Town Council - Regular Meeting

Recently installed 9-11 Memorial. Patty made sure that a part of a recovered being from the Twin Towers was included in the 9-11 Memorial. For the Veterans Honor Green, Patty and the committee collected almost $150,000 in donations from local sponsors and Oak Ridge residents. Patty and the committee have also initiated many annual ceremonies and observations, including the Memorial Day ceremony, our Veterans Day observance, the 4th of July Kids Bike Parade, 9-11 observance, our Light Up the Night holiday celebration, and recently, the special concert and celebration of America's 250-year history. I think if you think about that, and I didn't do the exact math, but I think she and the committee have led us in those observations I think more than 35 times, so thank you for that. In addition to her work for Oak Ridge, Patty is very active at Holy Cross Catholic Church in Kernersville. She also serves as president of their statewide North Carolina Ladies Group, whose more than 1,000 members focus on charitable works. Patty is married to Freddie for more than 50 years. She's a mother, a grandmother of eight grandchildren who are all spread across three states. So it is my pleasure on behalf of town council to recognize and thank Patty Dubchowski for her contributions to the town of Oak Ridge. So if you'll come forward, mostly because I can't come that way, we do have a copy of what we have. And we thank you for everything you've done and hope that you'll continue to do for Oak Ridge.

Should we get the members of the Special Events Committee who are here?

Sure, sure. I mean, you're famous. You were on Fox 8 this week. Three minutes.

I'd like to thank you for this wonderful recognition and I gladly accepted with the note that many of the activities that you mentioned here could not have been possible without my extraordinary special events committee, which there's a bunch of them back there tonight. They're just an amazing group. I'd also like to thank this town council and prior town councils for all the support that they have given to me and the committee throughout the years. I'd also like to thank Ann Schneider, who's taught me the roles and responsibilities of dealing with the town. When I started, I was really naive about what went on at the town council and the behind the scenes and stuff, but everybody really helped me and I wanted to thank her for that. She's been a great resource for reaching out to the community and local businesses. She's also a good friend. Our town staff is unbelievable, hardworking group that's helped with many questions, comments, and advice. I'd especially like to thank Bill Bruce, who has always been very supportive of all our activities here. And what more can I say about the special events committees? They are such a great diverse set of, they bring such a set of diverse skills to the committee and and the commitment to Oak Ridge community. And like you always say, volunteers are what make this town of Oak Ridge so special. Last, I'd like to thank my husband, Freddie, who puts up with all the activities that I do. His last words to me is, I always leave the house. He says, can you just sit on your hands and not raise your hand for any more volunteers? So I thank him for all his help behind the scenes. Thank you all for the award. Graciously accepted. Thank you. Thank you.

Can we get the special events folks to come up? Special events committee members, come on down. Come on.

Come a little bit more central. There we go, Barb. Thank you all for being here. Thank you Patty and committee. At this time we would like to have representatives from Guilford County Sheriff's Office give us their report for August 2026. Thank you for being here, sir.

Good evening, everybody. I am Deputy Smallwood with the Guilford County Sheriff's Office. Here are the August stats for 2026. We had one B&E vehicle six disturbances, 20 alarms, one assault, one domestic, one drug offense, five frauds, one noise violation, one accident, 81 other incidences, and then 15 suspicious persons or vehicle, one vandalism, and four threats, and 14 traffic violations. Again, school's starting up. I just want to remind everybody, especially in the school zones, to make sure that you're driving appropriately and abiding by all the speed limits when school's in session. Thank you.

Especially in all of our Department of Transportation construction on 68 and near Linville Road. Anyway, we have a lot going on on our streets, so just take time to slow down and... Drive carefully and look out for each other. So thank you, sir, for being here today.

All right. Thank you all.

Thanks. We have a gentleman from our fire department. I guess they will both come forward and give us the update on the fire department. All right. Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Juan Juan Hernandez firefighter. Everybody knows me as Johnny To give you guys a monthly report for August We had about 101 Responses which I'll break down what we had One was a unclassified fire Those can be like a brush fire on the side of the road We also had one second 57 basic service calls. These could be smoke scares, animal rescues, lockouts of that sort. We had 11 false alarms, whether malicious or unintentional. We had two outside fires, structure fires, whereas barns not containing vehicles, to be an example. We did have one gas leak. 28 EMS responses where we responded to EMS calls, whether we went as the initial unit or we had EMS respond with us. We did have one structure fire that we responded in COFAX, and we have logged in 423 hours of training in the month of August. That's all I have for you today.

Thank you very much. Thank you for all you do for our community, too. Appreciate you. Next on our agenda is a public hearing. It has to do with a text amendment to our flood damage prevention, Section 1367B. Bill, are you going to do it?

Not over to Mr. Taylor.

All right. Sean?

Sorry about that. Tonight, this is basically a housekeeping ordinance update. Every so often, FEMA does a review of all the floodplains and to see if they have changed over ensuing years. And so this year, those have now been adopted by FEMA as having been changed. And so as such, we now have to adopt, change the date in our ordinance to reflect the date of the new effective maps. So that is basically what this ordinance is. And so our new effective date would be as the June of 2026 on that. And the Planning and Zoning Board reviewed this. They recommended approval and they said it was consistent with their adopted land use plan and is also reasonable.

Since this is a public hearing, is there anybody that would like to come forward and talk about whether they are for this text amendment or against? We'll take those that may be against it first. Since I see none, I'll ask whether or not there are anyone that would like to speak in favor of this text amendment as described by Sean. Yes, sir. Come forward and state your name and address, please.

How are y'all doing? I'm Jason Strack. I'm the chair of the Planning and Zoning Board. And I just wanted to expand on that just a little bit by mentioning there was a lot of discussion in the process for this. It doesn't appear that there are any homes currently in the flood zone in Oak Ridge, either before or after the change. It sounds like it's a state mandate that the text be changed to this. So it was a pretty simple, straightforward process for us.

Thank you. Thank you for what you and your committee do for us too. Thanks. All right. Anyone else that would like to speak for this text amendment? If not, I'll close this part of the public hearing. Counsel, do you have any questions regarding this issue? I just answered mine. Yep. It seems pretty simple.

Yes, sir. Mayor, this is a FEMA requirement. You have to adopt this. These maps are cited in things like Morgan. Yeah, we lost you. What?

Okay. Well, I don't think there was any question that that would not occur. Since there are no questions, I'll ask for a motion to approve this text amendment as stated.

Mr. Mayor, I make a motion that we approve amended Article 12, Flood Damage Prevention. The amendment is consistent with the adopted land use plan, and it's reasonable and in the public interest.

Second.

Second.

We have a motion and a second. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed? None. So the amendment is approved. All right, so I'll put my eyeballs back in. We're now to the point in our agenda for public comments in general and from community organization reports. Let's start with community organization reports. Yes, sir. Mr. Kinnaman.

Jim Kinnaman, 8502 Hollow River Court. I'm representing the Oak Ridge Lions Club. I just want to make everyone aware of that we are holding our annual golf tournament on September 24th down at Jamestown Golf Course. That's the town golf course. This is our primary fundraiser, the Lions Club. We focus on sight and hearing and charity and food independence. So the money stays here. So we help people that need help getting eyeglasses and eye exams and like I said this is our primary fundraiser It is a captain's choice or scramble or however you want to call it But it's a fun day, and so if you're interested we have flyers in the back, and that's what the Mines Club is all about Thanks.

Thank you, sir Anyone else from community organizations like to speak yes Come forward state your name and address, please

My name is Molly Byrd. My address is 8300 Wrights Farm Lane in unincorporated Summerfield. But I am here on behalf of a nonprofit in Stokesdale. We're called Friends of Stokesdale. And on September the 19th, we're going to have our fifth annual Farmers Day, where we have, it's a festival. We feature farm machinery, old vehicles, and that sort of thing. We have vendors. We have games for children. It's a free community event, family-friendly. We invite anyone and everyone to come out. We're going to have... A lot of the community churches are going to set up there, set up tents and tables. We have vendors and exhibits, have hay rides. We have a silent auction. We have several things. I'm going to leave you with a flyer that we have. We're also going to have our famous Little Mr. and Mrs. Farmer's Day contest. And for the second time in a row, we're going to have our second annual fire truck pull. Last year, Summerfield was the reigning champions. This year I think they might have a little bit more competition because there were only two teams last year. That was our first time. So now we have four teams. So we'll see how that comes out. One other thing, I hope you all come and invite your friends, bring your family out for a good day of fun and family and fellowship. One other thing I wanted to mention is a candidate forum that we're having at Town Hall in Stokestown. on October the 6th from 7 to 9 at the Stokestill Town Hall. And Paige is going to be there along with his opposition. We'll also have the two candidates for the North Carolina State House and the county commissioners in District 3. So I'll leave this with you as well. I hope you all can come out if they're in your district. I'm not sure. I'm not that politically connected. So... Hope you'll come out and enjoy our Farmer's Day and then come out and listen to the speakers in this forum. Thank you, ma'am.

Thank you.

Ma'am, if you'll give me the flyers, I'll make sure they get posted. Thank you.

