, we don't have those things happen. But again, we just advise customers to be safe and call us as soon as possible and let us come out and make it safe.

So you don't have a problem with, like, with paid protein instead of coming by the public? No, ma'am. Absolutely. Or do you have a problem with coming back again just for the education piece? Anytime. What you do? Anytime.

That's what we're here for. We want this. Again, just as much as you do for the community. This is our job to put this information out because if you don't know... And we can't help, you know, to grow this project and to make it as successful as we want to. So anytime. Yes, ma'am. We're morning glass.

I was just going to say that you said you ought to come out, but they say evacuate your house immediately if you smell it. Take your pets and everything with you. And when you evacuate, when you go and you can't come back until it's repaired, you have to go somewhere or be put up in a hotel. So that's why I said with the public forum and the portions, because you just stated the safety part of it, if you don't know, you could end up... You're having a situation. Right. It's not as bad.

You have carbon monoxide and things like that. If we make it safe, you're good to be there. It's not like you would have to be out of your home for, you know. We'd have to wait for you to come to repair it. Right, just to come. Now, again, if it will be turned off, that repair, you may not need it. It could be a leak on your line for your dryer. You may say, well, I don't need the dry clothes right now. That could wait. So something like that. It just depends on the leak and what you need it for. If it's on your water heater, then, of course, you want to get that leak repaired. But once we turn it off and make it safe, you don't have that leak anymore. It's not leaking, so it's not a danger.

Let me just say this. Once y'all come out and repair it, but if I make the call and I'm smelling that egg-like smell, I have to wait until someone comes out there and services my line, right, to get it turned off because the customer

cannot turn it off i have to wait till y'all come out right right that's what we do immediately and when you call that uh when you call it as an emergency lead someone is immediately dispatched too so it's an immediate thing you call it a lead wherever a tech is the closest tech to you they're coming to you now inside the next day is rightly thank you that's good information thank you so much are there any other questions or comments from the board

Thank you so much. We will be in touch. Antonio, I know you and Mr. English talk regularly. And I know just, and I know this is kind of outside of you guys' house, but we have a resolution that we, is it on for tonight? tonight tonight that we're sending to the county uh for our funding request uh and so we'll keep you guys updated on uh that process and keep this project moving forward all right thank you all so much thank you okay we'll move on to our old business And this is agenda item 8A. We need an update on our finance officer position. Mr. English.

So I have interviewed two candidates, final candidates, and we have I have made a decision, but she has to go through, of course, all of the necessary background checks. So I was fortunate enough to I work with the North Carolina League of Municipalities. Oma Occamy, she sat with me on my interview panel, and we interviewed today. And so with those conversations, we are very confident that we have a candidate. I'm sorry, you said you interviewed today? We interviewed last week and today with our client. So at this point in time, we will be making a offer, a recommendation. However, of course, it is contingent upon background check. And so I will leave that in the hands of human resources. And we will have an announcement if everything works out and everything goes well. So we just wanted to give you that update today.

What timeline are we looking at? A week?

Two weeks? Give or take, likely one. One week. Once the background check goes through, we of course do a drug test for our policy here in Townsend Lane. I would say at least a meeting face-to-face tomorrow. We'll have a more deeper conversation, let's say two weeks, just to be on the safe side.

Have we let the LGC know?

Are they involved in? They are not involved with our hiring process. No, ma'am.

Any questions, comments from the board?

Commissioner Jackson? So basically what you're saying is as soon as the background check and the drug testing is done, then you will be able to make your offer. So you're just basically waiting on the drug testing? And you don't know about what timeline that is?

I would say it was today, Monday. We would definitely know about the background check tomorrow. Okay. As far as drug testing, having her go and do those things, that thing, that could be... you know three or four days so i would say next week given given that person time to make that transition um fortunately um you know they're not with anyone that's gonna require a significant amount of time to make a transition so um you know that's a two week notice kind of a process all right thank you

And for full transparency sake, I know we have you appointed as a temporary finance officer. I just want to make sure the public is aware that you have been officially bonded. All of the prerequisites for you to hold this temporary title have been met. And the LGC is aware of this. Temporary title. Temporary. Mr. Jackson? I don't know if you had another question. It's OK. OK. Seeing no more questions, we will move on to agenda item AB, our draft finance policy.

um draft not finance policies my apartment draft policy states public comments period and public hearing at board meetings mayor proten thank you madam mayor uh spoke with collie as well as since they did and i think we should have it in place i think she said it was taken out i think we need to add this policy look at page number 71 uh so i don't have to read the whole oh yeah So I don't have to read the whole policy, but look in that 6.3 policy where the speaker may be allowed to speak the relevant matters concerning the town's programming within the authority of the town of the council and in considering the privilege of the law in the personal matters. not have any personal matters. That's on page 71. As I said, I don't want to read the whole thing here. But looking at number 13 on page 73, speakers shall always be civil, courteous in their language, and speaking and asking and refraining from personal attacks, threats directed towards any board members, the mayor, the staff, and members of the public. And I think that we need to add this and make sure. It is stated up there on the board that we should be, as board members and citizens, respectful at all times and no personal attacks. It does state in here if the authorities They have the right to have the individual removed from the facility if they feel like they have caused any harm or situations here. So I just think we need to add this back to our policy. Because I think you said that it was taken out. The entire policy had been removed. But it was stated out there on the board. So I didn't understand why it was removed while it was still on the board.

