Town Council - Special Meeting

Just a second. All right. We'll give you a second to that. Can we approve the agenda without No. No. Okay. Oh, okay. Thank you. Looks like our uh thing worked. Turn off your phones. Snow's gone. I say as I turn off mine. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I forgot to bring my phone in. You give me the signal international. She's not I used to work for a firm called IIA interior archite something architecture interior architecture insignificant architecture I think I'd buy that magazine I used to work for a firm called interior architecture he said it's insignificant architecture

you said IA that's I think that would be a great magazine. That weird whenever I let this go, we'll call it to order.

Good morning. Rock around the block. He just drove in. He's seeing him coming. There he is. There he is. Excuse me. I got one apple that wasn't so hand. Not sure, but I'm gonna find out. Sam cook for him. Hey, let's try to make this not an an Howon or Anders or a Harton today. How will be good to to a I don't want I don't want any more 30s.

All right. uh like to call the meeting to order. The first item is the approval of the agenda, which is pretty simple. Do I have a motion to approve? So moved. Second. All right. All in favor? I. Okay. So, we're at the main part of our meeting. We do have some people from uh outside that make comments later, but we're here to review and discuss and hopefully adopt um the five-year capital improvement plan CIP. Uh and I assume that you're you're going to take it from here.

Um I I can I'd like to start just by spending 10 or 15 minutes just going through the spreadsheet. Not not to debate any of the lines, but just to explain and see if there any questions about each of the lines. Can we enlarge that just a little or maybe we need more lights? I'm not sure which it is. Is this better? Yeah, a little bit. Yeah. Okay, we're getting Well, and it's you can follow. Yeah, absolutely. On your Thank you.

Okay. Um, so the spreadsheet should be familiar for everyone except except for Lindsay. Um um we've got uh every cell that is in black is basically what has been approved um in previous CIPs. Um and the text in red are suggested or draft changes based on either schedules or um requests from committees. So I just want to briefly go through each of these line items. the uh NC68150 intersection. Several years ago, the town approved a contract with DOT for this amount. Um, and that's our contribution toward the sidewalks. Um, the uh aesthetic improvements in the traffic circles. There's like stamp concrete. There's a small retaining wall. Uh we ran some conduit uh to the islands for um electrical and for water. The mast arms at the intersections are going to be the black powder coated instead of the metal. The where fences are required, they're black powder coated. So just uh betterments basically to make the project look better.

And so the sidewalks, that's to connect existing sidewalks through the intersection. They're going to get rid of all the existing sidewalks and build new ones that are going to be on the back side of the curb. I'm sorry, we're talking about the 326. That's correct. And what sidewalks is that getting rid of? It's getting sidewalks on both sides of 68 from Fogelman to 150 and then down to basically the whole project limits. So then on 15 getting rid of sidewalks, all the sidewalks that were built during development that are on private property. Okay. Okay. You know, I didn't realize that.

They're building new sidewalks that are going to be on the back side of the curb in the right way. So like about jangles you're talking about jangles. Yeah. Our contribution to this is almost nothing. It's like $14,000. The vast majority of that cost is DOT. And this is separate from the next budget line which is something different. The next budget line the 73,000 is an estimate for landscaping. So uh DOT budgets one to one and a half% of the project cost for landscaping. So, that's about $70,000. And this is um um would be the town's contribution toward improving the landscape. And we have also signed a contract for that.

That's correct. Okay. Wait a minute. The 326 is for sidewalks, but you said that that's it's for sidewalks and all those other things. So, roundabouts, but then what's the 500,000 on the next one? We haven't gotten here. Well, yeah. This is for sidewalks on both sides of 68 from from the 150 all the way down to Fogam. So where do DOT is currently working they're putting sidewalks in they pay it's a match for the town to for the sidewalks and our match for the sidewalks in the DOT project is very I mean it's like $15,000

but is that included in this first line?

Yes. So what is a 326 specifically for? That's also for um um improving. So like in each of the roundabouts in the center of the island, instead of just having like a flat concrete, it's going to be like a stamped concrete design and then a small like brick retaining wall and landscaping in the middle. We ran conduit to it so it can be irrigated and lighted. Um, and then like the uh the traffic signals instead of the they're going to be like um black powdercoated masked arms that are just more aesthetically attractive. Um there are places along the sidewalk where uh fences will be required and so we're doing like black powdercoated fencing rather than like the tra the standard DOT fencing. Um all this was approved by a previous council in a contract that we signed with DOT.

And I just my recollection of that is there were sort of like you know like the basic level where they they do just their basic thing which is really ugly. Okay.

And then there were like four levels of making it better. And we went for a low level of making it. We used our streetscape plan as the um guide for and we worked with the this was gosh we worked with them for a year probably to get these improvements in place and there were other improvements that we didn't do. So we wanted to do like we wanted the sidewalks to look kind of like uh we we wanted brick sidewalks originally and then we were going to do like stamped concrete sidewalks. Those the costs weren't a whole lot higher than what you see here. So just a plain old concrete sidewalk is what we're getting. And so the 326 as it relates to sidewalks is just relocating existing sidewalks basically. Yeah. Okay.

And it's a like I said that's actually a really small portion of that 32,000 because DOT has money that they put toward their sidewalks when they come in and take out sidewalks. They assume that they have to put them back in. Okay. But right this is already a done deal. We don't I mean there's nothing we can do about this. Well, the only thing we can do is we can move it out because they're not going to be done this year. Well, that that's probably true. Yeah, we will we won't be assessed this cost until the project is complete. And the current schedule says they're complete in March of 2027, but I added that there because I don't think that that's likely, but that's still what's official. March of 2027.