Any other comments from community organizations? Way in the back there. Come forward, state your name and your address.

good evening mayor my name is melissa wilson i am the assistant principal at oak ridge elementary and i'm there enough that i could probably state the address as my home address sometimes i could do that um so good evening and thank you members of the town council for giving me just a few minutes to share an update from oak ridge elementary we are nine days into the school year and we have had an incredible start Mr. Chandra and I are thrilled to be back at Oak Ridge for the second year. We are excited about the year ahead for our students, our staff and our families. We also would like to sincerely thank the town of Oak Ridge for providing law enforcement support for traffic during the first week of school. The first few days are always busy with families getting into their routines and that additional support was extremely helpful with our car rider line and safety as students were walking into our building. We also have some incredibly exciting news to share. Last night, the state released our official data, and our school performance composite increased from 86.7% last school year to 89.2%, earning Oak Ridge Elementary a performance score of grade A. Even more importantly, we exceeded growth for the fourth consecutive year. That is something that we are incredibly proud of. Because growth tells us that regardless of where a student begins, they are making meaningful progress while they are with us. So simply put, our data shows that we grow our students. We want to thank the families throughout the Oak Ridge community and Let other families that currently don't have students in our building but live in our attendance zone, that we would invite you to come back to Oak Ridge, take a look around, tour our school, talk to our teachers, talk to our administrations, and see what's happening so you can enjoy all of the success that our students are experiencing. We have an incredible staff, wonderful students and families, and we are so thankful for a community that continues to support us. Our Colts are leading the charge, and we believe the best is still ahead of us. Thank you for your continued support of Oak Ridge Elementary.

Thank you. Do we have anyone else from community organizations that would like to come forward? Since I see no further hands, thank you all for your efforts just there recently. We now have time for comments from the public. Do we have people in the audience that would like to speak? If so, come forward and tell us your name and your address. Mr. Kinnaman, I see your hand first.

Tim Kinnaman, 8502 Howell River Court. The reality is that we'll finish it later. Having managed and delivered projects large and small over the years, I know that everyone included usually starts with the best intentions when deciding to come back and finish things later. The practical reality, however, is that later rarely happens as planned. Once a project wraps up, the momentum naturally fades. Shifting priorities, municipal focus inevitably moves on. New community needs arise, unforeseen maintenance pops up, and upcoming budget cycles naturally prioritize the next big initiative over yesterday's loss, loose ends. Faded urgency. Once the project is marked open, the momentum is gone. A future request to fund tightening lighting loses them a priority it has today, making it very easy to postpone indefinitely when other budget needs arise. Higher future costs. Returning to add lights down the road means bringing contractors, equipment, and crews back to the site as a standalone project. Factoring in inflation and remobilization, retrofitting almost always costs significantly more than doing it while construction is already underway. Conduit in the ground is a good thought, but without the fixtures, it risks leaving the facility permanently incomplete. If lighting isn't addressed while equipment is already on site and attention is focused on Heritage Farm Park, it could easily take years before the lights ever get funded or they may never get funded at all. While it's easy to see why some may feel something is better than nothing, leaving out lighting fixtures, lighting fundamentally changes who gets to use the park. For working adults and community parents, both of which are a primary reason for arguing for this project, and as well as local teens who cannot get to the park until 5.30 p.m. until courts often, unlit courts often offer very little to use for roughly five to six months of the year when the sun sets early. Like I said, a big argument for this project was adults. for about five to six months of the year. Adults won't have really much use for this pickleball courts. They don't typically use things on the weekends. They're mostly going to be focused on the evenings. So I realize budgeting and funding for this project has not been finalized, but I feel the project should definitely include lighting from day one, because without that lighting, the project is basically half done. You get to check a checkbox saying, hey, I got your pickleball courts, but guess what? You can't use them about six months of the year. Strongly encourage you to add back lights into the project and get it done right the first time. Thank you. Thank you, sir.

We welcome Mr. Page, former sheriff, and who's running for Senate. Yes, sir. Welcome.

Mr. Mayor, Town Council, I appreciate the opportunity to come and speak for a little bit, just a very little bit this evening, but it's always an honor to be here. I want to first say thank you for your support for public safety. That's from our dispatchers all the way to our fire and law enforcement, everybody in between that works to help keep us safe. I also remind everybody that September 11th is right around the corner, a week from this Friday, and we should never forget those who lost their lives that fateful day in D.C., New York, and Pennsylvania. And again, we appreciate, again, your support for our public safety officials and our persons at work and as first responders. I am running for Senate in the 26th District, representing Guilford and Rockingham Counties. I've retired with 28 years service as sheriff in Rockingham County. I've learned a lot as a sheriff, working with people from every different level, and seeing the needs in my community. But also, I've had the opportunity to work for 44 years in law enforcement and served as a veteran of the United States Air Force. Law enforcement has been my whole career. I do have three priorities that I think are very important here in our communities and across our district. being public safety. That's the first responsibility of government is protecting our citizens. First responsibility. I'll never forget that. Number two is education. I support school choice. I support fully funding our schools all across the board. And I have ideas and ways to do that as your next senator. And the last thing is taxation. I've attended several meetings in Guilford County and in-city about taxation, and as we know, the primary responsibility, the reason why we do levy taxes is to pay for essential services so we can operate government. Sometimes situations occur where we may have to ask for some money before the citizens on events like hurricanes and other type of catastrophes that happen, but in general, we should be fair in our taxation. We should also start at revenue neutral once we do those revows, and we should be fair to the citizens because it affects a lot of citizens. And what I heard over the past few months now Because a lot of people feel like they're being taxed out of their property. They feel like they don't own the property, they lease it. And the other thing is I want to make sure, I want to make sure that we do look after our citizens and that they do feel like they are being treated fair in the process with our revalues and what it goes for, which is an essential service of government. I appreciate your time. I appreciate the opportunity to come before you tonight. And I'll look forward to the opportunity to serve you as your next senator. And another thing is I do have cards that I hand out. They have QR codes on those so you can scan those. And it has my home phone number. As your next senator, I will tell you this, as I have done as sheriff, I can be reached. I will have a phone. You'll have my number. And I appreciate the opportunity to come before you and listen to your concerns and your needs here in your community. And I thank the people of Oak Ridge and also under your leadership, I thank you for what you do to help the people here. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. Thanks. Is there any more? There's another hand in the back. Come forward. And again, state your name and address. Thank you.

I'm not used to this side of the room.

Jason Strack, 8518 Rosedale Drive. I've come primarily to talk during public comment section about something that I think many people in this room, including perhaps some up here, are guilty of. And it's become a huge, at least for me, safety issue. I like to ride motorcycles. The traffic at 68th and Linville, I think somebody mentioned before. We've got double yellow lines, no left turn, big flashing no left turn sign there. When I'm coming down Linville, I have to pull all the way up to the line in order to see northbound on 68 across the construction traffic. Well, my son and I were behind a car and left turn. They cut it short, took the front end of the car out. This was a while ago, before construction. But that's what people do there. And that's one of the reasons that we've got a traffic circle coming in, is to prevent accidents at that site. Well, on my bike, if I'm at that intersection, somebody cuts it off short. And again, I can't pull out there without being on that line because I can't see northbound, okay? Somebody takes me out at that intersection, I'm dead. It's a safety issue. It's a huge safety issue. We've got double yellow lines, two no left turn signs. I don't know if you all remember, but we had traffic cones up for a while, right? Preventing people from turning left there. And I don't know if you remember, but at one point in time, those cones got separated. DOT didn't do it. You know who did it? A pickup truck towing a boat heading northbound on 68 stopped traffic. Everybody northbound piled up. There's about 30 cars behind him. He moved the cones to make a left turn up Linville. My ask is this. I'm not generally a Karen, but this is out of control. It's a huge safety issue. Five o'clock traffic northbound today. People stop traffic. I almost rear-ended somebody because they stopped to make a left turn on Linville. My ask is this. Let's get a sheriff's deputy posted up there at the entrance to Bojangles on Linville. Just sit there at five o'clock. You'll have an opportunity to produce revenue for the county. over and over and over again. First person to make that left turn, pull them over. But look in your rearview mirror. There's three behind them. Stop them all. Do that a few times. People stop turning left. And my life will not be at risk every time I come to that intersection. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Thanks.

Any other comments? Oh, there's another. And Adrian.

Adrian Eckenrod, 5679 Timber Traceway, Oak Ridge. I'd like to make a public comment kind of on behalf of the Parks and Rec Advisory Board. Mayor, member of town council, and fellow residents, tonight I'd like to take a few moments to recognize someone who's made a meaningful contribution to our community. Reese Bell has served as the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board's team advisor since July of 2022. Over the last four years, Reese has been an invaluable member of our board, providing perspective that many of us simply could not. She helped ensure that voices, interests, and recreational needs of Oak Ridge's younger residents were represented in our discussions and recommendations. Throughout her service, Reese consistently demonstrated maturity, thoughtfulness, and a genuine commitment to our community. She was never afraid to share her opinions, offer new ideas, or help us better understand what young people in Oak Ridge are looking for from their parks and recreation programs. Beyond her contributions to our work, Reese also brought something special to our meetings. Many of us look forward to her homemade treats she regularly shared, a reflection of the kindness and generosity she brought to everything she did. This spring, Reese graduated from Cornerstone Charter Academy and recently began her freshman year at UNC Greensboro. While we certainly miss her presence on the board, we are excited to see what she accomplishes in the next chapter of her life. On behalf of the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board, we want to thank Reese for her four years of dedicated service to the Town of Oak Ridge. Reese's contributions have made a difference and we wish her every success and happiness in the future. The Town of Oak Ridge has benefited from her service and we are confident that she will continue to make a positive impact wherever her future takes her. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Adrian.

Anyone else? Okay. Coming forward, Mr. Blust.

