Council - Regular Meeting

I'd like to call our town council meeting for August the 19th to order. Could we please stand for our pledge? Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we just invite you into our meeting today and ask you to lead us and guide us and share your wisdom with us as always. And we also would like to thank you for the service of our councilman, Xavier Harrison. And we just lift his family up to you and ask that you envelop them with your precious love. In your name we pray. Amen. Amen. The first item on our agenda is the approving of the minutes. Were there any corrections to those minutes?

I'm sorry, I forgot to get in touch with you. There was one on page 13, right in the middle of 7C. Okay. Council member Bill lump identified several provisions of the ordinance that she believed.

I appreciate that. I didn't see it.

I did too. All right.

That's one.

Bill's going to find for sure.

Missed that one.

Are there any other corrections? Then I move the approval. Is there a second?

Second.

All those in favor, let it be known by saying aye. Aye. At this time, we have our public comments. First is Larry Cockrell. Come in and just state your name and that you live in Nashville or wherever, and you have three minutes.

Larry Cockrell, 205 East Church Street, Nashville. Mayor council. I purchased two or one East church street in 2017 while still living in Raleigh. Since that time, I have had multiple complaints from the planning department concerning this property. First complaint was in somewhere around 2018, 2019. This would be my first meeting with Mr. Lansing and Mr. Lucas. At that meeting in town hall, I raised the issue of trespassing on the property due to photographs that were taken on the property exhibiting angles not visible from a public street, sidewalk, or walkway, indicating deep entry into the property. At that meeting, I requested that I be notified in the future if any access to the property was necessary and that I would be happy to meet and accompany anyone onto the property. since that time there have been four more complaints from the town concerning the property of which letters have been received from the town with pictures exhibiting angles and views not accessible from a public street sidewalk or walkway indicating deep entry onto the property Each of these four complaints resulted in meetings at Town Hall in which I reiterated at each meeting to either Mr. Lucas, now Ms. Jones, or both that trespassing had occurred and that the direction had been given previously to request access to the property prior to their entering the same. This past week, Friday the 14th of August, I received a fifth letter along with pictures attached exhibiting angles and views not accessible from a public street, sidewalk, or walkway indicating deep entry onto the property. This has become obvious to me that the revocation of my access in previous meetings on multiple occasions has and will not be honored since my first meeting in 2018 or 19. i have never received one phone call email or letter requesting an appointment or my presence to escort anyone from the town on to 201 east church street prior to entry since specifically requesting that they do so as my only recourse i am lodging a formal complaint a violation of my fourth amendment rights and violations of north carolina state statutes mayor Mr. Lansing, Lou, and Mr. Lucas, you have been notified. I'll be happy to answer any questions that you may have at a later date.

Thank you. Nancy West.

Thank you.

Nancy West, National Graphic. One question. Nash County has installed Narcan distribution boxes at all libraries in the county except for Cooley Library. So I wanted to know if the town planned to also allow installation outside the library.

I don't have an answer, but I'll find one for you. Anybody have an answer here?

Well, Nancy, uh, it was talked about with staff and council members individually and decided that we didn't want to have a Narcan distribution box at, at this library, this facility, we wanted to make sure that it remained a safe Haven for our children and our patrons. and having a Narcan box here and available, there was concerns that it would bring individuals that wouldn't be perceived well at this facility.

Has the town thought about another place possibly within town limits to put it?

Yeah, we offered the police fire station at 501 South Barnes Street to Nash County for placement of it.

We also have the county courthouse, which seems like a great place. Okay.

Did somebody ask them about that, too?

We don't know yet. I don't know about the courthouse, but we offered Tia the PD fire station.

Okay.

Thanks. Thank you. And the next item on our agenda is the sewer manhole ceiling project. Randy.