Yeah. So, it would come up in the next fiscal year. Yeah. Um but realistically um it will probably come up in 27 28 I would imagine and then the landscaping comes even after that but based on the dates they've given us it would be a little tricky to move it because we think they're not going to be done but they're still saying they're going to be done. That's what the official right word from DOT. It's March. Excuse me a minute. I I thought what you wanted to do initially is give an overview. Yep.

Why don't we let Bill give the overview and then we'll do the deep dive. There really aren't that many line items. Um so the the second line item a sidewalk uh from on 150 from 68 to Bastile Lane which is by the Methodist church. Um and then a section from Lynville to Fogamin on 68 because that's not included in the DOT project. Um was uh originally shown the engineering in this fiscal year and construction next fiscal year. I proposed to move it back a year because of the DOT delays. We don't want to have our surveyor out there doing we're not going to be able to do construction before DOT is completed and out of the picture. Um so that's why that's been proposed to to year. Um MSP and and I will note that the that the numbers in this current fiscal year is what we expect to spend. uh they were budgeted 375 they'll probably spend about 10 um and over the last five or six years uh Sandra pulled what MST has actually spent every year um and it's anywhere from six to 10 to 15 um when they've got a big project like the the side path on Pepper Road was built obviously that was a lot more but typically for like their everyday use and I think um you'll see that ant steel will send an email late yesterday. It's in your packets. It didn't get sent out to you beforehand, though. Uh they're asking for less. Just recognizing that they don't spend 375. So, what they're requesting this year is is 25. I have not changed that on the spreadsheet though. And that's for things like surveying, legal work, uh materials for

construction of uh bridges, park maintenance, and parking lots, those sorts of things. And hang on, maybe you said this, but going back to the 50, the 50 is the the engineering for the sidewalks and the 500 is for the construction of the sidewalk. That's correct. Okay.

Moving down to water acquisition of existing systems. That's a holdover from when we were considering the purchase of four community well systems several years ago. Um there are no numbers on that line item. construction of the elevated tank. I just put an asterisk there because it wasn't all spent this fiscal year, but all of that money is obligated and will be spent by the end of this fiscal year. And that's the total uh project cost for both of those projects. Completing the town core loop, that was uh an engineering contract approved by town council earlier this year with the Wooten Company. 109,900 to construct or to uh design the water line uh for what we call the town core loop which would be from the Lindville 150 intersection down to 68150 down to Bojangles and back up Limble Road. So Wooten is working on that design. Now the 3935 in the next fiscal year reflects the cost the engineers estimate to extend the water line from the credit union to Oakidge Commons. So that's that's the cost to the town for getting Philip Cook's water system hooked up to the town system

and that comes out of the water funds, right? um that ideally comes from the water fund, but we don't have and and I'll I'll actually show you a little bit where the grant funding is going when we get a little bit further down. But so that's actual construction linking off the current water project. Okay. But the number out to the right, this would be the remainder, the 1.471, 471. That's what it would cost to complete construction of the entire town corridor. Gotcha. And that's shown just in and out here.

Uh availability fee. Uh that's the fee that will be owed to Winston Salem utilities when we turn the tap on. So, when the waterline construction is complete, uh that's a one-time uh fee paid to Winston Salem. And what that reflects is they're they are withholding 350,000 gallons of water a year for the town of use. And that's the fee that they charge one time. And that's in the contract, correct? That we've signed. Mhm.

Uh Heritage Farm Park um phase one that 210 reflects the retainage payment that will be paid out by the end of this fiscal year to bar

to bar. Um yeah, all all of this reflects these are all projects that were completed this year. Uh phase two, the sports courts, that's the um cost of the contract with Revington Reeves. Um and then the security fencing that's a project Brock did earlier this year. And then on the out years you can see um the sports courts when you subtract the engineering from the project. This was McIll's estimate the 1.746 million.

Wait, what? Where's 1746? Well, when you ask these two together, so the remainder is a construction and administration cost doing phase two that's placed in the outyear so that council can scenario plan with that figure. Um, and that was the number five priority from the parks and rec advisory board. Um, added a new line item, replace a maintenance building, roof and siding at Heritage Farm Park. Um, this was an estimate that Brock got from a contractor,

not not a written estimate, right? Just a ballpark um to do that work. Uh, the replacing this is the number one priority from the parks and record. The the roof is leaking. Um, that's a $20,000 estimated project. The siding is less crucial, but that's estimated. So we're fix. So the roof is urgent. Yes, sir. The siding is it's it's just it's ugly. Urgent and ugly. How big is that building? 12 by70 somewhere in there. So 1,400 square ft.

I mean it's a good size. So a lot of money. 20 grand for just a roof. Yeah. Well, can we put a 10? Well, I was that was my thought process. So, that would have been an additional probably 10 to 15 grand. Um, what I discuss is just matching the roof on the bathroom building over there. And actually, I spoke with Tim Frasier about it. I was in Bill Sam's same office and he was just kind of comparing Sam's room cost about 24 he and it's not quite the size of it but we thought we get away about 18 added a couple grains just in case there's

what's what's the what's the uh material in this shingles shingle yes sir all right I'll keep moving down uh park maintenance and other this is basically equipment uh Brock keeps a equipment replacement schedule. Um the major expense we've got programmed in uh 2829 is to replace the realm master. Um so that's it. And this is this year we uh replaced the tractor. These are and a lawn mower and a lawn mower. This is the big tractor. Yes.