Thank you, John Blust. I'm in the North Carolina House District 62 and... running again and first of all it was nice coming up here tonight as many times as i've been here over the years to see that beautiful water tower out there it's looking real good and i hope everything stays on course um for your water system um i'd echo what uh I keep wanting to call him Sheriff, Paige said, about the property tax, but he's just a regular citizen now. And, of course, I'm not as flamboyant. I don't have a cool cowboy hat to go around in. But it is a big issue with voters, and... I'm telling voters this is self-serving, but if I don't go back, you're looking at another huge increase next year. We were able to get a moratorium bill through on the use of the new values. There were so many questions, and I know Sheriff Page was at some of these commissioner meetings. Speakers from the floor, almost every one of them had questions and issues about the revaluation in the property taxes. gentleman pointed out that, and I'm just throwing numbers out, I can't remember precisely what they were, but he said there were 25 people in the property tax office doing the revaluations. There were 800 and some thousand properties to revalue, and he pointed out that each of them was doing 28 revaluations a day. And I just have questions, and a lot of citizens did. How do you do 28 valuations in a day? And I've been told so many people there are special circumstances. How can they say this trailer of mine went up in value when this and this and this happened to it? So it seemed prudent to wait and give this a chance to sort out for a year, but... They'll be back to hide behind the revaluation next year because the commissioners, the budget they presented June 4th before that bill passed, was 49 million more. They cut 49 million after the bill passed out of their proposed budget that they adopted two years later after the governor signed the law. So, and there are emails and text messages, both the city of Greensboro and the county commissioners were going to hide behind the revaluation to claim they were cutting taxes. And I think any citizen that if, because mine's going up $1,000 already. I'm in Greensboro. But if you're going to pay $1,000 more this year than last year, that's a tax increase. And to tell citizens otherwise, I think, is not being forthcoming. So there's a lot of angst out there in the community about what's going to happen. And hopefully we can address that. Thank you. I guess that means stop. Thank you, Mr. Blunt.

Anyone else from the public like to make comments? I'm looking for hands. And I don't see any, so I'll... I'll bring this public comment section of our agenda to a close. All right, next we have the town manager's report. Mr. Bruce, looks like you have a couple, two or three issues to bring forward to us.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Just two items tonight. The first is to consider the appointment of Winnie Merritt as a regular member of the tree board.

So moved.

Second.

All right. We have a motion that's been made and seconded. Any comments or questions from them?

I think she's here tonight. Give a wave.

All right. We're happy to have you with us.

Thank you for being here.

All right. We have a motion and a second. All in favor?

Aye.

All opposed? Ayes have it. Congratulations.

The second item is to consider extending the town's waiver period for the connection fee to the town's water system. As the town has unveiled its plans for a water line on 150 during the early sign-up period as an incentive, we offered a waiver of the $2,000 connection fee through September 1st of this year. We now have an opportunity to extend the line and connect Oak Ridge Commons and the commercial core. So we have delayed the implementation of the startup of that system for several months as those plans get approved and the contractor prepares to extend that line. So we're requesting that since we're extending the time in which the line is essentially still under design, we'd like to extend or propose extending that waiver period. We think it was successful, and in fact, in the last 10 days or so, we got an additional 10 signups. We're almost at 30 at this point, which is actually doing very well, considering the number of properties that actually front along the new line. That's the request, and I'm happy to answer any questions.

Any questions for Mr. Bruce?

I move that we approve extending the water connection fee waiver period through December 21st, 2026. This is a great idea.

31st. 31st. 31st.

But I meant to say that. Thank you.

The second has been made. We have a motion and a second. All in favor?

Aye.

I'll oppose. It's unanimous. Okay. Any other business? Mr. Bruce. Okay. Then we go to new business next on our agenda, which is consideration approval of Heritage Farm Park Phase 2 design. Okay. Is that where you're going to go next? Okay.

In your packets, you have a... a site plan for the second phase of Heritage Farm Park, as well as a presentation that you're going to have from our design team, Mark Reeves. And I think Mark will introduce the other members of his team that's here. And I just suggest turning the floor over to Mark. To Mark.