Yes. Mayor and council recently, uh, you know, we did the, we, we had Mac and associates do the ass asset inventory assessment for both our water and sewer. When they did the sewer, uh, they popped all the manholes in the system, checked them for leaks, infiltration, and found about 700 of them that had some form of infiltration, um, And then we set out on a program to seal those, um, early on when this was discovered, Mike Tolson with Mac and associates had put in, uh, to the DWI division of water infrastructure with the state of North Carolina for an application for funding. Uh, I'm sorry, I'm on the wrong one here. So similar, uh, they're confusing. Yup. So we, we bid out the ceiling of those, uh, Mike Tolson did for us after he came up with plans and specifications for the interior ceiling of the manholes. We got three bids, uh, CTR coatings in Knoxville, advanced rehabilitation technologies from Ohio, and Carolina lift stations from York, South Carolina. And then applying the low bid to our 700 manholes at the unit price that they bid resulted in a project cost of $1,500,000 approximately. And the town was awarded $1.5 million from Nash County through their direct appropriation, that's $17.5 million. And then we signed that inter-local agreement for that. And at this time, Matt Gann Associates and town staff is recommending the council award a contract to CTR Coatings for their unit price of $2,147 per linear foot to seal approximately 700 manholes in our sewer system. And we do have Mike Tolson, our engineer here with us, if you have any questions for him about that.

cancel. Do you have any questions? I guess, I guess I'm confused also. I thought we were already had a project going on, seeing these manholes.

We do just not the same.

I thought we used that same money.

Yes. And that contract, we had extended a contract to CTR coding for $150,000 worth of manhole ceiling for three years for, for a total of four 50. This includes that. What we had found when we submitted our reimbursements to NCTEQ to draw down on our asset inventory assessment is they wanted to see a formal bid letting on it. We kind of started this project from the wrong end, I think. I mean, we approached it as a maintenance contract, whereby we didn't have to have plans and specifications. I mean, it's like asphalting a street. You call the asphalt company, They know exactly what to do. You specify what makes you want and that's about it. And but now they want to detail plans and specifications. So Mac and Associates put those together. Then they wanted to see a formal bid letting competitive one. So we did that, which was really tough to do when you're doing a proprietary project product. I mean, this polymer polyurethane coating that they're putting in the manholes is proprietary and you can only get it from authorized dealers that the manufacturer has authorized to install it so that's that's why you see some of the bids are from tennessee and ohio and new york anyway um the 450 000 contract we have with ctr coding and are underway already would be included in this expanded contract letting

Okay, so it's included in the $1,500,000?

Yes, it will be.

But I thought we already authorized $1.5 million from the county to do this exact same thing a year ago.

We did with our execution of that interlocal agreement, but it wasn't the documentation that DWI wanted or needed. This is. Okay, so maybe you can expand on that.

We're doing the same work. We just got to get the paperwork right.

This is back-end paperwork to basically make people at the state happy with the interlocal agreement that you did with the county. Okay, all right. It's still the same pool of money. it's just they have a process and a checklist and if you don't have every little check on that box and that's what we're we're just doing the paperwork on the back end and unfortunately they've they just drug it to this point where we've got to have you guys approve something that's a already in the works and i i'll tell randy and i've told randy several times it it is uh not uncommon that they have uh we need one more thing well we're about to finish the project and you're telling me you can't you know so we're just okay all right and so it's unfortunate but it is what it is at that point you know just trying to get the paperwork together how far along are we in it so i can't remember the exact number of manholes that we've done um but it's you know in the couple hundred range of manholes i believe from the list i saw the other day we're updating your information getting ready for the uh your audit so and we have not been day-to-day involved in it but just trying to help you guys get the paperwork in place that you need um but but Moving along quite well, I would imagine you've seen some improvements in your infiltration and your numbers. Of course, it's been dry summer relatively, so I don't know if you've seen the effect of it, but it will pay dividends over time for sure, which is kind of a good segue into the next thing we'll talk about that I'm here to talk about too.

So we're 25% to 30% into it.

I would say that's probably about right. You're probably almost two years into the contract. But yes, I mean, this is getting you basically what you've been paying out of enterprise, getting you reimbursed for some of the stuff you've already fronted on things like that.

Good morning, Mayor and Council. 240 is the last number that I've got. So we're 240 into this project right now.