That's our code of ethics. What we did with the public comment section was in our regular procedure, but I think this is what we need to do anyway. This is the way we need to do it.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Commissioner Cooper? Thank you, ma'am. I just want to say, I've been on this board since 2017. And if you carry yourself the way you carry, it's unlikely people will come in with with accusations or any of that. I never, I never take my position out there into the public and try to get my way. So I really think if you do that out in the public anyway, and you use your authority, your position, then whatever happens is gonna happen. We are only over, we only do regular, we make policy. That's it. We do not have anything to do with staff. We should not be telling any staff anything to do. We make policy. That is what we are voted to do. And that's what we need to stay in our language.

are there any other questions or comments now is this scheduled for discussion or is this scheduled for a vote tonight it should have been a vote were there any um any other discussions or any changes or amendments to the policy um in its current form i see all of the the red i hope you guys have already had a chance to go through this um there i again i I want to make sure that we are protecting our residents. I want to make sure we're protecting our board. I want to make sure people understand their First Amendment rights and freedom of speech. But I also want to make sure that we're doing it in decency and in order, making sure that we maintain respect for the town of Spring Lake. And that is us holding this board accountable first. because we are the leadership of this community and it is a trickle-down effect. It starts at the top and so we have to lead by example. And I think that we, all of us, are going to hold ourselves to a higher standard. I've had individual conversations with all of our board members and we know that we are a new group coming together. We're learning each other's personalities. I can say I've seen a drastic change from January to now in the way we've been able to work together. We're learning each other, so give us some time to figure things out. We had some hiccups, some bumps in the road, but you're right, our job is to focus on policy, and so that's why I'm in full support of making sure we've got clear and designated guidelines to hold not just us, but you all accountable to the same standards. So, I, if... Madam Clerk, did you have something?

Are we just approving the policy or are we adding this to the rules of procedure as well?

I think we should add it to the rules of procedure. How would this normally work with us having an additional policy?

Does this supersede the rules or? No, it's either or, but I mean. I don't want it to be contradictory. Yeah, so I mean, it's ultimately up to the board.

SO WHAT I WOULD PROPOSE IS THAT IF WE'RE GOING TO ADOPT THIS MORE IN-DEPTH POLICY, THAT WE MAKE SURE THIS POLICY MATCHES THE RULES OF PROCEEDURE.

SO WHAT I CAN DO IS JUST PUT SEED POLICY NUMBER WHATEVER SIX.

IN THE RULES OF PROCEEDURE, IT WILL DIRECT US TO THE POLICY. YES. IF THERE IS NO ISSUES WITH THAT, COMMISSIONER THOMPSON? OH, I WAS JUST GOING TO MAKE A MOTION THAT WE ADOPT THAT. IS THERE ANY FURTHER DISCUSSION?

If not, I'll go ahead and entertain the motion. I would like to make a motion that we adopt the draft policy and public comment period and public hearings to and as said with the code of conduct as well. No.

You are making a motion that we approve our There we go, draft policy six, public comment periods and public hearings at board meetings and making sure that our rules of procedure and our policy are both in alignment. So moved.

Mayor Brunson? I second that motion, Mayor.

Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. All right, now we'll move on to our new business. And we've got our Resolution 2026-17, a resolution requesting funding from traveling counties for Spring Lake Natural Gas Extension Project that you just heard about. So we were requesting funding from the state. However, things can get wonky during budget times at the state and not always are the things that are requested approved. This does not mean that the state is not allocating funding to Spring Lake. It means that they are not allocating funding right now. I have spoke with our Senator, Senator McInnis, and our representative, Representative Colvin. Both of them have assured me that Town of Spring Lake is top of mind, and soon as funding is released, we are first in line. However, this is still a economic development project, and those numbers that you see, that $1.3 million is not permanent. And so if we don't move swiftly, there is a possibility that we could lose this $1.3 million. I know you guys have heard me say this a million times before and how far we had to negotiate and how long we've been negotiating this project. So, Piedmont themselves were extremely ecstatic to say, oh my God, we cannot believe we got this this low. because we've heard numbers like 40 million and 20 million 28 million and 8 million and 4 million so to get down to 1.3 i don't want to lose it so i've been in touch with our carmel county chair and spoke with him and a few of the other commissioners who are all in support of this project and they said bring it to us let's see how we can help and so we originally petitioned them for uh 250 to 300 000 that number has drastically increased to hundred or excuse me 840 thank you eight hundred and forty thousand dollars So I am asking that the board approve this resolution so that we can go ahead and send this off to the county, making this request official. I have sent the county a letter prefacing what the resolution is and letting them know that it's coming so that they can have discussions amongst themselves, but the formal resolution will be the town's official ask to the county. So without further ado, I will entertain any questions. Okay, so questions?

this is the resolution so we can get started and it's uh have the action for tonight for approval but my question is that i'd ask for a public forum once we send this in for the record this to be approved then they will start to work no ma'am okay this is just us just asking the county if they'll help us pay for the project and but meanwhile we're going to be educating the citizens absolutely we can do that

um are these questions or motions okay i'll come back for you to the uh for the motion commissioner jackson um

So if the county gives us the money, what do we have to give them?

Nothing.

They're just gonna give us the money.

What we're giving them is the opportunity to help Spring Lake and all of the northwestern counties. We're providing redundancy for Fort Bragg. So this is us helping the county build out the county. The county's whole purpose is to make our region grow, our area grow. And so this is going to support with the corridor K coming, you know, the expressway line that they're trying to bring this way. As you heard from Antonio, it's going to help us with bringing in businesses. We're a medical desert right now. We can't get a hospital. We need to have natural gas or some sort of medical facility.

I mean, I understand it for us, but what is it for the county? Because we're part of the county.

It's just our part that we're doing for the county. I see, Mr. Porter, your light does something to my, it's like,

What they get out of it, it expands their tax base. So over decades and decades, say there's more businesses like a hospital or Chick-fil-A or whatever, or more neighborhoods, long-term, the county's not looking at it short-term, long-term, it increases the county's tax revenue. It's a long-term investment for them to increase their tax revenue. It's the same thing that's happening for us.

Yeah.

Our taxes go up too, but our revenue goes up. Not the tax rate. The tax base.

The tax base. Receiving money into the town for the revenue. Yes, yes.

So one thing with us bringing in more businesses and how it affects our tax base, what this does is these businesses will pay more property taxes. And when we have more businesses paying more property taxes, it allows us to help alleviate the load that our residents are carrying. So the more we build up the industry with jobs like the economic development things we talked about in co-session, bringing businesses and industry like that, they're gonna pay a lot of more money in property taxes. And when they're paying it, we don't have to.

So we can stay on the line of citizens not having a higher property tax. That is the goal.

Maybe not next year. Maybe not next year. But once we start bringing in industry. So this isn't going to be like Natural gas, low taxes. It'll have to be, once we bring in the natural gas, we'll have to bring in the industry. They'll develop here, and once they start paying property taxes, we'll use that revenue to begin to adjust our tax rate. So the more industry, paying more money, the more we can help to relieve that tax burden on the residents.

But it won't have any effect on them raising their taxes up?