Okay, welcome. Thank you. Good evening. Thank you for having us tonight. We're really excited to be here. I feel like we've been jumping through some hurdles to finally get before you and talk about the work that we've been up to lately. I'm Mark Reeves with Reventon Reeves Landscape Architecture. We are a landscape architecture firm based in Greensboro. I'm joined by Tori Small. Tori Small is a civil engineer with Westcott Small Associates in Greensboro also. So I'll be looking to you, Craig, to advance. Feel free. So we have just a quick presentation this evening. I'll go through it fairly quickly. It involves just a little bit of background and context of where the park has evolved to now and some of our involvement in that. We'll go through the project status, the project history, and then current site plan overview, which is really where the bulk of the conversation will be. And I've included within that section all of the questions that were received to date from council members. So the project timeline we're currently hoping to start to move into construction documentation we've been through the site survey phase, we have that completed we've done schematic design we've done design development. So each project has these regular phases of design, and it's an iterative process where at the end of every phase we have costing completed, we refine the design based on site constraints, budgetary constraints, all those kinds of issues. So tonight we're hoping that we can show you the site plan, we can have a conversation about it. Ideally, council would approve the site plan as is, which would allow my team to move into construction documentation, which is where we continue to design team coordination and really focus on the nuts and bolts of how things come together, what the exact materials are, and those kinds of things. I will note before we leave this slide that there'll be, you know, permitting the conclusion of construction documentation. There'll be a final set that's issued for bid after that. And then as I mentioned just a few minutes ago, there's budgetary costs in every phase. So there's still one more round of costing that will happen at the conclusion of construction documentation. And it won't be the same as the costing that you've seen for design development. It always changes a little bit. So for folks on council and also for the folks in the room behind me, this is just a quick aerial of Heritage Farm Park today, just to orient folks before we sort of dive into the site plan. You can see there the maintenance building, the restroom building, the accessible playground, the soccer fields, the dumpsters, the Veterans Honor Green, and the hay fields. This is a beautiful park, one that we love tremendously, and we're really excited and happy to be able to continue to work on it. One of the things that we love about the park is the balance of this really passive role recreation, so the trails and the hay fields, that sort of pastoral view that you get when you're out there, more contemplative spaces like the Veterans Honor Green, but then also really state-of-the-art, very wonderful park amenities that are much more geared towards active recreation, the accessible playground, the athletic fields, the park shelters. So it's a really great blend of high quality amenities within the park. And Oak Ridge has two fantastic, really nice big parks. So back in 2022, as Heritage Farm Park was being built, the first phase of it, the area for the courts that we're now designing were considered in that round of construction. So the area for those courts was cleared, it was compacted, and it was put aside and ready for this next round of development. and then in 2025 the the idea was picked back up it was taken back to the community there was a round of community engagement where the community's voice was heard again about what should should happen here and so the plan changed a little bit it went from all tennis courts to a blend of tennis courts pickleball courts basketball court and additional parking as well as some proposed adult fitness so that's the plan that's up on the screen now And then we became involved. The project went to an RFQ. We were fortunate enough to be selected to continue on with that work. And so we've been now working for a period of time on the site, looking at the site plan in front of you. So this is where it's evolved to And our, you know, our design really picked up with the community's voice and the work that was done before, which included construction. So we think this is a really strong vision and we've just continued pushing it forward. We've looked at a lot at the actual site constraints. So we had a survey done, which I think when the master plan was done, there was not as much site information. So we've looked very carefully at the site constraints. We've looked, you know, which include topography, of course. So we developed this site plan. We've been to the Parks Advisory Board. I saw Phyllis and Adrian in the room, so I've gotten to know those folks pretty well. I've been there twice now to show them this plan and make adjustments based on their feedback. The last round that we did with them, and this screen's going to really test my eyes, I'm sorry, but... We showed them the plan and they asked for these fixes or these revisions to be done. So we shifted the courts to the west about 10 foot, which the observation from the group was really that the existing park shelter and one of the covered tennis shade structures, felt very close together. It was a great observation. So we were able to scooch that over as far as we could while still maintaining room on the west side of the courts for utilities. There's going to be drainage. There could possibly be lighting there. And then we also wanted to make sure we reserved some room for a sidewalk in the future if that was desired. So it's a balancing act of where that falls, but we think we can accommodate all of those things. And if you'll see on the screen, we also added a landscape buffer in between the southernmost park shelter I'm sorry, you want me to mouse over? Can I borrow your mouse? Okay, it's wired, okay. So the kind of smiley face pink shelter or pink shape that's in between those two shelters. So really providing a little bit of visual screening. We increase that distance. We add a little bit of concrete to the approach walk, which is the small little pink square. And then again, on the far west of the courts, we allowed for that balance of not falling off the slope. If you're not familiar with that site, there's a very steep slope that occurs there. So we want to make sure we stay away from the top of that slope and still allow for the utilities to be present. So that's where we are with the park advisory board. I will say they also had a few other recommendations that we haven't picked up yet, but they include the addition of two gates to allow people to enter the tennis courts on the north and south without having to walk through the pickleball area. And that will also involve a small little piece of sidewalk that'll happen to the north as well. So those are fairly modest revisions that we also think are great ideas. So this is our current site plan, and I'm going to go ahead and skip to the next slide, which we've just added some color to it, made it a prettier picture, but I think it's much easier for folks to read and understand. I know you all have spent time looking at the plan, so I'll just go over it kind of quickly for everyone in the room, but... There's a new parking lot as you come in the approach for Heritage Farm Park. That parking lot currently holds about 52 cars. There are two accessible parking spaces. As you leave the parking lot, you would walk to... The tennis court area on accessible sidewalks and then you could either go up to the main approach which goes down and the basketball courts on your right. You would approach the pickleball main entryway there and proceed through this gates to play pickleball or you could go to the left and right if the pickleball courts were occupied and very busy and you didn't want to walk through that space and enter the tennis courts to the north and south. The feature to the Northwest is an adult fitness station. That's one unit which has, you know, several different exercises that are built into one piece of equipment. It's kind of like a jungle gym for adults. And we also have a simple asphalt paving with painted high interval training network, you know, ideas like 20 push-ups or 15 burpees, that kind of thing. So the tennis courts are fenced in. They have a 10-foot high fencing. The pickleball drops down to four foot. There's two shelters for spectators, but also for athletes if they want to get out of the sun for a few minutes, both to the north and the south. There's seating that occupies both those spaces, particularly around the basketball courts, so you can have a larger group watching basketball while they're playing and also watching pickleball. As you all know, Pickleball tends to draw a bit of a crowd. So there can be tournament events or spectators. So we've accommodated for room for folks to sit both within the shelters, but also with extra wide sidewalks in that space for people that have their own fold-out chairs. So that's just a really quick overview of the design. And we can go ahead and proceed to the next slide. So now we're back to the questions. And actually, I'm sorry, Tori's going to join me. up at the podium for this part of the presentation. So if it's okay with you, I'll just run through the questions from one down and we can have a conversation if that works. So, sorry, Troy, you have to be very close to the mic, so I can't move over. So question number one is, can a future sidewalk still be accommodated on the west side of the racquetball courts, or the racquet courts, rather? And the answer is yes. So we've designed it so that in the future, if a sidewalk was warranted or wanted, you could have a four or five foot wide sidewalk there. I honestly don't think that you're going to want to do that in the future. I don't think it's necessarily needed, but there's room for it if there was ever the desire to have it. Number two, can the discrepancy between the number of gates in the design and the current cost estimate be fixed? Yes. I'll make sure that those are aligned as we go through the next round of pricing at the conclusion of construction documentation. Good catch. Thank you. Number three, for the base build and all phases, can all units be shown consistently? So all square foot or cubic feet? I called our estimator about that, and they were not particularly willing to do that. So their system is set up for cubic yards which I guess is a very typical unit of measure both for construction estimators but also for contractors that said if it's a big issue for for members on the council I can probably adjust that on my own afterwards if needed we typically it's kind of a no-no to mess with the cost estimators numbers so a little wary to do that but if it's a big deal we can we can work something out But the estimator said no. For the base bid in all phases, can general conditions be lowered to 10% within the cost estimate? Again, I had a conversation with the estimator about this, and they agreed that it could be lowered, and so their level of comfort with that was lowering it to about 12%. So I'll make sure that that's changed in the next round of costing. Number five, for phase one, Tennyson Pickleball can earthwork be reduced to $132,000 within the cost estimate given the previous earthwork that occurred. I agree that the current estimate seems high for earthwork within that space. It's already been worked pretty heavily. So I think that it will be lowered. I don't know that number quite yet, but I did talk to the estimator about that. We looked at the topography, and what'll happen at the end of construction documentation is Tori and her team will create a cut-fill balance sheet, and we'll provide that to the cost estimator, and then we'll use that to get a much more accurate sort of dial-in on the amount of soil that needs to be moved out of that space and for the parking lot as well. I should also say, I did paraphrase all of your questions, sorry, just to make them fit on the screen. So I apologize for that, but I think they're all here. And then number six, for phase one, Tennyson Pickleball, can approximately $150,000 of exterior improvements, the stairs, shelters, furnishing trees, be deferred to a future phase? And my answer for that is kind of simple. I mean, yes, it could be done, certainly. We think that we would advise against it. We think it's going to diminish the quality and the experience for the users that come to the park. One of the things that we love about Heritage Farm Park is really the high quality that's been done there. And we think that it would be wise to continue with that as you go forward. So that's our advice. But yes, it could be done is the simple answer. For Phase 3, parking lot, can this be split into Phase 3A and 3B asphalt, one for gravel, 3A, and sorry, 3B asphalt within the cost estimate? Yeah, we could do that. So I will say that we have talked to the estimator previously about this, and so the difference in having a gravel lot for, this is a little bit of a rambling long story about gravel versus asphalt and the gradient, sorry. Okay. Just bear with me. We had those priced separately, and the gravel was about $48,000, and the asphalt was about $132,000. So there was a difference there of about $83,000, $84,000 is the delta between those two different materials. And sort of the course of conversation between your questions and talking with Bill and his team, I started to understand that maybe When you asked about a gravel lot, you were thinking maybe just laying gravel on grade as is right now without the added earthwork. So one of the things that we have been doing is figuring out how to get a parking lot of about 50 cars in that space. The grade drops fairly precipitously off of the road. So it goes to an 8%, 10% slope very, very fast. With gravel, if you get above like 3%, 3.5%, it'll start washing really heavily during storm events. um and be kind of difficult to use so it's generally not used in steep parking lot situations so a lot of the cost in that parking lot is actually bringing up quite a bit of fill if you wanted to have like a bare bones gravel parking lot we did look just very quickly with this this would require more study but looked very quickly at it i think you could probably fit a very small amount of cars just essentially perpendicular off of the road there at a modest cost. So, you know, squinting eyes and just doing some quick area takeoffs and measurements, it's going to be somewhere around 15 cars. So it'd be much reduced, but it would not have a lot of earthwork involved in it. But again, that needs more study. I'm shooting from the hip just to make sure I'm answering the questions and trying to give you as much information as I have on that. Yes, thank you. And Tori's saying that, you know, we would also, if we did that, we would still need to connect a sidewalk around to that. One or two of the spaces would probably need to be paved to be accessible. So there'd be some additional study and thought that would need to go into that solution as well. Yeah, but we can certainly phase them out by gravel or we can show them as an option as gravel versus paved for the surface layer. and then i put down on the bottom let's also discuss lighting that didn't come up as a question from from you all but i it was a question that was discussed during the park advisory board meetings and i think a simple way for us and we i should back it up during schematic design we had lighting in the project um currently heritage farm park has a brand called musco lights they're very nice athletic lights um and so all the equipment that's in the electrical room that controls that um we would be able to tie into that if we use musco lighting and the the systems and the timers and everything would just carry forth to a new Musco Lighting system. So we got a quote from Musco Lighting. We did pull that out after schematic design, but I think an easy way to make an informed decision would be to have it included in the construction documentation as an ad alternate. So at that point in time, when the project went to bid, it would be an alternate, which we could say, this is the price X, do we want to do it or not? And then we could, based on whatever the budgetary constraints are at the time, we can make an informed decision about that. And that's all my questions. Sorry, I thought you guys would have something for me before I got through them all. But yeah, happy to answer any other questions you might have and share the mic with Tori. I think if you know my next slide, I think.

Any questions from council besides some of mine?

I mean, I guess just a note to add. So you're saying about adding the lighting back in, that's the adding the fixtures back in because we have all, just for the people listening, we do have the, you know, conduit and all that. Yeah, that makes sense.

Thank you very much. Yeah. So just to explain to clarity, we took the actual lighting fixtures out, but we included the conduit and the raceways and the connection to the electrical box. So they were still a decent portion of the electrical scope in the project and ready for the actual light fixtures, if you will, at a future date. That's correct. Thank you.

Anybody else? I had questions on a couple of different areas. For one, one of the questions, and you answered it, was on the west side, that it could have a pathway up the west side. Personally, I would think that to not be a future thing, I would think that should be part of the design. I think the entrance should be from the west side on the tennis courts at midcourt, roughly. I saw no reason to have tennis people walking through the play of pickleball players. It's a totally different thing. So that made no sense to me. I could understand the north-south approach, but Personally, I think it's better to plan for the west side walkway, especially if you say it's only four feet and it could be in the place. I think we already narrowed the tennis courts a little bit from the original one that we looked at months ago, which allowed some space movement. And as I understand it in what you presented here, it's been moved 10 feet to the West and there's still accessibility for the West. I would encourage us to think about having that as part of the, of the original work. And basically in the best way to say it for me is to kind of have a division between pickleball players and tennis players. And I saw no reason to have what I could understand the, the possibility of walking through. So that's a comment from me. So that's that piece. The other piece I've been, as I understand it, from our park maintenance leader, Brock Dunnigan, at this time, and Bill, you can help me to make sure I say this correctly, We have a group called Carolina Corps that's coming in the afternoons, and I can't remember which afternoons, and weekends, to rent our courts. This is the soccer courts. But there's also Revolutionary Academy that's using our fields as well. And then there's the normal use of people coming to use the playground facilities and just to walk around the park and to enjoy the amenities that already exist. as I understand it at this time, particularly in those afternoons, we are pretty much at limits, uh, or have limited parking space available, maybe one or two. So we're, we're already maxed out at parking during those times of year. So what I was asking, uh, for depending on how you do, it looks like, it looks like what you just said to me is, is it's possible to maybe have, uh, and I'm going to say behind the maintenance shed to the north, at least the possibility of running some gravel in there to put, I think you said, between 12 and 15 spots, whatever that might be, which would take some of the pressure off. But I think as well that we should be looking at whether or not the timing of the – The timing of the parking, to me, is just as important right now as the courts themselves. And I wouldn't think you would want to do one or the other. And, in fact, I think based on where we are, you'd probably want to do – I would think you might want to consider doing parking first because that is, as I understand it, an immediate need. So there was my questions on the parking. And you at least indicated that there was a short-term – minor approach without doing a lot of grading. But if you went for the full banana, but without asphalt, you'd be saving about $85,000 plus for gravel. But you'd have a lot of – and I could read in the notes that you had a lot of work to be done to get the grading up.

That's correct.