So the 55 is for the real master motor. That's right. And is that like the cost of the new one minus the number we can get for the old one? Do we sell the old one? We we do. We would. Yeah. But that's that doesn't cost. We don't know what we would get for it. So it's hard to estimate anything in there. Selling price. I don't think we consider that. When we sell a piece of equipment, does it go into this budget line? It goes somewhere else, right? It just goes into

C. Thank you. Appreciate that.

Um, this is a an older line item. That project is completed. uh community center. That was a project added last year. That's the large community center. Um basketball court, not fleshed out type of center that was discussed $15 million. Um and what council elected to do with that was just simply uh explore that further. There's no number associated with it, nothing. This is not the farmhouse. Community center. No, this is the community center. This is more like a rec center. YMCA. It says farmhouse,

right? Yeah. No, that says farmhouse there. This is up higher. Community center. This line. Oh, I'm sorry. Farmhouse. Community center. This is the final payment. It's actually not out the bar. So, that project is complete. Yeah, that's been paid.

That's been paid. Uh, field five has been on the CIP for a decade. Um, that's a third baseball field that would go up next to the two fields at Town Park. That's the number seven parks and w priority and that's a real ballpark estimated cost. That that figure has not been really vetted in several years. Parking lot expansion is actually an old project, too. That's um putting about a 60 to 70 space lot behind lot one. So you come down Lisa, pull into the first entrance at the park and where the dumpster enclosures are. It would basically be in that area. So not for the farmhouse particularly, but just added parking

on the farmhouse side. on the farm outside. Are you saying like where people usually park over and stuff? Yeah. Is there any issue with that happening? Like the parking on the grass like is is there an issue that would drive us to going away from that or is it I think we should discuss that when we get into the deep dive, but it's a good question.

Uh shade for existing playgrounds. We have the shade structure at the Heritage Farm Park playground. Uh this is to add shade structures to existing playgrounds. Um that's the number six parks the right priority. The estimate from McGill now that's was four and a half years ago uh was about 50,000 each. But there there's no park. Yep. At the town park. Yeah. Up to 50,000 each. Right. That's right. So that's a 100,000 that hasn't been plugged in. We're throwing that way out there, right?

That's why it's

And then the next slide item, fitness stations. That was specifically for Town Park. You may remember we've got fitness stations that are on the phase 2 Heritage Farm Park plan. Um I don't know if you want them in both parks. This has been on the CIP for years as well. That's a at the time it was estimated at about 30,000. Uh the master plan implementation that's that work is 99% complete. That's the parking lot and sidewalks and so forth for the farmhouse at that corner. Uh this is for the parking area that would be on Lisa Drive and I think we it's about an 18 space um parking area that was designed by Hill Studio um was included as part of the bid package when WC bid on the project but council separated it out and only awarded the contract for uh the small parking lot next to the farmhouse. So, there was another um parking lot that was part of that design. So, we have the shovel ready plans. Um and that's about $100,000 estimate. That was the number two parking priority. And that would be a parking lot that you pull on the Lisa and then right on the left before you get to the main parking lot is where that smaller lot would be. Um signage was discussed at the parks and rec board. I'll let them get into a little more detail, but um we have very little signage at Town Park. Uh they would like to see a new sign at the main entrance. Um a new sign for the farmhouse. Uh there's no sign at all at the parking lot entrance for the Limble Road parking lot and replace the two signs at Thisa

Drive. Um the 100,000 is a kind of depends on how big they are, depends on what materials are used. That's sort of a placeholder for all of that signage work. Oh, 100,000%. I'm confused. Okay. So, there are two signage projects.

Yeah. And the other one, these are can be um separated or I mean they can probably they're they can probably be combined because this older line item, the complete the town park entrance master plan including signage was just one sign at the corner of Lisa and Lynville. And then there was some sidewalk connections that we would make to the corner when uh the property next to Sam's building is developed. They would bring a sidewalk to Lisa and it's just a couple hundred feet probably for us to connect it. The 100,000 includes the 30,000. That's right.

Okay. Yep. That's right. And I I didn't eliminate that line item simply because I didn't I I want council to tell me to eliminate that. I was just separated out just if we wanted to do it as individual things like maybe sidewalk and the main sign and then push out the other signs. That's right. Right. Uh the debt service for Heritage Front Park phase one. Uh this is the amortization schedule here. Um the last payment is 37 for separate dates. Okay. So it's a 15 15 that was okay. It is a 15 year

um debt service heritage farm park phase two that was added last year and not really I mean there is no debt service for phase two but that was added talking point last year. Um and then you get to our total capital budget. um self-explanatory. Um every year our operational expenses are usually about 5 to 600,000 less or less than our operational revenue. Before you get there, let me just clarify something with Sam based on previous conversations. The the debt today it's approximately 2.4 million, but we cannot borrow money before April 14, 2028. If we choose to want to refinance everything, we're restricted to April 14 year window and it has to be done on the anniversary of the note which is April