No, ma'am. This isn't going to raise taxes. So tax raises, those tax raises, if you're talking about from the county or from us, We control our own in-town tax rate. That's the rate that we set based on the amount of revenue that we're bringing in. So when we bring in more revenue, we can then use that money to kind of give back to our residents so they'll pay less taxes because the businesses are paying. Now when the county raises our taxes, that's an entirely different thing. So like our tax revaluation that we just went through when they just raised our property taxes like Mr. Thompson was just talking about. That is the county deciding that the value of our homes, our businesses, our land has increased. And since the value increased, that's what makes your property taxes go up because you're now being taxed on a higher value piece of land. Does that make sense? It makes sense. No, this would not raise our tax.

I think I know what are you asking for an opposed to special tax on spring lake because of the natural gas.

It sounds wonderful, but I don't want our citizens to have to eat the cost because they cost to do something in the county. I understand what you're saying that the county We're good in the long run, but I don't want it to come back on us and we have to pay more money out or they have to get more.

I don't want that to happen. I think I understand what you're talking about. They've given us no indication that they're going to try to impose a special tax area in order to give us the money for the natural gas. I think that's kind of what you're...

uh inquiring about that to my knowledge they've not indicated no this is beneficial for everybody this is like i said this is a win it's going to increase not only our tax base but the county's tax base as well so this is all going to bring in more money more revenue more industry jobs resources and that's what it's for so there isn't like we gave you this money now we gotta tax you on it that's not what this is because we're a part of the county And so this is beneficial for everybody. Good questions. I'm glad that we're having this conversation because I know if you guys have the questions, we've got residents with the same questions. So I like having this dialogue.

through this whole process. Nobody can come in and stick something in the contract or stick something in the resolution that we haven't seen and say, hey, we want you to sign the resolution today. Two years from now, I'm going to add this in there and they're going to go back to today. So nothing can be added in there.

I'll be watching.

You'll be watching? I'm going to be watching. I'm going to be watching, too.

Meet the parents.

Well, what you just stated, it cannot be added, but they can put it in the document to state that this is not going to affect our taxes concerning this here. And I think you can look at that. Mr. Carter, to make sure that it's indicated in the document, once they point it back, that this will not affect our taxes to go up.

Yes, at the appropriate time. I mean, the only way they could do it against just Spring Lake, if that's what you're worried about, is you have to, like, designate an area. It's a whole complicated procedure. I don't know if there's a technical term for that, but I've been in court all day, so my brain's a little fried. A special assessment. I think what y'all are worried about is they're going to do, like, a special assessment district or something. They have given no indication of that. And I'll make sure that's not in there.

Make sure you put that in there to keep the reference that it's not.

Yes, ma'am.

Thank you. Commissioner Thompson, do you have a question?

Any other discussion? This is good. Commissioner Cooper?

I make a motion to approve the resolution for the natural gas. What was it?

2026.

Resolution 2026. Oh, 2017. Is there a second?

Any discussion?

All in favor? Aye. Motion. Any opposed? Motion carried. All right. We were just talking about that before the meeting started, but agendas can get lost in the packet. All right. We are now on to, good stuff. Agenda item nine, a Christmas parade on Main Street. Commissioner Jackson.

So we are asking the board to consider the special event team to do a parade on Main Street for Christmas. We're looking, we don't have a complete date, but I think we're looking at December the 12th. or the 19th we have our special event team meeting tomorrow so i definitely have a date by tomorrow and we're also looking for any people that know cars car shows or people that want to show their cars or bikes to be in the parade as well um

i absolutely love that um that's something that uh was approached somebody approached me with that some some years back and i'm like i know we've done we've done parades on main street before so i am massively excited um that you guys are working and organizing this again because just so you guys know parades are daunting parades take a lot of planning and partnership and so I applaud you Commissioner Jackson for taking this on and I am asking the residents on behalf of the town please Come out, not just to be a part of it. I'm saying come out to help plan. Come out and offer your ideas. Help us organize this. This is for the community, and it's better when the community is involved. Commissioner Cooper?

Thank you. Are we going to have a volunteer sign up so that we don't have to utilize as much staff and keep connecting them over time?

Yes, but we were actually going to the staff for a department. We were going to talk with the town manager and have the department put a card or something in there recognizing their department. So they, we're looking for them. Oh, is it on the work thing?

Huh? It's not on the work thing, right? No, it's on the staff.

Right. I don't think that would interfere with them because they're doing it on their own. There's no difference if they go somewhere else. I know we can check into it to make sure that we don't break the rules or anything.

Definitely. So we can definitely check into that. I know we discussed something like this before about staff volunteering on weekends for time, but I don't know. I can't remember what the outcome was, so let's look into it. Definitely, yeah, because I wouldn't know if someone had anything on that. So, Mr. Major?

Yes, ma'am.

I missed that. I see. It's okay. No, I was just saying if you could look into how that would work with staff for the Christmas parade with Commissioner Jackson wanting staff representation and how that would work if that would be considered overtime or if they could volunteer. I remember the question was posed a few years back and there was some

um confusion or gray area with um employment law so if you could just find that out with her so we can talk about it because we definitely don't want it in this overtime so we definitely don't want to have to put that money spend more money that we don't have so i just need to know the direction so i can come up with an alternate plan that's great

So we'll go ahead and move into agenda item 9c, which is the ordinance declaring the road closure for the Christmas parade on Main Street. I'll entertain that motion.

That has a specific name.

Yes. I thought we talked about the 12th, so I guess we're good. Do you want to keep it as the 12th or do you want to talk with it tomorrow? Okay. Okay. I just want to make sure. Okay. So we can go ahead and do the resolution.

Thank you, Mr. Porter.

12th of December. The 6th is the town's Christmas tree lighting and then the Christmas parade.

So the Christmas tree lighting is on the 6th and then the Christmas parade will be on the 12th.

Sounds good. And the ordinance number 20-26-06, an ordinance declaring road closure for the Christmas parade on May. Is that what it is? I'm sorry, Jackie. I didn't know I was saying that. What do you mean?

I don't know.

I'll make the motion that we approve the Christmas parade on May or December 12th.

The ordinance. The ordinance.

Okay. I'll make a motion that we approve the ordinance number 2026-06. The ordinance declaring a road closure for Christmas parade on May.