And as Mr. Stone knows, I have exactly one experience – with that at the AI church where we saw similar things go on, but we're able to maximize that. And then that that's a gravel field as well. So thereby two questions. I think you gave me the initial understanding. I'd like more time to think about it. I don't know where others are on that, but let me, let me tell, talk to the people in council about, And first, thanks to the Parks and Rec group. They've been looking at this and they've seen and had interactions. The council members themselves have just been able to observe through Zoom what was going on in the Parks and Rec committee. But we're not participants. We were just observers. So this is the first time to have interaction with Revy Denreus. And apologies, I can't remember your company's name. So I thank you for being here. But I would like to take some of this information that you brought into further consideration. I don't know what others might think at this time.

I actually have a related question, if I could get clarification on something that Jim had mentioned that I realized that I don't really have a clear picture on entirely. Could you indicate, I know we talked about the north sidewalk and additional entrances. Do you have a plan for where those entrances would be? Would they go directly into the tennis courts or would it be pickleball and walk across? Or if there could be two entrances maybe, like one to pickleball, one to tennis? Yeah, maybe.

May I just step over? Sure, sure.

I'm sorry, I'm not following. Okay. And then if you go directly south, sorry, to where the call-out is, it says coated black chain link fence.

It's on the south of the... Yeah, right there.

So then we'd have another pedestrian gate that would allow you to get into the southern court that way.

Okay. Do you think, would it be possible, so that would be direct access for tenants, which is great. And that, I feel like, would reduce the need maybe, like you said, I mean, to have the west sidewalk. Could we also have potentially a gate, like I see that there's the double door, I guess, maintenance area.

Yeah, so those are, the double gates are, they're wide for getting equipment. So if Brock's team needs to get in to repair something or fix something, those are access gates for machinery, essentially, yes.

Do you think, I mean, would it be helpful to have another pedestrian gate for the north and south pickleball as well? Or is that overkill?

You could do that. So one of the reasons why we try to limit gates is they always break, so they become a maintenance issue kind of forever. Gates are just historically a pain to deal with. So you could certainly do off of the main sidewalk, the wide sidewalk, if you wanted to have another access to the two pickleball courts, to the north and to the south, you could have a four-foot gate there, four-foot wide gate that would allow people to enter those spaces as well. I spend, my daughter plays tennis, so I'm at matches two nights a week. And it's, you know, it's pretty common just to kind of deal with moving through a tennis court or a pickleball court while people are playing. So there's a lull in a game where you just wait a second in between action before a serve happens and folks will walk across. If we don't want to do that, it's very easy to add those gates. Yeah, certainly. Yeah.

Okay. I mean, Jim, does that, I guess, address your concern about walking through the courts?

Well, I'm sorry to interrupt. I was going to say the pickleball court gates would also be, so the tennis gates, that's a much taller gate. But the pickleball gates would just be like a four-foot swing gate because that's like a four-foot wide chain link fence. So those would be a fairly modest investment and would probably serve well. It's a good idea. Okay. Yeah. And I think, back to your point as well, Mr. Mayor, is, you know, the gates on the north and the south of the tennis courts might negate needing to have that sidewalk to the west, if you could get into those tennis courts there. Or vice versa. Yeah, exactly. Or vice versa.

Exactly. I mean, I just have a preference starting coming from the west. Anyone else? Any other comments?

Are you saying, then, the 10-foot high... The gates into tennis, would they be 10 feet high? They wouldn't be. They'd be just a portion.

That's correct. Yeah, they're not 10 foot tall. I think they're seven foot tall.

Gotcha. Thank you.

Any further comments or questions?

So I tend to agree with Mark is that the sidewalk. to the west side just doesn't make any sense. Nobody's going to walk past two or three entrances to go to the back side to enter in there. As his information points out, if a future sidewalk along the back is desired, it can be added in then. It doesn't prevent us from doing drainage lights or whatever the case may be. There is a comment that I want to make sure that the folks that are listening are When we talk about reducing the size of the course, we're not actually talking about reducing the size of the course. We're talking about the runoff or the size of the pad. And this was a point during our request for value engineering to figure out how to save money. And one way was less asphalt. Is this correct?

Yeah, so initially during schematic design and during the master plan that was done prior to our engagement, the courts were, so our courts are regulation size, they're the same size they were in the master plan, but the area, the paving around them was larger. And we have regulation size courts and regulation size run out areas within the current site plan, but we got rid of, we removed sort of the extraneous amount of paving that was there, mostly due to, well, you don't really need it and it's very costly.

Yeah.

And the final thing is, and this is one where once we get through this phase, then we'll be working with Mark and his team on this. But as far as parking, everybody recognizes we need parking. But if we just run the concept... If we approve this and we start a construction, say, in March of next year, and just make an assumption that it would be done by July 1st, just assumptions, okay, to throw numbers out. If we were done by July 1st, well, by that time, we've had another CIP meeting and we've got a new budget. So we could go ahead and budget for the parking lot. So by the time that the sports courts are done, we could be rolling right into the parking lot, and we're not looking at waiting an entire year before we resolve some of our parking. 18 gravel spaces perpendicular is a relief factor for that in the meantime. So I see all this is workable. It's just a matter of putting the plan into a logical order and figuring out what we want to do with each phase.

Yeah, I guess I'll say as far as, I mean, I know we're not really approving timeline at this point. But, yes, I appreciate you guys taking all of our questions into consideration. And the answers, I think that was very helpful for me to understand. And, you know, we've been looking at this for a while and gave you all feedback, and I think you've incorporated it well. So, yeah, I appreciate that. I hope we can move forward and have you all keep moving along on schedule. Thank you.

So, my understanding is if we build pickleball and tennis 15 place parking spaces would not be sufficient. Based on your knowledge, what would you say?

It seems like, from my understanding of talking to Brock about the parking utilization, that yes, you'll need more parking, especially after additional courts are built. I mean, I think this will attract a lot of people to the park that aren't currently using the park.

Right. That's been my understanding since we started talking about the court project, and especially since we added pickleball, because tennis has been part of the conversation for about 20 years, and basketball for about 10, and pickleball is a more recent addition, but important to residents, it seems. So I'm in favor of building, whether it's I'm in favor of building the full parking lot when we build the courts. I'm also in favor of building all the courts at one time, including the basketball court, because that's something that's also of great interest to residents and received high marks in our various surveys. I'm concerned about this question that I guess came from council that Can exterior improvements like stairs, shelters, furnishing, et cetera, be deferred to a future phase? I appreciated your response that it could be done, but it really would, I agree with you, diminish the aesthetic quality and the visuals in the park. I feel strongly that you have I should have said this first. This is a beautiful plan. So this is a beautiful plan, and I don't want to do an ugly plan first and then add some pretty stuff later. I want to do a full, beautiful plan. I do like the additional buffers that Parks and Rec put in. I really appreciate that. I like sidewalks. I like them a lot. So I like the idea that was in the original plan of having... A sidewalk on the west side, I do agree that that could be added in later. Just typically once you mobilize, you might as well do everything you want to do, in my opinion, rather than trying to sort of shave it down. The lights, I think, are a reasonable thing to phase, and I... One of the reasons I think that is that it will help us learn how the courts are being used. And operating those lights is very expensive. Unlike sports fields where teams and organizations renting the fields pay to help us offset those expensive light bills, there would be no one helping us offset those light bills. Now, I do take Mr. Kinnaman's comment about the lights seriously, but as long as we've got them ready to go, I think Oak Ridge has a great reputation for listening to residents, and if we find that this is really just not making people happy, we can put them in. And we can plan for that, as we always do with our CIP. Thank you. Those are my comments.

Can I make one response to? Oh, sure, please. Part of our team's thinking about the additional amenities within kind of the sidewalk and spectator area. I think that this park, unlike just a solely athletic facility, this is going to be used by lots of different folks. So you may, I think you're going to start to have families that come here, rent the park shelter for a party, have some folks that are in the playground while others are playing on the courts. And I or people come to play pickleball while their children are playing on the playground, and then they want places to sit and rest and watch everything going on. So I think it'll have a lot of use that's different than just a tennis and pickleball facility that's standalone.

That's a great point. So there'll be more cross-pollination.

Yeah, yeah. And so I think those things, like the additional furnishings and the shade structures, I think those will add value for folks that aren't necessarily playing the game but their families that have come with them to do other things in the park walk the loop and they get there and they rest for 30 minutes while the pickleball is finishing up or whatever I think it's going to be a lot of different uses kind of happening at once at multi-generations and and different groups coming together so I think that's part of the reason why I think that that quality of those and those are fairly basic furnishings they're not um you know um really fancy, they're just nice quality park amenities, nothing over the top, but I think they'll add a lot of value to the user experience.

I guess, yeah, I just want to, I guess, kind of continue that train of thought. As far as, you know, it seems like the whole phased approach is maybe getting... maybe misunderstood or misrepresented in some scenarios where I don't believe phasing is a bad thing. I mean, you know, I've been in Oak Ridge for 10 years and I've seen the parks go through multiple phases. You know, nothing has been built out straight away all at once. I mean, Heritage Farm Park as it is, We're in phase two now. So I think that's generally how things go is you can kind of develop piece by piece. And while it might not be ideal or it might hinder some of the user experience, you know, I think we have a solid design to work from. And I feel comfortable moving forward with the design. And then if it takes us maybe a couple years to implement, then I feel confident that you all can help kind of guide us through that process of what that phased implementation might look like. And yeah, I feel like you guys have a great plan. I think Parks and Rec did a great job as well reviewing this. And if they're comfortable with it, then I'm good with it as well.

Mr. Grayson?

good. Basically, it comes down to money.

We don't have money. Let me clarify that. Tonight, we're not talking about money. We're not talking about the cost. What we're talking about is this a good design.