I'm just thrilled and thankful that we are finally attacking our infrastructure so our citizens won't keep running into all these problems. So I'm very grateful for what we're doing. We're eating this elephant a bite at a time. But I'm glad we're getting things straightened out because it needed it desperately. Yes, ma'am.

we like three or four years left is that the timeline or i i think that once this gets cleared up and you can see that the money is coming back in from the state to reimburse you for what you've kind of fronted i think it can probably wrap up in a year okay all right really comes down to it because it's you know you kind of get okay we're paying out a lot we'd like to see some money coming back in for what we've been paying out as far as that goes with the agreement And so I would say that you – I wouldn't say you slowed down the contractor, but being hesitant and being frugal with the funds you're fronting for them, and this will allow the funds to come back in and get that contract moving. And those guys will – they'll come back in here and hit 100 manholes in a month or two at a time. That's great. It moves fast when it needs to.

So the contractor out of Tennessee is the one that's been doing the work thus far? He is. And we'll continue.

Yes, sir. And they've been doing good work. That's where their headquarters are is in Tennessee, but they've got crews that they run all over North Carolina. and you're pleased with what they do oh yes ma'am they i recommend them everywhere because we it's the best product i've seen to use to seal manholes and to give you it comes with a 10-year warranty that that you know you don't have to touch them for 10 years other than you know your typical you know tie-ins and inspections and things like that it just has been very, very beneficial to all of the systems we've recommended. And I've got towns that we've done the entire town in and they've got their infiltration down to about 15% where it was at 85%. That's great.

But do you think they're going to last 110 years, I hope.

Oh, it's a 50-year product. Okay, all right. I was like, ooh, that's a lot of money. Your typical epoxy coating that goes in there, they'll give you a two-year warranty, and I've seen that flake off within a year. This stuff, I have seen them go back in a couple years later to fix something that had been scratched or messed up in a manhole and literally pull the casting off because it was attached to it so hard that it would pull the casting off with it. So it's a very – it's like a –

i it's like truck bed liner for the inside of the manholes it seals everything up and gets the leaks fixed you've got a lot of brick manholes and that's why you know we use it thank you any more questions thanks for the clarification yeah if not do i hear a motion to approve resolution 2026-26 awarding a manhole ceiling contract the ctr coast coatings for the ceiling of the 700 sanitary sewer manholes not to exceed uh one million five hundred thousand dollars so many second all those in favor let it be known by saying aye the next item is the dwi loan offer for the sewer rehab rehab habitation uh mayor and council the town received a letter from the um

division of water infrastructure, uh, saying that, uh, if we wanted to, we have a $3 million loan offered to us by DWI for 2.4, 5% interest for 20 years that we could do sewer rehabilitation work with. And, uh, what that means is we clean and televise approximately 51,000 feet of eight inch verified clay sewer pipe. that's in our sanitary sewer collection system. We had identified damage and bad sections of pipe that need to be repaired. And then we would go ahead and have those repaired, point repaired, or a slip lining to seal them up. And that type of project is called a fix and find sewer repair project. So Mike Tolson with Mack Gain Associates had submitted this to DWI. A couple years back, the first two rounds of funding, we weren't awarded anything. In the spring of this year, they made this offer to us. So the question comes back to the council, does the town want to accept the $3 million low interest loan to do a find and repair sewer project, or do we want to pass on it? The annual loan, Would, uh, on the full $3 million at the 2.4 or 5% interest would have an annual payment of about 190,000 for $640. And, uh, I put the amortization schedule in the packet along with the letter of, uh, offer on, on the loan. And, uh, we have Mike Tolson here along with, uh, our public works director, uh, Jason Glover. He talked about the pros and cons of, uh, doing. one large project at one time to get it all sealed up versus doing parts and pieces of this with our own funds, so to speak, as we go over time.

Talk to us.