Commissioner Cooper?

I second.

Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Any opposed?

motion carries just for information purposes so i know so when you requested the board to approve the parade and then we turn around and did the ordinance so that means the board sued the parade yes ma'am we are now moving on to agenda item 90 and the resolution for something that i wrote and i can't read it oh really thank you

This is for the Rural Economic Development Grant. Mr. English.

So this is what I'm excited about because I know you're all ready to see Main Street have a facelift. So we've been fortunate enough, through the league, we have some grant funding that they've offered us in addition to their DOD grant. Really? You know.

Oh, some of the DCIP grants.

Right. So we have been offered some consultancy dollars through the league and its families to help us write this grant proposal. So we're meeting weekly. And right now, with the help of the League, as well as Patricia Lynn, I want to say thank you, because she's been a part of this in the past, so we're not reinventing the wheel. We're going out to speak to all the businesses, identifying how many jobs they have, and looking at the potential projects, the sidewalks, the lighting. Right now... go ahead exactly so right now they told us based on the scope that we've developed we're looking at a four hundred thousand dollar grant potentially with a five percent match which will put us about twenty thousand i'll be looking for a budget a budget amendment for that at some point but down the road let us get through the process of writing the proposal but this is really exciting to see this come through and we'll see main street develop so I'm looking forward to you all voting on this tonight and I'll hand it back over to you, Madam Mayor.

I want to give you guys a little background on this. I think it was in 23 when we first applied for this grant. This was when we were first climbing out of the LGC situation and they were extremely proud of us. This was probably one of the first positive things they did for us was while we were still under local government control, they actually wrote us a letter of endorsement saying that the town was ready to take on this project. So that was huge. However, during that time, there were some issues with the budget. And so we did not get awarded that grant. I stayed in contact with the Department of Commerce and got a chance to sit down with them, present our entire plan that was put together in 2018, I believe.

2018 was when we put the facade on.

the previous board's side plan together, just compressing it. And finally they said, you guys have a rock solid plan. We just need you to lay it out in stages. And so Mr. English said, we got some loans left over from when we did the DCIP grant through the league. So I said, hey, how about we do this one? And they took off with it. Lynn jumped right back in. She's been providing them with all the information. So I am excited because if anybody knows, since I've been sitting in this seat, one thing I've been saying is we've got to fix Main Street. We need our heartbeat. We need our town to have that place where we can build community. And so I could not be more excited that this is happening. We had to yell at FAMPO about them getting Main Street paved. And as you can see, not only, not FAMPO, I'm sorry, DOT, about getting Main Street paved. And as you can see, Main Street is getting paved. And not only Main Street, they're paving for Grand Boulevard as well. And they're going to pave the whole thing. So we're not stopping at those 3,000 potholes. They filled 300. So I'm excited, y'all. Today is just a day of excitement. High five in the back, because we brought, today's the day to screaming from the rooftop. So I am excited. Mayor Quintan, would you like to make the motion? Yes, ma'am.

Thank you. I'm excited as well. I'd like to make a motion for resolution 2026-8. I'm the approver.

Is there a second? Commissioner Burgess? I second. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Y'all see light tonight? Any votes? Okay, motion carries. All right. Well, we are down to our report. And I have some stuff I needed to tell you guys. As soon as I pull it up. First thing I want to do is I want to acknowledge Commissioner Jackson and our staff for First Friday on Main. If you guys did not come out to our First Friday, I'm sorry, First Friday on Ruth. So I know that this, that was discussed before, but I was like, no, it's on Main Street, First Friday's got to be on Main Street, and then I see it on Ruth Street, and I was like, oh my gosh, this is cozy, and this is comfortable. and we've got grass to sit in and the stage has concrete and I mean it just felt like It could just be me, but it really felt like community. And I wouldn't even mind switching it from First Friday on Main to First Friday on Roof, even if we maybe alternated sometimes. But the work that you guys put in was nothing short of phenomenal. I enjoyed it. I love the advertising. You are in your zone, and I cannot wait to see what you do with this Christmas parade. So I just wanted to thank you again for an amazing, amazing event. It was great. What else? It has been so... Big thing, we have our, we had this issue with the E. coli here. So I want to take a point of privilege, and since we have our experts in the building, I asked if Glenn McFadden could be here tonight to kind of explain in simple terms what happened, what the process is, what the protocols are, and why this situation happened like that. Thank you for allowing me to Request you to come in at late notice, but I'm going to let him explain this process to us.