That's great. I don't have a problem with it. We're just not going to make a decision tonight.

I'm not.

Y'all can.

So I think also, if I may, the decision tonight would really just be to allow us to kind of continue the design going forward. You know, the cost estimate is not a bid, right? So it's just a cost estimator, sort of budgetary opinion of cost to help guide us as we make design decisions. It certainly will at some point go to bid and further design decisions may be needed based on what those actual bids are. But I think all that would be helpful for us at least to walk away with is, you know, if we can't decide tonight, that's fine. But at some point for us to be able to get approval from council to kind of lock this site plan in place with the changes that we talked about, the additional gates and the sidewalks. Then we could really start to put together a package that could be used for bid when funding was available.

So I have a question about that. My understanding about the bid package that you have to, I would be happy to approve the design tonight. I am, you've probably gathered, I'm not in favor of phasing. I think that this is, even though it is possible to phase certain things, like certain components, individual components, maybe the lighting, maybe the sidewalk, but I don't want to get into sort of stripping the design down to bare essentials. I want to do the project and do it right. That's my personal opinion. It seems, and one of the one of the hidden costs of anything you phase is that, you know, you did this great breakdown, I guess that came from, no, from a different Palacio.

They're behind a computer somewhere.

Yeah, so they gave that breakdown of what it would be, but what's, and they said that the price would go up X percentage every year. But anytime you phase anything, it's going to go up more than that 1.5% that they said. That's the absolute bare minimum that it's going to go up. But anytime you phase it, by definition, each one of those things under it is going to go up X amount. So that amount, you say, oh, well, it's only $335,000 extra to put this into four phases. That's if you read the Palacio bid. That's what you see. But really that's going to be half a million or more depending on how long over how what period we phase this so if you wait to phase it the whole thing you're going to pay five years from now you're going to play but they're talking about one and a half percent a quarter so is that what it says a quarter yeah oh okay i thought they said a year okay so i thought man that's low yeah one and a half percent a quarter that that adds up really quickly so This is, you've presented this, it's around a $2 million project, and that's with some things, lighting and a sidewalk stripped out, probably not a whole lot more to add the gates in, right? Right, correct, yes. So at that price point, I mean, the entire park was much bigger than that, and at that price point, it's big to us, because we're a small town, but that's not a huge project, and breaking it up doesn't make sense to me. We want We plan things well here in Oak Ridge, and we want quality that will last, that will make us proud of the investment, because we're not going to be there to say, well, pretty soon we're going to put in a tree or a bench or something here. So I'm not in favor of that. So my conclusion is that Okay, so my question, sorry, I was posing a question to you. My understanding was that if we were to approve the entire plan, you can lock down the plan, right? But to do the bid package, don't you need to know whether we're going to phase it or not? Yes. Okay, so that's where I think that we might not be able to move forward tonight, in my opinion. Of course, I don't want to phase it, so that's my vote.

The one workaround for us may be, and this requires some additional study, but to have sort of large packet adults so we could have the parking lot could be an adult area. So that would be priced separately in the bid set. We could try to look at that. The adult fitness could be one. The parking lot could be one. I think the courts kind of all want to be done as one. I know in the phasing we broke out basketball and tennis, but just the way construction is going to work, ideally that would probably all happen together. So we could certainly think about it like that as well if we wanted to.

Wouldn't it be difficult to add the basketball courts after the tennis? How would you get in there to stage that?

That's exactly what I was looking at also. I think that the basketball needs to go with pickleball and tennis. We talked a little bit about potentially doing a couple of gravel spaces, which would work, but you can't do really half of the asphalt parking lot and then come back later and do half of the asphalt parking lot because you're grading twice to tie in. So really, it needs to be a parking lot as a... portion of the project. I don't want to say phase in case it's not a separate phase, but the parking lot needs to be one thing. The basketball needs to go with the pickleball and the tennis so you can actually access it, because otherwise you'd be closing down your parking lot later to build the basketball court. The adult fitness is a little bit separate, so that could be separate piece too I wanted to point out also if you choose to phase the lighting I would suggest that you put the sidewalk on the western side with the lighting because the trucks that come in to actually install those lights could tear up that that Western sidewalk so I would say that those two should be together just so that you don't destroy your investment later.

Thank you. I think you, if I might have a turn, I think what you just said is relative to the courts, and I'm just talking about the courts, you should do all of that together. And part of that is to avoid having a multiple year construction site which you know i mean you if there is phasing you're going to have some of that but relative to this i don't know what the acreage is but it can't be much more than three acres to to have three acres divided into a couple of different uh my uh sub projects to me doesn't make any sense at all so i agree with you that that the full courts, including pickleball, tennis, and basketball should be done at the same time.

Well, and I guess I had a kind of a question on that cause I can heard a little differently. So you were essentially saying that we don't want to have the finished paved parking lot without having the courts complete, right?

So I was specifically talking about basketball, that if you did the courts, the pickleball and tennis, and you did, parking lot, then you decided to come back several years later and do basketball, the only way to access the basketball to build it would be to close down temporarily during construction your parking lot to build the basketball court because you don't have any other access to get to it.

So could there potentially be the basketball court plus asphalt parking as a phase? That way, whenever the basketball court was done, then you finish off the parking lot kind of in one?

I would have to study that a little bit and see what that does to our grading. There's grading and utilities that run in between those, and I just need to make sure that I can separate those. I think so, but I would need to study that a little bit more to see if we could break it out that way.

Okay, because that way it could be some of that cost, you know. It wouldn't impact the parking lot like you were describing as the negative impact. Okay.

Any other comments?

I think I'm greasing. No, I'm good. But I don't know what that means. You're good at what? I'm good with no questions.

Okay. Again, this is the first time that the council has been able to interact with having degrees. Okay. At least for me, I would like to study more what we've learned tonight and have more time. I'm not talking about a lot of time. But I think we've learned a lot. We've heard some specific things. As we think further on it, we probably may have further questions of you. But at least for me, I... I would not want to be in a decision phase tonight. I don't know about others, but that's my general opinion. I think it could wait a month or whatever. So I'll make that statement. There could be disagreement with that.

Mr. Mayor, I'd like to make a motion that we accept and approve the design developed, revised, and presented by the Parks and Recreation Commission and by Revington Reeves.

Since you're saying just the design, not the estimate, not the phasing. We still have some questions, don't we?

I think I will. I think I will.

Well, they're here. I mean, what questions do you guys have?

I have asked questions. It doesn't mean I won't have more.

I'm not going to be forced into approving it tonight. I'm not going to. You know, we've had two weeks to look at this thing. I'm not going to make a decision tonight.

Mayor, a motion has been made. You call for a second if there is one.

Second.

There's a motion made and seconded. Any discussion, further discussion?

So, again, what we're talking about tonight isn't cost. We're talking about the design only. And if we believe we have a good design, which I believe we do, then this gives Revington Reeves the opportunity to go back and start the work that necessary to revise based on feedback and move the process forward. It doesn't do a thing about other concerns that we may have about timing and phasing or not phasing. This is simply tonight was supposed to be consideration and for approval or not of Heritage Farm Park Phase 2 design. So my motion is specific to the design that's been presented.

And it's been seconded. So all in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed say no. No. So the consideration's been done. The approval has not been done tonight, but I don't think we're talking about... weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks we're probably talking about the next meeting or maybe a special called meeting that we can discuss and there probably will be more questions to come to you from us yeah absolutely yeah we look forward to them thank you we thank you for being here tonight and putting up with us i'll remind the people in the chambers um We have seen the designs, but it's been hard to understand what those designs were because they've been in black and white and they kind of were a couple of different approaches. So I think what we saw tonight is getting us very close to the final, but I'm not willing to sign off as a final design tonight. Thank you.

Yeah, and this presentation has just been really helpful and really excellent. And I think I'm closer to approval, but I think as long as there are important questions outstanding, I wanted to vote on that side of the issue.

Absolutely. Please let us know if there's anything we can do to answer any questions in the future. Thank you.

Take it all you're doing. Thanks so much. Thank you both.

Thank you. All right. Back to new business. Mr. Bruce, we have consideration approval of engineering design for the... with an agreement with Water Systems Engineering for the Honeycutt Reserve Well Water Treatment System. Do you want to take it from there?

Sure. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. There is a proposal in your packets from Water Systems Engineering Incorporated to prepare a plan to filter naturally occurring radiological materials that test results have shown in the Honeycutt Reserve WATER SYSTEM, WHICH IS A TOWN-OWNED COMMUNITY WELL SYSTEM. INSTALLATION OF A FILTER SYSTEM IS A STATE REQUIREMENT IN RESPONSE TO THOSE WATER TESTING RESULTS THAT INDICATE AN ELEVATED GROSS ALPHA LEVEL, WHICH, AGAIN, IS A FAIRLY COMMON CONDITION IN GROUNDWATER WELLS IN OUR AREA DUE TO THE UNDERLYING GEOLOGY. THE ATTACHED PROPOSAL IS FOR ENGINEERING ONLY. WHEN THOSE ENGINEERED PLANTS HAVE BEEN PREPARED AND APPROVED BY DEQ, THERE WILL BE A SEPARATE review period to review informal bids collected for the actual construction and installation of the filter system. So my request tonight is simply to approve the proposal from Water Systems Engineering for $14,500. A companion request is to unrestrict $14,500 from the Water Restricted Fund toward this project.

All right, Mr. Bruce has presented. Are there any questions? We've kind of had good information on this before, but any questions from the council? May I ask for a motion?