So the original application was for $7.5 million. The way the scoring structures and things like that work out, this is what DWI wound up offering you in this round. This was a reconsideration of a previous application. We did not put in that round for it. And I was very surprised to see any offer whatsoever come in for it. And as I tell most towns that we deal with when there's a, you know, $3 million is nothing to laugh at as far as an expense and everything else, but it is a loan. And it is incredibly generous for them to offer it, but at the same time, it will get a $3 million slug of what we had anticipated was $7.5 million worth of capital work. So it won't get it all. it will get a very large chunk of it. And what we wind up finding is you spend quite a bit of money on the front end trying to get 80% of the problem mixed up and then fixed. And then you wind up having 20% of the problem left. And you could spend three times as much money chasing that last 20%. you haven't had a significant clean and tv and find and fix type project like this in your town and this is since i've been coming to you and talking to you about sewer rehab and everything else this is the first funding we've really gotten back that's going to be sewer rehab related looking at the mains looking at the lines fixing what we can we've got a good amount of uh of video that was done as part of the aia that we just did that we could go and fix the problems we found in that we couldn't fix them with the aia money we could turn around and use this to fix those problems immediately and not do 51 000 feet of video and do 20 000 feet somewhere else and search somewhere else in the thing we did about 25 000 to 30 000 feet in the aia of video We've got those data. We know what we need to fix out of that. You can use these funds to fix those problems. And you can fix those today. The real report out of that is that we didn't find terrible smoking guns anywhere where we found, oh, there's 50 gallons a minute leak, 10 gallons a minute leak. It was a few roots here, a few broken. But in sewer rehab, the name of the game is death by a thousand cuts. You've got a gallon here, you've got a gallon here, you've got five gallons of leak here, and those add up, and those are what's coming into your system and robbing you of capacity. To say going after it with $3 million worth of work is very worth it. What we discussed in our, hey, is it better to just commit $200,000 a year, which is what your annual debt payment would be on it, to go ahead and plan $200,000 a year worth of capital improvement work and slow roll it, you'd be at the same amount. You wouldn't get the benefit of having those leaks fixed today versus doing 1 20th, 1 20th, 1 20th every year that you did it. And what I have found in municipal budgeting and everything else, is that if you have a $200,000 line item that you're reserving for sewer rehab each year, the minute one pump station goes down, that $200,000 gets yanked because, well, you're not gonna get any sewer rehab this year because of this. This at least gets it fixed and you have a debt commitment that you're paying and you fix the problem of the day, it gives you the savings today, and it keeps you, not that any of you guys would make any bad budget decisions, but you may wind up having to take that $200,000 a year back for a pump station that goes bad, or this one goes bad, and it's not there, and it's not fixing a problem that you can fix today versus still having it in five years, 10 years, 20 years. And so it's really a choice of whether or not you want to accept the debt capacity. The work needs to be done one way or another, is my opinion and my recommendation to you. It's how you guys want to shake the budget and debt capacity that you're looking at. And we can continue to apply for, sewer rehab projects and future applications. That is what I do for a living. But at the same time, you've got this offer on the table that you just need to consider the financial.

Does any of this money ever come as a grant?

It does. And that's why it's unfortunate this came in. This was only going to be a $3 million loan from this. We had applied for it to be a grant. This is the offer they made. Now, we could turn around and you could deny this money and we could reapply, but you've got $3 million sitting there waiting, somebody's offering you, but it's got terms.

Well, if we decided to go with this,

could we still write a grant for the rest absolutely you could certainly apply for applies that's what i mean and you know this is not going to be a problem that you can put three million dollars at today and it's never you're going to have to every year you're going to have to pay attention to you know hey we're getting some creep on our on our infiltration we need to go and do some sewer rehab you know you You just need a routine and an asset management strategy of find and fix, TV. I mean, it's always going to be, I'll be back in five years with another one. If we did it all today, I'd still be back in five years. Well, the ones we didn't fix five years ago, we need to go TV them and look at them and see how it's going.

So does this decrease our chances of obtaining that grant?

Yeah, that's what I was wondering. You know, I don't think it would decrease it. I've got towns that I have reapplied. I've gotten it funded with a loan and turned around and reapplied again and gotten it as a grant the next time, and you just formally deny the loan port. The reason this came about was they sent the letters of intent to fund, and they were asking us, hey, when's your ER due? Because the next process is, to do an engineering report and to do all the things that come with procurement and everything else. And so they were calling saying, hey, I hadn't seen your ER yet. Deadlines are coming up. What have you decided to do? And they were just trying to get you guys to make a decision on what you were going to do with the funds and stuff. So when it comes right down to it, you still need to do the work. It's just you guys decide how you want to pay for it in the long term. $3 million today would make a large inroads to fixing a lot of infiltration. and it would save you money on your downstream treatment bill like you typically have.