All water systems in North Carolina have to have what's called a bacteria test done per month. Based on the size of your population, it requires a certain number. Spring Lake's population requires that you do 10, so we do 10 every month. We do five one week, then we do another five. In the course of that, we also every week have to go to certain sites and do what's called MRT testing, where we test the chlorine, the monochlorine, the ammonia, the pH, all of that stuff, and at the end of the month, we upload that. What happened here, and it happens from time to time, is that we had a positive test. We take five tests around the community. One of the five on Chapel Hill Road came back positive in an apartment there on Chapel Hill Road. That's not necessarily that unusual. What was a little bit unusual, and again I don't want to hold you up to explain, but on Mondays we usually run our MRTs, and on the Tuesdays we do these tests so that it avoids getting us in the weekend if we have any hiccups when the labs and things are closed. Monday was Veterans Day, so that put us a day behind, so we pulled the samples on Tuesday. And how that works is we pull the samples, the lab has a courier, we leave them, they come and get it, and then the next day they run them. So the tests that were taken on September 8th were actually running on September 9th. Then on September 9th, it takes 24, 18 to 24 hours to run these tests. So we didn't get the results back until late Thursday. So late Thursday evening, they called and said that the house there, the test on Chapel Hill, they tested positive. And what you do in that situation is you have to do what's called repeat tests. So you go what's called the back to that residence, then you go upstream and then downstream, you take two more. And what you're trying to look for is, do you have a chlorine demand or something where it's gone down? Are there any other positive tests? So we did those tests, and the lab agreed on Friday. We ran them. They took them so they would let us know Saturday. So Saturday about 11 o'clock, I got a call from our technician saying that, hey, That upstream-downstream was negative, but the actual site had tested positive again. This time they put it under and said, oh, it tested positive for E. coli. I said, well, this is, I said, what was the chlorine residual? It was like a free two or something. So usually when you have any type of bacteria, the chlorine's main job is So that's why we were always looking at chlorine. So I looked at that, and I said, well, I was actually in Sanford. I said, meet me back here. I wanted to go to the apartment. So we immediately went to the apartment, and we pulled two more samples from the site. And this time I said, well, we're going to take them back to the original lab and take them to another certified lab. So we had two samples. We did that. I had him then go around again. I said, let's look for all the chlorine to make sure we don't have a residual that has dropped out that would indicate we have a problem in the system. So at that point, I had to notify the state. So after the notification to the state, this is so rare that this type of thing occurs. And I was like, this is a false positive. I cannot prove this is a false positive. And what the state makes you do is you no longer have to prove, I have to prove that the system is good, if that makes sense. And I did the false, it makes no difference, we had that. So I tried to negotiate with the state, and I said, look, the next morning, you've got 24 hours to issue the World War. I knew we were going in Saturday, I knew it would create chaos. And so I said, look, we've got all these chlorine residuals. We've got two samples that has come back negative. So the moment I had to issue the water notice, we already had that house that had two separate tests that was negative. And what happens is, again, it's very simple. It's literally a bottle that's sealed. And that bottle has a chemical sodium or something that makes the chlorine go away. You literally open it up and get a chlorine residual. You pour it in there very carefully. You close the lid. If you sneeze, you touch it. A gnat or anything, anything will cause it. And then they literally take it to the lab. They put another thing, which is another name, some type of media. What it does is it makes it grow. And they just put it in an incubator and try to make it grow. So I was like, well, it's hot, it's sweating, it's a gnat. You know, anything could have occurred. I was not concerned. I had two negative tests. So in the course of dealing with and at the mayor, that's why the Chapel Hill Road, you gotta send that to Danes, because I wanted to narrow it down to Chapel Hill Road. I didn't want to give the address out because I didn't want to, I don't know if they call that Knoxville. I didn't want to give the address out, but I wanted to narrow it down because I knew what would occur is that we would have this large, you know, everybody calling in in this panel. Well, the state disagreed that the guy I was dealing with, I said, I'm sorry, I can't, you know, accept your, you know, I want to narrow this down He said, no, you're actually going to have to take more samples. I said, I disagree with that. The rules don't say that, but the state is in charge of the situation. So I literally went to talk to another gentleman. He was really nice, expressed my frustration with him. I think he was kind of halfway understanding where I was coming from, that he couldn't make that decision, finally went to someone else. And they said, no, we're not going to accept that. We're going to make you need 10 more samples. At that point, I said, you understand that Saturday, or Sunday at this point, and we've got, I've got two negative samples. I've never heard of this. I thought it was excessive. I also quickly realized that I wasn't getting anywhere, so I had to call labs to run it. We got bottles. We ran those tests, and that's where we ended up at with this. At a lot of calls, we did, usually all systems have to have an operator that's called ORC, that's operator responsible. You have it for your water and your wastewater. I actually serve that as your distribution system and also on your collection side. You have to have those things to run, so it's my license that I'm going off of. So really, I'm the one that's concerned. So we did that. We did the 10 tests. We took them back to the lab. They were very gracious. I'm glad that you guys. I also want to stress to Carly. I had to call Carly on a Sunday, give her about 15 minutes notice. And I said, Carly, I need you to sign the website, social media, your app. She said, Glenn, we've got the Sunshine Group. I said, I've got to get it out because The state's being difficult. And again, they're not. They were trying. They were being overly cautious. So anyway, this morning, we ran the test. All 10 of them came back. They were samples from all over the community. We never had E. coli in the system. We had one resident take it from the faucet. It could have easily been, sometimes I've seen dirt bowers, different things in there. If you flush it out, you don't really look in there and there's still some residual from when you're testing. I don't know where it came from. The only thing I know is that the chlorine was very, very strong throughout. We've now got 12 water samples. all over your system and come back and say negatively that everything is good. I did put my name, I talked to Dennis early on Saturday. I said, I'm sorry, Mr. Drain was early on Saturday. I said, look, we've got a potential problem here. I'm trying to work with the state. I wasn't as concerned. I thought the state was, you know, we were going to be okay with this. I was going to do these other tests. You know, again, when we do the public notices, I did put my name. Generally, sometimes you don't put your cell number, but I was scared that I wanted to be, I shouldn't say scared, I didn't want any more misinformation to go out. I've dealt with these in the past, and when you get that misinformation and everybody's talking and creating, so I wanted folks to call me. And again, we have folks that are in Harnett County who have a Spring Lake mail-in address, and I was trying to explain to the state, if you let me narrow it down, you could have saw some of those calls as well. You know, some of the other confusion, just so you know, is that we don't really regulate restaurants. Restaurants, nursing homes, schools, and all that is done through the health department. The state actually notified the health department Saturday that we may be issuing the boil water bonus. Sunday, they reached out again. So we did have some restaurants. The problem is there's nothing that says, because, you know, you can boil the water and still use it, There's nothing that says they have to close that we regulate if that makes sense. So the restaurants that did call when we had a few that reached out, I said, I can't tell you what to do. You need to talk to the health department because they regulate those types of things. Some of the confusion, too, in the Boil Water Notice, there was confusion saying we're going back to the 8th. There are certain things that I have to say in there in the Boil Water Notice that kind of outlines things and talk about that. So once we issue the Boil Water, we have to take the assumption that something is wrong until we prove that there is nothing wrong. I went into it Sunday morning and did two more negative tests to prove that there was nothing wrong with the stakes and that we're going to do more than that. We complied. Staff was great to work with. I couldn't get them distressed. That was a huge help getting them out. Your lab did a great job too. They came down on the weekend and they called us by 7.30 this morning and said everything was clean. That's kind of how it works. It's a bad situation. you know, it could happen. We do a lot like we're doing ten tests on them. Anything can happen. These things happen from time to time. This was a very very unique. Did I explain it well?

I appreciate that so much and I hope our residents have a bit more clarity on this. Uh if you have any more questions, you've got his cell phone number.

Yeah.

Don't don't use it.