I move that we approve the proposal from Water Systems Engineering for $14,500. Further, staff in consultation with the finance officer recommend that council unrestrict $14,500 in funds to support this from the Water Restricted Fund.

Is there a second? Okay, second. We have a second?

Second.

Okay, thank you, Ms. Clark. All right, we have a motion and a second. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. All opposed? There are none, so that passes. Then we get to our third of these. I think it's new business. Bill, do you want to lead in on the text amendment, or is Sean going to do it?

I'm going to ask Sean to do that as well.

Sean, will you take the lead on this, please?

Mr. Mayor, council members, at the last meeting it was, or meeting before last, it was suggested that we needed to make amendments to our, the council voted to recommend to staff to take a look at our event center ordinance and make amendments to that. This is just a presentation on what those amendments are for you to look at, and then this will be presented again for public hearing at the next council meeting in October. Uh, one of the things that if you see on your first page that we have, and this is, uh, when it deals with parking is something that y'all didn't ask for, but something that, um, as the plan director have put in and it's to reflect, uh, changes that are going to happen with, uh, because of state statute that's going to be effective as of July 2027 dealing with the elimination of no minimum parking requirements within the state. So with that, I have made a proposal within this to change our parking requirement with event centers to reflect maximum of 10 spaces per 1,000 square feet of gross floor area of the event space. And then on the last page, when it comes to our more text amendments, the proposal is that after hearing response from the citizens and hearing feedback from our Planning and Zoning Board and also with our council members, it's proposed now to eliminate RS-40 residential under special use permit for people will no longer be able to apply for a special use permit to do an event center in RS-40 districts or residential districts. also that's proposed to the property separation will also since um to eliminate the property separation for this as well since this would all only this would now only in either agricultural with a special use permit or in business districts that allow for uh by right event centers without a special use permit. So by doing that, I've eliminated the property separation, uh, part of that, that it can't be adjacent to single family residentially zoned property, which is almost difficult within this town because most of our commercially zoned properties are adjacent to, uh, residentially zoned properties. So I didn't want to create a nonconformity within our ordinance. And using, for example, would be AI Church, which is an event center with a commercial zoning application, but it's also right next to a residentially zoned property. And with the properties, with a footage requirement, that wouldn't fit. So that's why it would just be easier to eliminate that.

I have a question. You mentioned that this wouldn't be allowed in RS-40 districts. I think you mean zoning, right? Because, for instance, if there was an ag property surrounded by RS-40, which I think there is in Oak Ridge, would that be called an RS-40 district? Because, I mean, I don't know that term.

RS-40 is the zoning district.

You mean the zoning, not a district?

The statutes refer to districts. They're zoning districts.

I see.

And there's overlay districts such as...

I know what that is.

Yeah. But zones are actually districts under the statutes, like RS-40 and so forth.

So if there was an ag property surrounded on all sides by RS-40, would it be allowed there?

If it met the acreage requirements, yes.

Thank you.

And with a special use permit.

Yes.

Also within this, I've made a slight change to where it's been proposed to make a slight change to the hours of operation that would be from 10 p.m. and no amplified music between 10 p.m. and 9 a.m., and that also with under G noise, it shall not be increased the distance for noise that should not be 300 feet of residential zone properties and not exceed 60 decibels, which is a decrease in the noise level from the previously we had 80, so this reduces it down to 60 decibels measured and this we also included since one of the things from our special use permit hearing a couple months ago it wasn't clear on where the measurement should be taken so i've now added clarification to that so the decibel level would be measured from the common boundary line which is the property line and still within this that no on-street parking would be allowed and then a person could still do a remote parking plan with shuttle service if the planning staff or zoning administrator is consulted for that. Okay.

Anything else, Sean?

And that is it.

Okay. Okay. And I'm glad to hear any comments and feedback that you all may have.

All right. Any questions or comments from council to these proposals?

No questions.

Okay. We've been kind of looking at this for a couple of months.

Well, we haven't really been. I mean, I just saw this. We haven't been looking at this for a couple months.

This is just being presented to you. Yes.

And it was presented to, wait, has this been introduced to planning and zoning?

It's been introduced to planning and zoning. Their comments have been incorporated into this, and now it's for you all to review and submit your comments before it actually comes back to you as a public hearing.

Would it go to planning and zoning as a public hearing first? Yes. Okay.

I have a question on item B section or item 3, B3, where it says no such establishment, building or parking shall be located adjacent to single family or residentially zoned property unless the event center is granted a special use permit. Since that's under B where required a special use permit in agricultural, I don't, I guess, see the purpose of item 3. because its existence would have to be granted by a special use permit. So unless item three is supposed to be applicable to, you know, where required by right, I don't understand why it's required.

You're correct. That was actually in the updated version I've done that I have incorporated that. That was one of the things that was actually brought up in the Planning and Zoning Board meeting that that was – Not relevant.

Okay. Which item is that? 3. 3 under what? Under B3? I see. Thank you. Thank you.

Because basically that is saying that you, that would make the, as again, using AI Church, that would make AI Church non-performing.

So, Sean, is it usual we... We created, Council approved, Planning and Zoning approved, and we approved the special use permit process that we have in place now, and that was used to evaluate a recent project, and that project was turned down for some reasons, most of which I disagreed with, but is it usual to then say, well, we had one application that didn't make it, now let's change the ordinance?

For, no, that's not unusual for that to occur. If there's something that within the, if the council sees that after having those hearings, that they see that that's an issue with this, with an ordinance, and they'd like to address staff to fix that, that's not out of the ordinary to do that.

Even though council, and in fact, Mike, Councilman Stone helped create the previous ordinance.

And that's just part of...

Okay. Sort of live and learn.

It's a live and learn things on these. And that's just the nature of ordinances within themselves. They all... I mean, these are organic. They do grow. Things change...

I get that. It strikes me, though, that these changes are sort of in such direct response to things that some council members, but not all council members, saw as problematic in the last application. So it concerns me that there are political interests that I believe were the primary forces in that decision and in this decision. if we go forward with this. I think the most important thing we could do to improve the process here would be to move this entire process, whether we change it or not, over to Board of Adjustment because political interests are not at stake there. And they're also more familiar with the quasi-judicial process that we have to use for special use permits, which was challenging for this body.

And that's purely up to the council to make that, to review that and make that suggestion.

Right. So that was my input to you on this, but that didn't get included, although everyone else's comments did.

Could you clarify? I don't understand what you're suggesting.

Special use permits can be, instead of coming to us as they did last time, it could go to Board of Adjustments.

Okay, so you're suggesting not.

And there are pros and cons to both. I just think the pros would outweigh the cons.

And that is one that needs to be, and that one, the reason staff did not include that, because that is one that needs further discussion within council members themselves before. on that since it has to do with responsibility and jurisdiction.

It's a separate ordinance, right? Well, it is, but it's very closely related, so it certainly is something worth discussing.

And also with this, because that is also dealing with special use permits as a whole, and this is just dealing with just this one topic.

That's true, but there aren't many special use permits. I mean, we haven't had one like this was the first one in like eight years and we don't get a lot of special use permits and they're more akin to other things I think that Board of Adjustment does they're much more complicated or bigger deal than variances but they're not completely unlike variances I don't know if that's fair but it seems to me it would be better suited to the skills and responsibilities of Board of Adjustment

Councilwoman Schneider and Council, you know we have an upcoming revision of the UDO. It's in the works. It's coming to you. I've had the privilege of reviewing the chapters that are relevant to what I do. And my recommendation is going to be that you shift special use permits to the BOA as part of adopting the revised UDO. for all the reasons you've noted and the fact that the BOA has expertise and has no business lately. And after the recent long meetings this council went through for the rare occasion of an SUP, it illustrated that the BOA is sitting there quite capable of taking all quasi-judicial matters seriously and freeing this council to deal with policy matters. So that is going to be my recommendation in the upcoming revisions.

Thank you. And we also need to pay attention to, on this, because there's recent, a new state statute that may give, and Michael, our attorney, can help us with this, is there's a new state statute that may give developers or any citizen an option whether to completely bypass either procedures to go directly to the Superior Court.

Interesting.

So that's something that just passed.

Let me see if I understand where we are. This topic was The introduction of a text amendment to the event center ordinance. There's been a lot of presentation from you, Sean. Everybody's question. And with this... Have we accomplished the introduction?

Let me follow up. And also, comments can be sent to me each individually, and I can incorporate those into... back into this before they go to public hearing and those can be added to that. This gives you the opportunity to make those stuff on that.

Well, the other comment I made is I think that it can be appropriate in RS-40. So I'm not in favor of taking that out.

Okay, so this has been introduced. We've had comments.

We're not asking for any action on this item.

That's where I'm driving. But the next phases, it will go back to planning and zoning. They will have a public hearing. Once they're through that, it will come back to us for a public hearing as well. Okay. Does that summarize where we are? So we can conclude this. Does everybody agree?

Yep. Let's go.

Thank you. We're at the best part now, the most exciting. The monthly financial update, Sam.

Mayor, not being critical, but you announced that with all the mirth and joy of a person that just had a colonoscopy.

Yeah.

I can tell you what they figured out. I did enjoy reading it today, as I always do.