Which that would reflect for the citizens, wouldn't it?

It would, of course. And you would see hopefully fewer costs, and you wouldn't have your water and sewer fund in a stretch with having to come up with surcharges or anything like that as much, but I can't tell you that it's going to fix all of the problems.

Right, right.

and the numbers that are in that description of the 51 000 are based on that seven and a half million dollar application so they gave you half of what they would ask for for for you still do the seven and a half million dollars worth of work so in other words they didn't give you everything you needed but they gave you what they could give you so if we do the three million and we owe 190 000 plus per year do we have a projection on what the annual savings would be I have not run that, and I just need to run those different numbers on it. I need to look at what you're currently seeing surcharge-wise. You've also got that manhole ceiling project that's fixing problems from a different angle. So it's a hard moving target.

We can put all of those buckets together. As long as we're receiving enough savings to cover it, I think it's a no-brainer.

Well, I need to run those numbers with finance folks and everything to see, hey, what are you seeing? Problems today, fixed today, will give you 20 years until they're possibly a problem again in 20 years. Because you have things just there, deteriorating assets kind of thing. I would say that the more fixes we can do today, the longer term, you know, you get more savings, you know, long term. So it does make sense. I just don't know if it can exactly correlate to $190,000 worth of.

I may ask the question a different way. So if we took what you've seen and spent $3 million on what you've seen, do you have an estimate of what would save us per month or per year?

Not as it correlates over to your, I've had to check some numbers before I told you a real savings number, but we can get that. I just don't have it prepared for me.

What does this answer do?

Well, like Mike said, we put it off. This letter came in April of 2021, and they wanted to know in 30 days. I'm sorry, 26. And they wanted to know in 30 days, and we hadn't done anything with it. So what Mike and I have told them is that we were having the meeting today and discussing it, and we would get back to them very shortly after that.

Well, I'm going to ask another question that Kate Burns asked, but a different way.

that there are points be deducted if we take this on our future grants for the same project each application stands on its own this was like I said this was a reconsideration when you turn one in you get two shots at essentially is what they look at it this way and you either don't get it in this round and they put that same scoring back into the next consideration so I don't necessarily follow up with them when we don't get it and then all of a sudden I'm happily surprised when we find out that we can call you and say, hey, they funded this project. This is the first one I've ever had that came back and they only funded half of it, or a three million dollar amount, which is, three million is the most they could offer you with the kind of utility that you are, versus this, versus not being viable utility, not having all of it be grant, those kinds of things. So with that said, you know, The cost per savings, Jason's got some data he's gonna send me that I can help figure that part out. As far as having to have a decision made, all we really need to do is if you want to continue to consider this, is I can put out a request into the state that your deadlines be moved out and your milestones be moved out and say, we're going through some numbers that they were perfectly fine with us taking it to this meeting today and I'm gonna have to go and do that anyway because Your PER for it was due Monday. But that was a, hey, they give you a very short trigger on, hey, that's not enough time for you to procure an engineer, for you to actually write a PER, for you to actually get something turned in for them to consider. And then once you turn it in in August, they'll have you hopefully some comments and everything back in January of this year was your next milestone on it. you know not like they're moving real fast up there so a few months delay here and there we just let them know what's going on and keep them apprised they'll be fine with that with a request i haven't seen matter of fact i've seen rain to get very quick results when we've had to extend deadlines on other things and he gets a uh a response in two days where i'll be six weeks getting one because he just it's he's with a town they want to know they want to know the things like that you guys are sending them so With that said, I can get you that data. I can get you a better correlation, but it will be an estimate. It will be, I don't know if it's gonna rain. You guys have a big system. You got a very large outfall that runs right along Stony Creek that is a very flashy creek that would take on water that we feel like is a very big source of infiltration when the creek's out of its banks. We are trying to address that, but we've got other funding applications out there to try and get that resolved. This won't even touch that because this will fix the stuff in town versus going after that. That's a $13, $14 million project out there in Stony Creek. So we're trying to heal the cuts in town versus going after the real big one out there. We're working on that, but it's a... We've applied for that several times and just haven't struck gold yet on it.