April 14 28 okay but we'll never reset the interest rates will never get as good an interest rate well as of right now that's a factor I'm just saying that know that there are restrictions of what what we can do uh what is that interest rate do you know remember up 3.9 3.9 probably now is the best you can get is what five in upper fives right now anyway just be alert to that sorry

um as I was saying we budget we're usually about $550,000 uh in the black on our operational expenses every year that's traditionally been what's added to the general fund to be used for capital project improvements. Um so that's a factor that's added uh to our bottom line here. Um you can see our grant dollars. Um we have three major grants. The American Rescue Plant that was allocated through Guilford County is exclusively for the water tower. The um fiscal fisc fiscal year 24 $4.5 million state budget allocation is almost exclusively for the water man. And then we have the leftover of a $1.1 million water grant that was a residual from an earlier regional water study. Um, so all of that grant money together has been paying for engineering and construction um for the water system. After um after all of these expenses are made, uh we will have expended all of our grant funding and will be about $500,000 into our reserve fund for water. So the council years ago set aside a million dollars for water as a reserve capital fund. has been sitting there for 10 15 years. Um in order to make these expenses um particularly completing the town core loop and paying the availability fee we

need to get uh into that reserve fund. And so I'm showing here an assumption that council could unrestrict about 500,000 of that million dollar restricted fund to make those uh investments. This number here, projected year-end fund balance, that's a that that's a number that Sam and I um um agreed was a good estimate for June 30th of 2026. So, this is the number that that feeds into the rest of these,

which which number the fund balance.

Yeah. 2475. And then if we um adopted the capital improvement plan as shown, this would be our fund balance. Um every year moving forward, we do have restrictions. Um about a quarter million is in these various funds. historic heritage grants, the water enterprise fund, um our solid waste, uh restricted fund, easements for um uh the core grant program and so forth. So that's 250,000 that we can't touch for capital. Uh the state requires us to set aside a certain percentage um that we can't spend for reserve. These are discretionary. Um years ago, the council established these four restricted funds for these particular uses. Uh this is what's left from those funds. Council can choose to add or delete any of those restrictions. They're not required by statute or anything. So this gets us to what our restricted um current restricted fund total is. And so then you get your balance for uh capital projects

and the stabilization by state statute that's simply a calculated minimum based on our operating budget. I believe that's right. Okay. Why doesn't that move upward?

Good question. has that moved. They do a calculation each year. If it's sufficient, they hold. Our budget stays, our overall gross operating budget stays about roughly the same. The capital doesn't kick in. Um it's based numerically. It's around 80% of operating budget and that's the statutory language. A little vagy there as to you know it talks about it. They actually do look at your viability. the LGC is your viability of being able to cover your operating budget for a year. Remind me what LGC is local government commission. Okay. So they oversee

they over restrict us if need be if we're privileged. Yes. You bet. Yeah. Yeah. They are on it. Mhm.

And it's local government commission commission. That's who approves all Yeah. all debt everything else. So going back to April 14 uh 2028. They would be the people any anything we would to do in time. We need to have a we would need to be working with them. I would almost dare say a year in advance because LA last time over the funding for this and they they what was it? They hung it up on the water permits on the water volume. They they were that the reason we tried we were digging all the wells

and all. They would not agree to it until that permitting issue was resolved. We could prove we had sufficient water. So that ended up going from start to finish about January would have been a year then we did so 15 months. They don't make it easy to I got I understand that just setting the table. Yeah. Okay. I'll hand it back to you.

All righty. Well, it looks like we go to start. Um, we'll go back line by line, but now, uh, we have an opportunity for a deeper dive and more questions. I I think we may have done that on the 68 150 intersection and uh, circles, but we'll start there. Are there further questions from the council? No, I mean it it's not going to be done March of 27. So moving the 267 and the 733 out a year each makes sense

or at least part of it. Or is that the way they they'd send us an invoice when the project's done? Okay. Yeah. I don't I see your point. I just think since we still officially have March 27 as the finish date, we should leave it where it is. And I don't think the problem is moving that money out doesn't help us in any way. But yeah, just it just constricts us in the future. Well, yeah, but I mean, yeah, it doesn't moving it one year doesn't significantly free up any money. So, I don't see a point in doing that. But

um if I get some clarification questions just so I can uh contribute better in the future. So the projected fund balance for capital projects so like for 2026 2027 it says 667 376. So right now with how everything is laid out I haven't added it up but is that saying that I mean everything laid out now is higher than that. So what right? know that would be what's left over after making the expenditure shown in that column. Okay.

So if I for instance if I took this $30,000 expense out of the next fiscal year this well that yes so it now shows 697

but it's not cumulative. It's not 667 plus 324. It just means at the end of this fiscal year or next fiscal year 667 will be left but that'll be eat half of that will be eaten up by the end of the next year and we'll only have 324 left. So in aggregate at the end of where where it gets interesting is at the end of year five there's a million but there's not a million earlier. You know it's it's not you can't add up those numbers. Okay. And so basically I guess the one that matters is at the end of this year to plan for future years we have $799.