Don't don't obnoxiously call it a genuine question. I do. I want to, and it is important, like I said, to say I would not, you know, I'm here to continue. You guys know me. I'm not going to let, it's my responsibility to make sure your water is safe. I was never concerned about it, but unfortunately I could, I had to prove that that makes sense and ask where we went wrong. I do apologize that happened, but I'm going to do that. I hope it never happens again, but we'll work it out if it does.

Absolutely. Again, thank you so much for explaining this. This is much needed and necessary. He's also a mayor, so he understands the pressure that we're under when things like this happen. So I appreciate your quick response. And thank you, too.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Just a quick question I want to put out there because, and I thank you as well for explaining on yesterday, me getting out of church, I received a lot of calls from my seniors because it was, it did do me due diligence, so I can thank you for that, but they stated they didn't have, able to use a computer and stuff like that. I'd like to see the town do a robo. Call the individuals that are not able to get that media contact. My son did say, well, Mom, it is on the media. I'm in church. I didn't see it. And then my pastor sent it to me as well as... uh had some older senior citizens going around in my community knocking on the door letting people know so when i started receiving calls i thought maybe the town of spring lake can do so we can do robocalls and we can look into that to see what that entails but we do have the numbers to let them know that we have a situation of those you know we can't contact so again thank you for explaining it um and to know that we're safe and It came off of that 401. Absolutely. It came off of this 401. Thank you so much.

Mr. Nichols, I have a question for you. How much does this cost us?

Oh, my goodness. Well, this actually didn't cost anything for him to do the actual project.

With your contract, what made it be the ORC, when you negotiated that years ago, it includes a certain number of engineer hours. That's the cover under the hair. now there will be some lab costs to run the test and the camera that's a separate contract i don't know off the top of my head what that is but there are costs well that that's necessary i don't know it's not i know it's not going to be as much as we have to pay for you so anything with the water or any types of things i know it's called the orc side that's a separate contract it includes 10 hours sounds good all right any other questions i echo um commissioner sutton what your point was about robocalls

When we were communicating throughout the weekend, you made a point to me that I agree with around Spring Lake communication channel. And what he mentioned to me, and I took a note of it, he said, I have only four calls from the citizens of Spring Lake. I have over 20 calls from Mardi Gras.

That was the biggest issue, was the harming side of it. And it's because you have a spring-like average. It's good in some ways, bad in others. They get taxed when they get to the town.

There's a gap there in our communication, so we need to have that discussion.

Absolutely. I am for robocalls. I am making sure that... I'm sorry, did you guys have any other questions for Mr. McNutt? I don't want you to have to just say anything. So I am for robocalls. I am, of course, we have the app. Please, please, please download the app for us who keep our phones in our hands. We have the Sunshine List. It does cost for us to put these types of notifications in mailers or on our water bills. But in emergency situations, we may need to look at... some sort of emergency mailer, or I actually like the robocall support. Danville does it all the time. Like if there's a storm, I get a call that says, hey, there's no practice today, or rec center's going to be closed. So if we could look into a service similar to that, I think that would be very beneficial.

3-2 with our water bills. have spots on there where Renee can put whatever she wants on there? It costs.

It costs for us. That was the only thing is if we keep doing the cost. Now, we can do emergency, absolutely. We should do stuff.

Yeah, it costs for us to do that.

So, that's like that robocall, and that'll get everybody, it'll drop it on the voicemail, answering machines, I think that'll be it. So, combining SunshineLens, social media, the app and robocalls. I think we should be able to at least target a majority of our residents. And don't forget your own civic responsibility. We need your help. Help your neighbor, help your family, help your friends, share our posts. all of those things let's build a community i say all the time y'all one of our biggest advantages is our size it allows us to know our neighbors it allows us to communicate and share information we're not being like bedville where you got to go across the whole district to talk to somebody we're right here we're all together so let's use that to our advantage um so that was one of the oh we're still in mayor's updates y'all want to go faster um Amazing news and I'm sure Mr. English is going to expound on this. You guys, we got our 2022 audit completed. That's a huge thing. I do have some questions about the contract with Mr. Overton. So now that Mr. Overton is no longer an employee here, we are contracting him, correct? Do we have that fleshed out yet?

I'm waiting to get his hours that he's available. What so far he mentioned is that we're looking at eight to ten hours a week, not to exceed. So he has not gotten back to me with those specific hours. And I'm also going to be reaching out to Carl Riggs and Ibram to find out exactly how much that invoice is going to be. So the costs associated with Mr. Overton, costs associated with the audit, those conversations need to happen before we come back to you all with them.

uh this work yeah jimmy gave us a raise as well i can't remember 110 110 or 125 but very reasonable i don't think it would be cost per hour

And we do have coffee with the Chiefs. I am so excited about this. Because one, we have two absolutely amazing Chiefs, our Police Chief and our Fire Chief are rock stars. And they're going to be good to drink coffee with and have great conversations. So I encourage you all to come out and pick brains and share your thoughts and concerns and then tell your neighbors about us so they can come drink coffee with them as well. And that is all I have. I will be traveling on Thursday. There has been a death in my family. and I will be traveling home for that so I ask that you keep me and my family my friends family lifted in prayer and I do want to ask if the board is okay with me doing a proclamation or excuse me a resolution on behalf of the town of Spring Lake just showing that my town is supporting me during this moment I would like to present that to her family thank you

That's all I have.

Merry birthday.

Thank you.

As well as I want to thank the public for coming out. I think it was a great meeting. We do listen to the citizens and we stand firm to do what's best for the citizens. I represent the citizens as I always have said. I represent the citizens and I represent them well as I represent myself. I continue to grow in the Lord and I continue to stand strong. I want to thank Mr. Burgess. And I mean a packed house, a good community event, the young men, the people there, that was one of the awesome events that I have attended. Had a funeral to go to, I had to come with my clergy, I almost had to take it off and then they said, no, put it back on. But anyway, it was great, Mrs. Burgess, so thank you so very much. A lot of people don't know what you do in the community and how many people that's involved. I want to thank Chief Jarman. He came up, and I might be stealing your thunder, but I'm going to put it out there in the atmosphere, that he was there and he thought about the town of Spring Lake, the citizens here, and our children not being involved in your boxing. And he stated to me that, Ms. Sullivan, I think we need to get involved. And then the town manager stated how he thought it should run as well to get our children involved and kind of keep them out of trouble so they can be involved in your facility as well. So we hope we can get that up and running. And Mr. Dennis, when you stated you can get with the school, that we have some children that have some situations. So whatever we need to do to get that running, Chief, we want to get that running sooner than later. So I think that was great. First Friday was awesome. It was hot, but it was really, really nice. I really enjoyed it. And normally I don't come out too much to the first Friday, but that was really nice. As well as 9-1-1, I'm accustomed to us having some type of event from the party, Paul. the town or whatever and I didn't know if I missed it I was trying to see but what I'm saying is for future references we can still have something for the 9-1-1 to recognize those individuals. Main Street is being paved and we think that's great with Main Street being paved and I'm looking at the medium In Spring Lake, I always see on my GPS and on my car, it's always a big, huge flag. That flag in the medium is so small, it needs to be redone, it needs to be large, and it needs to be new.