Is this the best you think we're going to get in say the five year short term?

I don't think so. I think if we keep applying, I think the fact that they reconsidered it and it scored well enough to be awarded a loan at this point means that you're keep trying, keep trying, one more shot, one more shot. And they've obviously seen that you're working very hard towards manhole sealing um you know that improves every you know if we resubmitted this application to that tomorrow we may get some of it um the fact that you guys are so healthy from a financial standpoint and you do your you know do your audit sometime and do all those things and you're not in part of the viable utility reserve which is you know basically a label that says you need more funding more principal forgiveness So it almost, you know, you can't be rewarded for not doing, rewarded with very good terms on loans because they see you as a good viable fiscal entity kind of thing. You know, some of the other towns that I work with, they're not as in good shape fiscally as you guys are, don't have an enterprise fund balance like you may have. And unfortunately, they need more. And so those guys fill up and take all of the principal forgiveness that we're really looking for from a grant side of things, if that makes sense. And so the fact that they've offered you a loan means that they're paying attention to it. And you can tell them that the conditions aren't favorable for whatever you want. But what I would tell you is, It's on the table. It's $3 million in front of you, but there's some payment terms on it. We can go back and continue to apply for grants, which I would recommend every period apply for the grants, every bit you can get. It's just that you guys being a responsible town physically are very much not going to continue to get loans instead of grant because you're not in dire consequence like a lot of the municipalities that I sit in on. That's a good thing, but not necessarily the noise you guys want to hear.

I'm glad that you keep saying that we're in good financial standing and we want to stay that way. We don't want to fall in the hole and try to dig our way out. That's right. My concern is it's a 20-year loan, and I see the interest that will be paid back through this loan. And my main question is to Randy, this $190,000 per year, how bad of an impact will it have on our yearly budget? If we put it into the budget, hopefully we won't have to shortchange any other department or the citizens of Nashville. We'll just pay back. Can we absorb this comfortably?

Well, you know, we're working with the School of Government right now on a rate study, and one of the things Jason and Tressa have been working with the gals here at the school is forecasting what we need as far as a capital improvement plan, and how much money we'd be spending for that. This $190,000 annual payment could be, uh, considered our capital improvement plan worked into our rates. You know, when they presented at our budget work session, they, they said that we were okay the way we are, but we're no longer, you know, our, our expenses for water and sewer have increased to the point where we're no longer, uh, tucking anything away in fund balance for future projects or replacement projects. So, their concern was that we needed to have a rate increase just for that purpose alone. And we did. You know, the council approved a 15% increase in water and sewer rates.

So would this force us to have to make another increase next year?

Well, that rate study will determine that. My gut feeling is for the first couple of years, no. But as the years go on, our annual operating costs continue to rise and rise and rise. And unless you keep your rates continuing to go up, you don't cover that annual inflation.

So it's been four months. I feel certain that staff doesn't feel good about this. So they were brought it to us three months ago. Was that a good statement?

Well, To be honest with you, I kind of forgot about it. Mike had let me know as soon as it came out, and we were in the midst of getting ready for the budget and preparing for the budget, and it kind of got pushed to the side. And then when he called me two weeks ago and said, hey, you need to decide something on this, they're sending us letters about it.

Can we hear from Jason?

so i just have two points to make one we've been keeping a spreadsheet since about june of 2024 and i can't give you an exact number however i can say with since this work has been going on we have noticed i track rainfall snowfall the water that we produce with our wheels the water we purchase from rocky mount and the water we send to rocky mount and i can tell you that during large rain events we have seen a decrease over the last two years So the project is working. I can't give you a numerical. It's 10%, 20%, but I'm going to share that spreadsheet with Mike Tolleson and maybe he can analyze it and give us some raw data points. The second thing I was going to make was this is a lot of money and this is a big decision. However, the cost for CTR coating or any other polymer coating that we're going to use increasing yearly so three five seven percent increases not only for the epoxy because of what's going on overseas but labor cost insurance costs and all that type stuff so if we do pass on this and we defer it down a road it's going to be more expensive whereas if we get this three million dollars now we can make a huge dent at this price point pearling your foot versus pushing this off for 10 years and every year we're going to come and say there's a three percent five percent seven percent increase and we're going to keep getting smaller and smaller linear footage amounts done annually until it's almost not worth it and then we're going to come and say well we need 300 or we need 400 or we need 500. we're going to get a lot of a lot of done right now at the price right now but as council is very aware things are going up with with every project that we do