Right. Right. And you've got this the these restricted funds. So I mean those are these are for capital projects too. They're just for specific capital projects. So just to give you the history I have spoke to this before in prior CFA meetings. Governor Easley in 2005, I believe it was, seized all sales tax revenues to localities to fund the state budget that had crashed. Um, they could not touch budgeted funds because the governor unfortunately also has the right to come and seize any fund balance from any municipality in the entire state and they don't have to be equal. They can come seize ours and zebulons and leave Greensboro alone or anybody else. So, as a preventative, the legal advice from the attorney at that time, they made restricted funds to have our fund balance tied up so that the governor could not cease it. Now, that's not happened since. We've been we've had these on the books, you know, some of it since 21 years now. Um,

so that's the million some dollars is restricted. So, technically, we have a million sum of restricted and then 800,000 available. Yes. Okay. And so is there a reason behind keeping so much available each year or is it it's been a we had the restricted Yeah. So it's been a policy of the council and I don't know that this was ever written down but it's just been the practice that they've always planned to have a full year of operating expenses in the fund balance. So we never never dipped below $2 million was. So if everybody stops paying their taxes or

Yeah. Or there's a Yeah. Or there is a major expense that you know think a great example we always use is that the sheriff's department says we're in a budget crunch. We're no longer going to be able to provide police protection. I mean they'll still do their serving the warrants and all that stuff, but they might not be able to do the patrol work for us anymore. Well, okay. Now we're in the position where we're going to need to hire a deputy or start police department. It's it's so wouldn't that be restricted? But we we've had that conversation before and it's not a great example.

It's it's it's a ridiculous example quite honestly. Sheriff's Department has given no indicica. I understand you're you're given an example, but we've had this conversation every year. And while we, you know, are very conservative with our budgets, the reality of it is if, and let's use this example, if the sheriff's department says we're not going to provide any services to you, then we would have to have our own police force. We'd have to contract with them. would add to the budget, which would add to the taxation. That's the reality of we're a taxing body. Not that anybody wants to do that, but to assume to to keep $2 million in reserve for this mythical whatif is is holding taxpayers money that could be put to work for us doing things that they've asked us to do. That's my opinion.

And especially with inflation, I mean, I don't know, holding up that much money, you just it just devalues over time. Um, it devalues the money with inflation. I mean, if you just I don't know your purchase power. Yeah.

Well, I mean, I think I think there are lots of other things that could happen. It is most towns and cities, you know, this stabilization by state statute amount, the eight 8%. That's that's nothing. We definitely need a lot more than that. um keeping a year's worth. I mean, I think in in your household, you often need 6 months to a year of operating funds for a safety net for all sorts of things. And it isn't just the police department. It's um other sorts of things that could go wrong in the town that require immediate action like what?

Well, we have that restricted funds though. I mean, we could rearrange restricted funds to go towards No, the 2 million is not restricted. That's choose to have whatever as long as it's more than 205,633 years we're going to be hurt 324. And also just one interjection from the taxing authority once the if something arose and you needed to raise more funds you can only raise the tax rate once a year. Understood. It has to be

and you don't get it ba basically there's a year's lag time is what you're saying right so you have the disaster and you can't tax citizens for that police department or whatever and that's a realistic problem I I disagree with you it's not there nobody and I ask this question every year and nobody has been able to tell me this is the disaster that would occur that's not covered by insurance is not covered by anything else that Oakidge is going to crack down the center and we're going to have to fund it all on our own. Nobody has come up with that scenario yet. So, what do you think we need to hold? And I mean, what's your opinion of million dollars? So, I mean,

so we take What would we do with that million? I mean, we can't build anything. You can't build a park for that. The other million could go to the sports courts. Well, I mean, you can't build them to that. Well, we can we're going to talk about that. We're going to be closer. Just saying. Yeah. We don't have the money to do it. We can't get a loan apparently. Not not before April 14th. I'm just being realistic. We can't get a When you say we can't get a loan or we say we can't get a loan to refinance, we can't get a loan period on anything on the sports courts. If they are at that location for the LGC, we can't get a loan period.

Okay? They only allow you to borrow the money if the amenity is being put on the property that is the collateral. And we that's where we legally we had it arranged where we could maintain the good financing that we had before and get this built. Um they refused. Their legal department was all on board with Michael and everything else, but their administrative staff said absolutely not. It has to be contiguous. uh the collateral has to be contiguous with where the location is going to be and since we already have a loan there we would have to try to pay that off because uh they will not allow you to take a second position or anything like that sports court facilities to this park over here then that doesn't apply.

You could collateralize it but then you're abandoning all the work that's already been put in that that everything like that. But from a borrowing stand, borrowing standpoint, yes, my understanding is that the LGC also looks at your operating budget. In other words, we've got 2.4 four million outstanding and that they're not going to that's over our operating budget and that there is my understanding from other municipalities and from our conversations with the LGC that they wouldn't approve an additional loan uh that the what do you call the debt to income ratio would be out of whack.

We're already way above their recommended debt to income ratio on one loan. Now it's a scale issue too. I mean, I don't know if they look at smaller jurisdictions that have smaller incomes that have a big project. You know, that throws the debt to income a lot of whack, but my sense from the LGC was then additional debt. I didn't get a good feeling about it, but that doesn't mean that it couldn't happen. Five and a half, 6%. I mean, it just didn't make sense to re redo it. I mean,

they gave county a fit over the budget. um year before last because of the school bonds and they're still monitoring that. This is just my personal opinion, but I think that's why they're trying to move forward with the capital projects for the tank for the uh county with the twothirds bonds. That way they don't have to put it to a vote. It doesn't have to go out to the LGC because they've got too much debt on the books now. But that's, you know, just talking with county folks that was, I think the way it was phrased to me, they wore Michael Halford out. He physically was looked like he had been beaten. They'd been in a meeting, multi-our meeting. Um, was he?