You're going to go on that walkway?

No, no, no. In the fork in the road? In the fork in the road. Yes. I don't know what happened to the large one we used to have, but it used to fly, and I am a strong believer of that. But we need to look into Steve, purchase another flag.

Steve, didn't we purchase a new flagpole? Yes, we did. So we do have it? From the city.

Right. Right. We have it at the shop. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Commissioner Thompson? Good evening.

We are still accepting applications for the Military and Veterans Affairs Committee. So if anyone would like to join that committee, we have two openings coming up. And we need those openings filled because without those, then the committee cannot continue to operate. Also, on this Saturday, the INVAC committee will host the poker bike run. You do not have to have a motorcycle to participate. All street legal vehicles are allowed. Legal, that is. And you can participate. The first stop will start at the... Let me see whether it starts at the American Legion. Actually, no. The end point is at the American Legion Post 230, and the start point is at 1241 Pine O Drive in Spring Lake. So if you're interested in that, please come out and participate. They'll have food and vendors there. And the last thing, September 18th, which is this coming up Friday, is the last day for a cutoff for the Veteran of the Year application. So if you know somebody who would like to... Put it in court, make sure the application is in by Friday. That's all I have. The bike thing, it's at 1241 Pine Oak Drive. That's the American Legion and the VFW's is where it starts at. But the end point, oh I'm sorry, the end point is that the American Legion goes to 30 in Spring Lake.

i want to take time to thank the special event team y'all were awesome easy to work with very energetic wanting to do things for the town and that's what made first friday excellent could have not done it without them um very proud proud of the special event team we have chief Jason, we had Chief Jarman, we had Lynn, Carly, we had Steve come on board, Dennis of course, we had Pastor Ken from the Janet session, they were awesome, the kids were awesome there. on the special event team, but I do want to spring shout out to help me, Dominique, is that his name? Oh, yeah, Dominique and Kay. Dono. Dono, he was excellent. He was excellent. He hung in there. Him and Carly, they started off and they ended it. While everybody went home, they were out there, and I'm calling her, you all right, you all right, you by yourself? And no, she said, I had Dominique. Dominique was excellent. He was easy to work with. He didn't act like he was stressed. You know, sometimes people, body language says a lot, but his was like, whatever you need, I'm here. So I definitely want to tell him thank you. Very good job. Well done on that. We have the next work Friday coming up in October. We're looking to get a comedian. We're looking to get a sound guy to keep the music going on. We had a band that reached out that plays rock and, what does that say? Don't get me lying. Rock and roll. It's coming in November. So we do plan on adding things to the table for the entertainment. So thank y'all again for the hard work that y'all did and put in, and do not miss the meeting tomorrow.

Commissioner Bridges? I'd like to thank everybody that just came out. I want to talk about these, uh, relighted houses. People call me, text me. We're not doing nothing. The town ain't doing nothing about the grass. We are. They don't understand it takes time to do stuff. We got people working on this. We have code enforcement. People say we don't have code enforcement, and we do. So other than that, I want to thank Chief Johnner for coming out Saturday and staying the whole time. I know it was a little bit long, but he enjoyed it. I want to thank Dennis for helping us keep moving this town forward and aboard.

Since you were talking about the buildings at our last meeting, I think it was Mrs. Blackman's wife who stated it. Can we look into that building, Bobby Jones building? Over there. Okay, but I need to put it out there. Can we look into it to make sure that we look into it for future reference to see what's going on? And since everybody knows that we own it, then we own it.

Just so you guys know, we're talking about the building covered with a tarp right at the top of Spree Lake. Just to make it clear. And Donovan is one of our staff. He is in the streets department.

Commissioner Cooper? Thank you. I don't have much. I just want to remind everybody early voting is getting ready to start. We don't have an early voting location. One of the things we need to do is get the numbers up so that we can really fight to keep our early voting location. But early voting is getting ready to start and election day is November 3rd. Please, please exercise your right to vote.

and know your candidates. Please, learn your candidates. Mr. English.

I'm sorry, I just was reading some information about a grant that we just got. So, I just want to give you a quick update here, and it's tough being last with a lot of my information. That's great, that means you're sure. But I was silent on it. Commissioner Burgess, I was so Inspiring this weekend, seeing the young people and the amount of skill that they have in the sport of boxing. Also speaking with the referees one-on-one and seeing that they have so much experience, 20, 30 years, and why they do what they do as referees over time, traveling state to state, and being in Spring Lake showing up. What they told me was that they do it for the youth. A lot of the young people that we saw on Saturday, if it wasn't for the sport of boxing, may be in jail or going in a direction that they should not go. And so we know the fighters sometimes like fighting. It is what it is. So just seeing that, I'm also wanting to participate and work with you all on doing something with our police. I think that's a great idea. Looking at the juvenile justice centers that we have, we have locally here as well. I'm sure we can have conversations with them. So I'm looking forward to that. So it was inspiring. And seeing those young people just really, really gave me goosebumps. I want to also thank the residents of Holly Hills. If any of you in here, you know what I'm about to say. I got a picture today, thank you, Ms. McFadden, of this shiny, black, paved street on Regina Drive. So I know you're happy as well. That's your neighborhood. But it was a long road for those citizens. And they hung in there. They were patient. I remember taking them forward to a citizen who, and just meeting some of them and what they were going through. One of them had puppies. I took a mortar for their dog. And just giving a chance to meet citizens one-on-one through that project. it was unfortunate but they have a new sewer line in that neighborhood it took time but they have a new sewer line and so the sustainability of the infrastructure that we've installed through that grant I'm extremely proud of but I recognize that the citizens on Regina Drive and throughout that neighborhood had to experience a lot of bumpy roads. And so the last six months since I've been here, I've been getting a lot of calls and having to take care of those situations. And sometimes the water was out because we had to test the lines. We had to go in and repair. But you all got through it. And so I just want to say thank you. It's over now. And I also want to add, we have three temps working for us. And Steve can attest to this because you also echo this. If you look at Spring Lake over the last three weeks, I have not received a call from my mayor. Cut that grass. Coming in. No. Because Spring Lake, if you look at our manicured grass, and I'm going to knock on some wood here because these are temps. But the grass in the Spring Lake, if you look at across, I mean, even that first ride, I mean, just when our grass is cut, it makes a huge difference in the beautification of this town. And so I just want to thank you, Steve, for your leadership. I know those temps are new, but I'm talking to them as often as I can because we don't want to lose them as we continue to find permanent staff, which is not always easy.