Jason, the materials that we would need to proceed with this, is that something that we could purchase or stockpile at today's price, or would we have to purchase it as we need it?

Yes, sir. I don't know the shelf life of it, but it's something that that company has, proprietary. AND IT'S NOT LIKE WE CAN PUT IT IN THE WAREHOUSE AND KEEP IT AT TODAY'S PRICE.

AND ONE OF OUR PROBLEMS NOW AS A TOWN IS WE'VE PUSHED IT DOWN, KICKED THE CAN DOWN THE ROAD FOR SO MANY YEARS THAT NOW WE'RE TRYING TO GATHER TOGETHER AND GET THINGS RIGHT FOR OUR CITIZENS. YEAH.

Again, costs are just going to keep going up.

Well, the biggest question is, I agree with what you're saying, but the biggest question is, if we can get a $7 million grant next year, that makes it a lot better, but we don't know.

We can certainly apply and continue to apply, and maybe the next ask is only $3 million, and we find a right-sized grant. application you know we put in for what that 51,000 feet recommend is is is a all the vitrified clay pipe which is the terracotta pipe in your system is that was the number we pulled together that said you got 51,000 feet of 10 miles of a material that is old deteriorated cracked roots you know fraught for infiltration um that's what the application was pulled together to do it was also to tv and video that it was also to uh you know rehab some maybe some uh line a few wet wells do those sorts of things that are just included in a sewer rehab project fix some manhole covers fix some lids raise a few lids that are in flood prone areas that wind up taking on water when it rains but a sewer rehab minded project you you always needed to adopt a sewer rehab cip project in in some form and just put some money into it every year to have an ongoing sewer rehab you're required by your state permit to video 10 is it stealing 10 of your system a year cleaning tv or something not video cleaning tv uh so so uh you are this kind of scratches some of those itches as well and gets a large portion of your system video. We did that as part of your AIA and that's what is gonna fix for cleaning and TVing. you've got to do that anyway. So a sewer rehab, you know, CIP project just continues to build and fix and find. And, you know, you may not fix them every year as part of it, but you'll find it this year and put in the budget for next year to fix it, you know, to fix that one point repair or align this point. And you just make those decisions on an annual basis. And you get into the routine of every year I've got to paint the house. Every year I've got to clean the gutters. You know, you're cleaning the gutters, essentially. You know, you've got to do it because... leaves keep coming, you know, kind of thing.

And the flexibility you mentioned, as long as it's sewer related, we can do it with that $3 million. We're not limited to certain things with the loan.

Well, the scope is going to be specifically written to that description that's in there. So what we'll do is they'll award a project to do that kind of find and fix. They don't care where it is in the system, but it's going to be Clean TV, point repair, line. It's going to be sewer main rehab related. It won't be a lift station replacement unless I specifically have it in that list, and I don't think I do have it.

But you mentioned it says find and repair, but we could repair what we already found. Is that right?

That's right. That's right. We'll go ahead and we'll fix what we found in the TV portion of the AIA video we've got. We know where those are. We can fix those today and we'll use whatever budget is left over, you know, to, you know, find a fix. Thank you so much. Develop a set of drawings that says go do this and go do that.

But that's that's I have one last question. Sorry. Do you think taking on this debt would actually help our future applications?