He was the county manager. I'm sorry. Say that again. They They're by doing it through a bond, they're able to avoid the LGC. No, they're doing twothirds bonds. It's a special type of bond that the the county commissioners can do without seeking public vote. Normal bond referendums have to be only the county can do that. To my knowledge, yes. Okay. They'd learn how to spend their money. We probably wouldn't need that. But I thought that the LGC also, and I may, this may be completely wrong. I thought they had to um had to review any if you if we wanted to float a bond a municipal bond that they would have they're going to do a deep dive to look at.

Yeah. And Mr. Greas's point is borrow money doesn't make sense until rates go below 4%. Roughly speaking. Okay. Um so question. So where we have the restricted fund balance for water, it was a million and then you're saying if we unrestricted 500,000 then we'd have 500,000 left. Where would the unrestricted 500,000 go? Would that go towards the water items there?

It would go toward um where am I here? Yeah. Yeah. So go towards completing the town core loop building basically a add-on to the current contract with park to extend the water line to to the overage comments and then the 224,000 that we owe. So why wouldn't we unrestrict the full you know 617 whatever it is because there's some residual left in this $1.1 million contract. Okay.

Yeah. It's not the the math. It's hard to glean the math from this spreadsheet, but I've got other documentation that kind of will show you exactly. We'll we'll be about $500,000 short of our grant money to complete what we've already Okay, but we of the 500,000 that we're short, we have $1 million in our reserves that we can pull from. So,

and I think it's important that we keep that additional 500,000 for the next phase of water, which, you know, we're trying to reach all the neighborhoods off of 150. And even though we want to get state money for that, we're going to have to pony up something. And I think that's where that 500,000 should go, the remaining 500,000

and where the the water committee meets later today. And after I would suggest that after the next uh council briefings I think you're next week if you can stay another 15 20 minutes we can give you a order update because a lot has gone on in the in the last three months. Uh um and then Mike I think you're the following week so we can do that the same for for you. So when we run out of the 500,000, it's either a grants or or a tax increase, right? Right. Well, and a lot of revenue. Yeah. So, we're going to be in a position to start getting revenue.

That's not going to be a lot though. It it won't at first, but it'll grow. I understand it grows, but I'm just saying early on early on. And there's going to there have to be a tax increase if you want to if you want to go anywhere. That's not something that's going to be um the state frowns on using tax revenue to fund your enterprise fund, the water enterprise. Yeah. simply because not everyone in the town is benefiting from the less. So that's why you try to segregate it as much as possible.

And and again where the committee will spend time on today um as as an mentioned those of us that were part of the open houses that we had and I'm this is a rough estimate. I would say 70 80% of the people that showed up were not people around highway on Highway 150. They were from the neighborhoods that connect to Highway 150. And we have a lot of work to do to figure out how we would deal with with the subdevelopments whether it's Willyard Oaks, 12 Oaks, Malagia, Marman Farms, another one down there. I just can't remember.

Smart. Yeah. Can I ask another question? This may be a dumb question. So if we can't borrow money on the water and the state frowns on that, that's basically what you said, right? Because everybody won't. So, what would we do? Drain all of our money from doing future projects and only put it in water? Is that what the council No, no. I mean, possibly do. I'm just asking that question. The the the water enterprise the water enterprise fund, we haven't talked about whether they can borrow money. I don't know that they can. We have received a bill from council wanting to have a conversation about if we needed any funding for water infrastructure.

I'm just I just want to make sure we're not going to use the money that we got for future projects and just drain it and not use that for other stuff and put it into water. Here's how I I don't think that's been proposed at all.

I just want to make sure here's how I look at it. It's so crucial to get Philip Cook's system tied in because that means we are in the black from day one. It won't be a ton in the black, but we'll be in the black. And I me having a stable system means it can sit as that system for 20 years and we never expand it at all because we won't be losing money. But if we're slowly building a capital reserve within that increase every year that can be used or we can borrow based on future water income. So I think that's what the other thing that may go

or grants we may get some grants or we may get some state emergency u they are pumping state money down to Pleasant Garden

because of issues down there. Uh they're actually the understanding the state's paying for uh remediation and welds on private residences because they've had some that have been uh rendered unusable. Um they're providing that kind of support. Um don't know that we rise to that level, but depending the water table in my lifetime is, you know, we had thing up here. Things have gone down in some spots. Um to Bill's point, we get to the commercial core that's going to make it in the black. Um the school they're going to tie on to it is my understanding. They've got some water issues up there in a what I call a new well that I drank out of when I was in school there is gone. It greatly surprises me because I had a water system at Lynville Road and the monitoring and all like that. Um so the school will become a user and to Phil's point if we get in the black we've got a good basis then we can I think either get lending against future revenues because we can show that shopping center you know realistically I don't think the shopping center is going to go anywhere um is the only um and that's going to give us the revenue stream and then depending on what happens I've got clients that are in some of these. I'm next to Wilderness. My understanding the radon has now they're scrubbing at the well and they're scrubbing at the houses is what I've been told. I don't know that for a fact. American Farms has had long-term issues. Um so those they're fairly close is right there on the bridge road. So making a connection into that is a good probability. The downside is going to be you know you can't use the existing lines. They're insufficient. Aqua has done several things that are insufficient. Um, but we

we would have the good basis and the good foundation much more than for instance and I'm not this is public knowledge u may have their water system was already on the yellow alert and they had a finance person who has since been terminated stopped sending bills for two months. They immediately went to the red but those smaller towns their water systems are predicated on textile industry and it's gone. So they've been struggling. We don't have a textile industry. We have got residential and industrial here. Not residential but I would call it industrial to school community. So commercial would be a better term users. So we don't have the probability of our main base, which is what happened like in Madison, the main base went to Mexico, Guatemala, overseas, and they got water running out their ears and everybody that paid for the water residentially lost their jobs. So I don't see us having that downside exposure. So to Bill's point, if we're in the black and we've got it stable, that's something that a lender can look at and that could provide a point where just like with the park, we got the money we're paying for by the year out of the general fund, the water enterprise fund could look at flows and pay on a bond or on a loan. U I don't know that we would rise to the level of being able to do bonds. Um, but I think it gives us a good foundation to build.