Are you looking at those tips for hiring?

There are some situations, but... That's enough. I don't know. But they are day-to-day working 100%, and I'm so proud of what they're doing to keep Spring Lake looking beautiful. So I'm not going to continue to keep them as long as we can. And so... but that that's let me see if that was it for me oh kiosk you all may go over to the parks and rec department see the kiosk is going to be installed you'll see some of the concrete about to go in so we're we're keeping an eye on that process so as you all know that's going to be something that we're going to be looking forward to having installed our kiosk. We only moved one kiosk. The other one is still over at the Manchester Fire Department. But this one that moved from the drive-up window is going to be down at the Parks and Rec Department.

We can still keep the Progress Act because I know it was one of our budget amendments was to move just over $4,000 and some change. Yeah, that was the last meeting.

So that was a part of getting it set up across the street? It's the concrete. We've got to lay the concrete. We've got to put an awning above it because it will meet the same awning that the parking right now. So that if the elements, the rain, the snow, what have you, it will meet.

I just want to know what's our total cost for the move once everything is finished. So just bring us back numbers so we know what the cost of this project was.

The total cost is what you received, but I can bring you up to speed on what you voted on last.

Okay.

We'll go through. That's all I have for tonight.

Mr. Porter?

Just briefly, I hated to miss the event at Commissioner Burgess' or for his boxing event. It's hard to turn down the beach, especially when you're on the beach. But I saw it on Facebook and it really made the community look good. It got a lot of interaction on social media and I did hate to miss that. The only legal update is today was the last day for upset bids for the property from Spring Lake Property Acquisitions. I do not believe, so just to give the public an update, we bid the debt amount, we approved that, I think last time or the time before that. That was the original high bid. Essentially we just said our debt plus the cost we have in it, which came out to about 3.5 million and some change. So to my knowledge, Unless somebody got a bid in there really late today, which you can literally do that. You can go in there at 10 to 5 because today was the 10th day. So unless someone got in there really late today, pick up with a check for, I can't remember off the top of my head now if it's 5 or 10%. above they got 3.5 million dollars uh so i doubt they did so then the next step would be that property needs to us and then y'all's work is really going to be cut out for you because y'all got to decide what to do with all that acreage yeah that's why y'all get paid the big bucks that's all i got i had something really serious to say to you saying big bucks no but this is a huge win for us this is

Spring Lake property acquisitions can now be used for our benefit, and I am happy.

And I will say, when I first, it is hard to believe I've been town attorney for a little over four years now. I want to say it was July or August of 2020, so I'm putting up with me for a long time. And this thing was a bugaboo, and I mean, forget a 10-foot pole. They wanted this thing in China. And they just told us to ignore it. We couldn't do anything about it. And it really wasn't that complicated. Once we had the handcuffs off, we all kind of talked about it. We got real creative. Now, it has been a slow process. But I want to say from the moment... We as a group, a governing body, decided how to move forward. We had to negotiate with Truist, buy the note. I mean, it took about a year and a half, but here we are. And I think it's gonna actually really be a forget uh i think spring lake property acquisition started with the best of intentions something happened who knows it doesn't really matter that's all water in the bridge but at the end of the day i think this is going to be one of the best things that ever happens so uh it may not have happened in the timeline that it was originally conceived but at the end of the day spring lake property acquisitions is going to pay dividends tremendously yes i agree thank you for that um

Okay, well I'll entertain a motion to go into closed session pursuant to NCGS 143318-11a1, confidentiality for closed session minutes. NCGS 143318-11a3, attorney client privilege. NCGS 143318-11a4, economic development. And NCGS 143318-11a6, personnel. Commissioner Cooper? So moved. Commissioner Thompson? I second. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Motion carries. You guys have a great evening. Feel free to stay until we have our closed session, but we don't know what time that's going to be.

Get home safely.

I'm just standing because I've been sitting all day in cars and courtrooms. I'm standing. Most, I win more than I lose. That's all you can do. But any attorney who says he doesn't lose is a liar.

I was with a lot of attorneys yesterday, and I was asking a question about some of these. A big wheel of people was saying.

It's kind of like baseball when they say like a good batting average is you know like 500 would be Hall of Fame.

I'll entertain a motion to come out of closed session. Commissioner Thompson? So moved. Commissioner Hooper? Second. Any discussion? Oh, we're out of closed session. All in favor? Aye. Motion carries. We will now entertain a motion to approve our closed session minutes. Commissioner Cooper? So moved. Commissioner Thompson? I second. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Motion carried. Meeting adjourned.

Oh, the action of finally doing the approval.

Oh, I'm sorry. Meeting not adjourned. Action was taken in closed session to finalize and sign the town manager contract.

There was actually no action taken in closed session. You guys didn't vote on it. Well, we previously voted.

Yeah, we approved it, but they made the change just for the public record. Made the changes happen. Contract is signed. Everything with Mr. English is official.

Yes.

All right.

Meeting adjourned now. Yeah, he has to do a motion to approve his contract there.

I thought we already approved it last time.

I'll entertain a motion to approve the contract for town manager English. Mr. Burgess. I'll make a motion that we approve the contract. Commissioner Thompson. I second. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Are we good? Madam Clerk?

Yes.