Yes, only in the small little bit on the application we can mention that you've got ongoing sewer rehab and you have found more problems. We'll use it as a... argument in the narrative that says town has invested considerably, because you have, in condition evaluation and asset rate studies and asset improvement plans. You've got a proactive approach to cleaning TV. You've done self-funding and DWI-funded AIA programs that have condition score, GIS, and really exactly what the state wants to see you then being proactive to maintain so yes it would help you it wouldn't be oh they get eight points for that when you're scoring their application but they do it does get considered and it helps to show that you are proactive in it instead of having let this happen to you and oh all of a sudden we need 40 million dollars to fix everything if we found something in that search we could actually use that on a future grant application is that oh yes sir yes sir i mean that's that's what we would use to justify future grant applications is this is the ongoing process they've tv'd this much we didn't have enough money to line everything so we've got we need more funds for this and that when they see the problem is They are to be fixed, and you're asking for the funds. More grant, more loan. It may come back as loan. That's all based on a financial stability kind of rates. Where are your rates? What is this? What is that? But you guys are right there in that sweet spot of, hey, this could go grant. It could go principal forgiveness, depending on how good application we write. and how good a justification we do, we put you in that upper where you get principal forgiveness before it's all gone away. And the last couple of times that they've had grant applications, we've seen $14, $15 million applications come in from big towns that are getting all loaned because they're in a physical place where they can physically pay that out of their grant fund or raise rates a little bit. But all they've got to do is raise their rates 10 cent or 1% in order to make an extra $5 million a month because it's Raleigh, it's Cary, it's big, big towns. And you guys have a big enough system to where you're getting into, you have a lot of maintenance issues, but you don't necessarily have the number of connections that a big system, like a real big system, like five wastewater plants and five, you know, those sorts of things that a Raleigh or Charlotte deals with. I mean, I've seen $30 million applications go in and get approved but it's all grant or not i mean it's all loan but some of it gets to be a little bit of principal forgiveness because they qualified over here for these points or those points kind of things so um you i mean every application is very unique and individual, and I think it's just we do a better job of writing one that gets you a better mix. Like I said, in this last funding round, all that was left was the loan.

So if we waited two weeks and got more information, we're okay?

I really, I feel like you could be.

Yeah. Yeah. We can wait until we get the numbers.

My inclination is we go for this, but I would love to see just what the projected annual savings. Yeah.

I'll have you that in a few days. So you're ready for your next meeting. I apologize. I should have had it today and just, I did not, did not follow up well enough to be ready for this. So I apologize for that.

Should we just continue this until we get the numbers? I think so.

That, that, that being said, mayor, I would, I would, uh, suggest that we hold off on it right now until we get some numbers so we can look at what we're into.

Let's just make sure we're not messing up any deadlines.

And let's don't hold it out until we lose the deadline because that's a lot of money to pass up.

I feel confident that's not going to be a problem, but I'll send an email to the people that were asking me to where's this at.

And if there is a deadline, just contact us individually.

Well, if you've got two more weeks, if you've got another meeting in two more weeks, that won't even be a problem.

We do, right?

But I have to have it ready by next Tuesday to go out.

And thank you so much, Mike, for coming today.

I think if we had that information a couple days later, it would be okay, I think. Get the rest of it to us.

You can come and present me an answer.

It will take me a half day.

She's referring to us wanting information ahead of time. I think we can delay that a couple days if we need to.

Do I hear a second? All those in favor, let it be known by saying aye. I think that does it for us today. I would just like to remind everybody that Xavier's memorial service will be Friday at

Union Hill.

Union Hill from 6 to 8 and then at Northern Nash on Saturdays beginning at 12. But keep his family in your prayers. We thank those of you that came out today. We appreciate you coming out and appreciate those of you online watching us. Do you have any comments?

Mayor, before we dismiss, in reference to... Our fellow councilman, Xavier Harrison, I would like to offer and make a point of record that we consider appointing his widow to fulfill his term out to the end of his term. She has already expressed that she would like to do it in his honor, and I think she'd be a prime person. We've already set presents in years past by appointing widows of people that have passed on, so I would offer that up for the council to consider appointing her.

Okay. Thank you so much. Any other? If not, do I hear a motion to adjourn?

Move to adjourn.

Is there a second? Second. All those in favor, let it be known by saying aye.

Aye.

And don't forget, we do have council people to head out to the...