And looking forward, I think probably now that we're in the water business a little more moving forward, like next year, I could see having two different CIPs, having one just for water that shows the revenue stream on the water side and the enterprise fund and then a separate Well, that's what I asked for this year. Yeah. So, I mean, does anyone have proposed changes to what is currently on here? I guess my question. Oh, well, let's go through it section by section. I definitely I mean, yeah, we were just talking about the water. So, it's like, do we have any proposed changes to the water because it shows the first section?

Yeah, I'm done. Okay. I mean we had a we can reduce next year's uh MST to 25 based on the memo from Anne Steel the only spending 10. Yeah. Right. Like I I read the note too. I don't really understand. I mean, if they have something come up, I could see addressing that at that point. But only spending 10, then why I said, yeah, if they're only spending 10, why tie up extra money? Well, I think that's been variable based on the projects.

Well, right. They've got a kiosk here. They're s there are signs in the parking lot. I mean, they they say what they want to do with that 25,000. I think we but they haven't spent $25,000 in a year. In the past they have. Yeah. 15 probably except I thought there were some outlier here. Yeah. Big when there's a big project that's usually they're actually budgeted separately. It's a major project. We could take everything out of there's not very much money that we're talking about the whole thing here. I mean, you got 73 or max 37. I mean, there's just not much. What if we change them all to 25?

I mean, what are you going to do with that money? I mean, five pack of cigarettes. I mean, I'm just scared. It's not much money. Uh, no, it's not, but it's meaningful to a project that's uh to efforts that are mostly volunteer-led. So, I I wouldn't want to scratch it. Yeah. Well, I didn't say that. I just said there's not much money to take out of any, right? It doesn't help other things a lot. But that's what I was getting at. It's accuracy is good and um yeah, I would take that as a compromise. I It's not going to give us a park.

Is there consensus to change that to 25? I mean, I would think 15 if that's what the most it's been previous years. 15 sounds reasonable. I thought 25 sounded reasonable. Yeah, I think 15 is starting to cut it to the nub because also costs are rising. Why don't we just go 20 and and let's just don't sit here and get hung up on this. Well, they've asked for 25 based so I'd say 25. I mean, we can always refund it, can't we? We we can we can always add $25,000 here and we're talking a million some dollars. Let's let's don't spend their waste our time here. Yeah. So, let's just make it 25 across the board.

Let's make it 20 across the board. Yeah. I do max 20. I don't see any I don't want them having to come to us this year and ask for We're talking about $5,000 here, but let's move on. So, let's just let's just 20,000 25. I'm not voting on it. You know, it's $5,000. What are we going to do with it? If the max they spend is $15,000. I mean, that's the absolute. Well, hear me out. So, that's over five years. That's $100,000 savings that we put towards something else. All these projects, you know, whatever parking that's 100,000. We have a budget request right here from them for 25,000.

We have capital spending. Why would we not fund a group that has been so frugal and done such good work for our town? And and and it's all volunteer work. Yeah. Well, everything's volunteer. Everything's volunteer work. Everything. No, everything isn't. This is more percentage of volunteer work than say water is or uh Heritage Farm Park. This This requires sweat. So, what we have is a letter. Okay. We don't have something that says this $25,000 we're going to spend this much here, this much there. Um, so it's it's a guess.

Yeah, everything is a guess. Everything on this is a guess. But this is an educated guess. And I frankly I I think if we're going to have committees in this town, we need to listen to them. This is why we spend six hours in a meeting. It's not very much my It's getting ridiculous. I agree with that. Let's let's should we make a motion on this? I move that we change it to 25 and leave it there uh throughout the CIP here. Second. So for the next 5 years, I thought they said it was a one-off thing. If it increase 25,000, could we do 25 and then 15 15?

I don't think we have the data to do that and I don't want to uh hamstring them. I don't think this hurts our chances of doing other projects because it's such a small amount and they're cut in their future. I'm going to put it at 25 just to move on. I'm not going to get over so I do it. Okay. So, we have we have a motion and it's been second. Uh I would call for u all those in favor say I. I I all those supposedly n three to two. Sandra.

All right. Well, since we're down there, can we go back up to the sidewalks? Um the 50,000 and the 500,000. You you can um but what's your hope? Um, so I think I guess sidewalks in general, I feel like those should kind of be after the fact, like have a destination and then build sidewalks to it. I don't think that we necessarily need a half million dollars of sidewalks a year from now. So, I'd like to move that. You don't want sidewalks in our downtown core. This is I mean if we want to do an economic development plan

the core already goes down to Bill's pizza. Well, that's because we define the core there.

Right. But what I what Hang on, let me finish this thought. We have a lot of open space in our commercial corridor there. And one of the things I would dearly like to do is an economic development plan that basically puts together a plan of what kinds of businesses, residents, and stakeholders and council want to see in our corridor. And we put out a welcome map. And then having sidewalks in the area that we're currently already using creates um is part of that welcome mat and prepares us for that future. The other part of the sidewalks is in our historic district uh town core for residents to connect all the way up and down 150 which is in that main portion from 68 to the Methodist church. that has been a priority for residents for years. And I think if we had uh residents out there holding up their hands right now, everybody would be holding up their hands for these sidewalks. This is

gave an alternative. I if you ask people, hey, do you want sidewalks? They say, "Yeah, that's great." But if you say, "Hey, do you want sidewalks or sports, splash pad, basketball court?" I think people would choose the activities. So, I just wanted to to go back and and summarize why that particular sidewalk got in the CIP to begin with. Um, this is a pedestrian plan that was adopted in 2013. The sidewalk that we're talking about, the $500,000 is from this location to right about here. And then is that on both sides of the roads or just one side? This would just be one side. Yeah, on the deing side.

Um, well, on on 150, it's not even clear which side would go on. We'd need the engineer to survey it and help us make that decision. But on the south side, it would be on the main side from Fogamin to um Lakeville. And we've got we did build this side, but on this side, which was priority, let's see, priority one, we've done priority two, we've done uh Lynville Road, we have not. No, yes, we have. So, we're down to I think this is sidewalk four. NC 150 from 68 to Zach Road, but we're just going the best deal

and this reflected extensive public input. So, I just setting the the table for why why that particular section of sidewalk. Do y'all see any trouble with water going in there with the sidewalks in the sidewalk would be out of the rightway? Probably because I don't want to know. I don't want to have to do it twice. Probably. We an engineer would have to opposite that. Yeah, there's not a lot of space there. So, it could be move. We moved it last year, right? Out. Let's just move it out. We could move it out another year. Well, this is what I've shown on the plan is actually moving it out a year. But you could I mean, you could move it out another year. Yeah, I think we should move it out another year. I think that might be a good idea just to make sure we get the water in. We don't

That's completely in our control. And we It is unlikely even though we haven't heard it officially, that the intersection project isn't going to be done. I think we could move the 500 out. We I was going to ask why would do both of those projects need to be done at the same time? Could they split? So half of it's in one year, half of it's in the next. Um you could but I think mobilization yeah you would you might save money to do it all at once. That's that's why I asked the question. Yeah. And we have talked about spending the 50,000 is the engineering for that.

And um it it is beneficial to do that in advance separately so that we're sort of you know shovel ready. Yeah. I'd like to move it out. All right. You want So we're moving the 500 out. I just move both of them. What do you think staffing wise? Um, can we would it be better staffingwise to move the 50,000 out the engineering portion which requires a lot of staff oversight? Yeah, I I would just want to have the engineering and the construction in backtoback years. Okay. So, we move them both up. So, should we split it like you said? I mean, 250 and then 250

from what I heard because it would be cost not cost. Do we know that for sure or are we just guessing? Well, that's why I think based on theories. When you do a pro when you bid out a project all at once, you get a better pro a better price than when you bid out half and half. They break they have a big cost in their equipment there. But as far as I mean putting the water lines through, they're like, yeah, there's no water line right now. That's why we're moving it up. Let's move it up. Do we think there would be a water line in two years? We don't. We can always move next year. We'll have the same conversation. things change then we either move it out or we go okay it's ready and once we spend the 50,000 motion

I'll make a motion that we move it to the what second motion's been made to move the 50,000 out to year 2 202728 and the 500 to 2028 29 in the third year have a motion all in one your discussion point. When we do that $50,000 project, we're going to be able to resolve that problem of that issue about water line right away, spacing, all that sort of stuff. That would need to be part of the scope. And right now, the water lines on the north uh south side.

When would or when is the water line proposed to go down south? We don't have a plan. We don't have a plan. when we get some money proposal because of lack of lack of fun lack of funds that's why earlier think earlier we talked about how important it is to get grants you know

I do think it's important this isn't a capital expenditure but that the water committee is sort of t talking about this now do a master plan for what is the next priority the next priority sort of like we just saw with the pedestrian plan have the priorities laid out council and the water at the water committee's recommendation or otherwise would always be able to reorder those priorities based on available funding or changing situation but you know then we could identify where that section it's in the core

we're in the middle of a motion but I'll come I will come back to we have a motion and a second so let me get that through and then I want to come back and just make a comment about water that's comes to your point so there's a motion a Second. All in favor? I

I No. So, we're moving that. Now, just to just one of the things that will be discussed later uh later this afternoon, if if you go back to the time that I've been involved in water and I'm it was roughly uh roughly about the time of COVID, you know, there was a lot of questions about water. Um we were looking at a different approach to um fire suppression that was important the park etc. And then with uh the COVID and inflation reduction and we were able to your staff and previous councils were able to get approximately $10 million of grants that has made our water tower of lines coming up a reality by the end of the year. looking the committee itself has not changed many of the times that I've been involved with other than people coming in and out. We're at a point where there's huge amount of work and discussion that needs to go on. Uh and one of the things they will be looking at is and I think this has to come back to council at some point is adding people to the committee and probably uh setting up sub at least two subcommittees uh for the water committee to work on different different projects uh because there's technical stuff there's marketing stuff and this this group needs more people and I think we have the work committee has to come back to council and say we'd like to add two or three more people. Uh and and I think decisions on setting up, but that that would be something just coming out of this this afternoon's meeting tomorrow.

We take a quick break like like 3 to five minutes. Sure. Yeah, sure. We're almost we're almost finished, aren't we? Yeah. Not much on the board