Oh, me. Okay. Everyone should have got a copy of the finance officer's report and the related financial statements. For the financials, as normal, we're maintaining strong balance sheet position. Total current assets at 2.676 million, fund balance at 2.659 million, of which that considerable amount is either committed to capital projects or is reserved for various fund balances that are restricted or stabilized. So overall, fairly normal month. I say that because the good news is the ACH wire transfer remitting property tax of $803,013 from August motor vehicle of $13,845.76 was released by Guilford County Tax Department. Total to be received is $815,858.76. Collections are, from what the county is telling us, slightly behind their projections. They do project that during the month of September to all users, which is all the municipalities, the fire districts, any special use districts. They're expecting the forecast they gave us for our budgets to be realized by the end of September. So that's good news. The system is back and working. There was some delays with getting bills out. I know that personally I just got two of my property tax bills within the last 72 hours. But they're getting things going. For the month, we had our normal sales and property tax. We received interest, solid waste tax, I mean solid waste disposal tax, some HTC donations and park revenues, investments. We're monitoring those. I have sent out emails as of the last two days. We're getting quotes coming back with our depository banks on the best place to try to place the $800,000 that's just come in. We've had grant compliance throughout the month. Budget preparation is primarily over. Our budgets are accepted. Everything's in at the county. During the month of July, we did some of the state reporting. All the tax rates and everything else have all been verified as being in at the county. So all of that's working quite well. Still got some residual with ARPA, the CIP, and, of course, we're still working on the water system. The main big thing that we've had in the last few days was Thompson Price Adams and Company. We call them TPAC for short. They physically came in. We had the first field work done. very good people to work with, very thorough, with this being the first time with them doing the town. There is some additional amount of documentation that we've got to give. They did come down and do walkthroughs here at the town. They talked to some of the staff. Overall, very, very complimentary statements. Nothing negative about anything that they did in meeting and working with the staff, reviewing our records and everything. So I think they're going to be a good fit for us. Most of their audit work is, in fact, governmental. And with their depth of clients and the breadth of knowledge they've got, it has been some really good conversations. They've made some helpful suggestions. They're asking questions in the right areas, verifying things. So it's going really quite well. We are working with them on... They give us a list and any pending items, we're still working on those and getting them to them. They've got a really good portal that promotes communication. We check off things. When they have got it, they put a check mark on it, and we can see in real time where we're standing, what they're needing, what we're still getting, what they are sending back to us. So overall, very, very good relations. With that said, the... The audit is underway. They'll be coming back probably end of September for one day of field work, possibly two if there should be another need. We're moving everything in the current time. We're moving it all electronically and or by phone. So all of that looks good. As far as our collections and everything going on, that will be back on schedule to what we've historically seen month by month, hopefully by the end of this month. So overall, good report for the month, and we should be in business as normal, which after the moratorium and everything else that went on, it's kind of nice to get back to a normal cycle. That's pretty much everything.

Thank you, Sam. Any questions from counsel?

No, it was great.

Thank you.

I move we approve the financial report as presented by our finance officer.

Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Okay. We're now ready for our committee reports. Planning and Zoning Board. Does anyone hear from Planning and Zoning? Board of Adjustment? No. Mountains to the Sea. I believe we do have a friendly face from the Mountains to the Sea Committee.

Okay.

Good evening, I am Ann Steele, Chair of the MST Committee. I live at 8927 Grove Park Drive. The committee met for our monthly meeting here at Town Hall on August 25th. We discussed the condition of the Headwaters Trail. We had a trail work day on Saturday, August 15th, where despite the high humidity and temperature, we were able to get a good bit of the trail trimmed and scraped. We also worked on rerouting a portion of the trail to avoid an area of excessive moisture. There still is some work to be done, which we hope to complete on our next work day, which is September 12th. We discussed our plans for the booth for Heritage Day. We will have the ever popular bamboo poles for the youngsters to decorate and make their own hiking pole. We will also be advertising our plans for a guided hike that will take place on Saturday, October 17th, which is Great Trails State Day for this year. This will provide us the opportunity to showcase a local trail as well as provide information about our committee. More details will be available soon. And we are continuing to work well as a group and brainstorm ways to make our trails and our community better. Thank you for your continued support. Please let me know if you have any suggestions or questions.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Any questions? Thank you. All right. Conservation Easement Committee. I don't see. Didn't meet. Special Events Committee. Welcome back. Hop along.

You're doing pretty well.

Not too shabby.

That's impressive.

Not too shabby. Not bad after six weeks of non-weight-bearing, but we'll make it.

Tell us where you are and where you live.

Our last meeting was on August 20th, 2026. We have a new order in for engraving for our pavers at the walk at the Veterans Honor Greens. We hope to have those back and installed before Veterans Day. And we have our 9-11 remembrance on Friday, September 11th at 8.30 a.m. And we'll unveil our new project over there. I'm not going to describe what it looks like. It kind of defeats the purpose of the unveiling. So that will be adjacent to Veterans Honor Green at Heritage Farm Park. Then we have Heritage Day. Hopefully it won't rain three years in a row. On September 26th, and there's going to be a muffin contest. And you better have your muffins in by 11 o'clock to be judged. And they will judge them at 1130. And Veterans Day on Tuesday, November the 11th at 10 a.m. at Veterans Honor Green at Heritage Farm Park. And then our last event of the year is the Light Up the Night, which is on Saturday, November 21st. And we moved it up. I think I've told you all in the past to kind of avoid the other conflicts with other events so we could keep all our people in Oak Ridge. So I want to thank the council and Mr. Bruce for all your support and give us any ideas you have. Thank you.

Thank you for what you do.

Thank you.

Tree board. Mr. Kinneman.

Jim Kinnaman, 8502 Hollow River Court. Thank you very much for approving Winnie. She's going to be a great addition to the tree board. She's a delightful individual. The existing trees along Linville will eventually need to be removed, as we've discussed previously. Over time, it will become impossible to prune them to Duke Energy's clearance requirements, while still also adhering to the historic preservation guidelines. As the front door and visual introduction to our park, we want to ensure the streetscape aesthetics match the rest of our beautiful grounds. Whether that transition takes place in 10, 20, or 30 years, proactive planning is essential. To prepare, the tree board has initiated conversations with the Parks and Recreation to develop a long-term replacement plan. We had a very productive conversation with them last week. Planting new trees soon gives them decades to mature so that whenever the current canopy must come down, an established tree line is already in place. The investment to put the two trees in would be less than $10,000, and we expect some of that would be offset by some memorial tree dedications, things like that. The removal of the trees is a built-in. Whether we do something or not, eventually those trees will need to be removed because they just will not be suitable to stay under the power lines. So that's a cost that we're going to have to deal with at some point. Now, again, whether that's 10, 20, 30, or even 40 years from now, we don't know. But by planting some trees now, We make a modest investment, but when the time comes, the trees are already mature and things like that. With the lights that Parks and Rec is putting in, we will actually probably put in less trees than are already there because you'll alternate the lights and the trees and things like that. So the number of trees that are already there, we'll probably put in less. We're coordinating with town staff to finalize the details and roll out for the memorial tree program. Arbor Day celebration, because of some scheduling conflicts, we're going to have to reschedule that for October 29th at 10 a.m. It's a very simple ceremony. It's not going to be very elaborate. We're basically going to Plant a tree. The main goal is that a part of our requirements for Arbor to be a tree city, we need to have a little ceremony and plant a tree. There's also seven other trees that are in the budget for that, that we'll work with staff to get those seven other trees planted too. And as last month I said, we do need a proclamation from council next month recognizing Arbor Day. Even though Arbor Day nationally is in the spring, We can have Arbor Day any day we want. So basically next October, at your next meeting, we'd ask you to do the proclamation. Okay? Thanks. Thank you.

Any questions? All right. Parks and Recreation Advisory Board. Adrian.

Hello, Adrian, Co-Chair Parks and Rec. So we met on August 20th in person and by Zoom. Brock updated us that after a recent new hire that the park is now fully staffed and that the vacant rental property is currently still pending the replacement septic installation. As Mr. Kinnaman noted, we did meet from the tree board. We do appreciate their foresight in this planning. Giving, you know, decades for the trees to mature is definitely the prudent approach. So we appreciate that discussion and getting in front of those options and discussing future planning. And obviously, we've met with Revington Reeves. We've had the pleasure of meeting with them multiple times. I know you're kind of more fresh to that conversation. I'll spend just a quick moment. We spoke with some tennis players, pickleball players, and we had some revisions. I think, as you most noted, the proposal that was presented to you had three of the sides covered with sidewalks. Part of that was with the, we added, because originally the We had two, so now we have three. So that one side against the tennis courts, the reason we didn't put one there is with the addition of the gates. All of the players that we spoke with felt that that was adequate for walking on courts without over-walking because prior to the addition of some gates, there were some concerns in areas of that. Plus, as I think was noted, you want to leave that open until we do the lighting in some other areas. So keeping that area open allowed for, I definitely think that was an area where I think a phase approach is probably very strong, whether it's stage structures, benches, anything else that happens there. So I would encourage us to consider leaving that sidewalk not finished until we're really sure we're kind of wrapping up all the phases for that reason. The Farmhouse Community Center, we are awaiting three comparable bids for the additional 20 parking space lot. It has been rented 113 hours since July 1st. Music in the Park, August was an accessible event with approximately 1,000 visitors, despite some initial weather concerns during that day. Our next event is during the Ridge Fest, which Ridge Fest is September 10th through 12th. And on September 10th, we will feature the band Bandemic. Music on the lawn we just concluded our an August event which was another successful event there and September 27th will be the next music on the lawn event That's been noted about the 911 more of course and the Heritage Day is also September 26th Questions just a comment I think for me anyway, I don't know about other council members

If you could say, besides the hours rented, how many times it was rented? So was it 13 times for 130 hours or whatever that number is?

We had a partial report. Brock gave us some numbers. Ashley was not present in that meeting, so she advised us that she would have those numbers for us.

Sorry, that's me. It's not your fault.

During our next meeting. So I didn't have the full depth of hours information yet. I do know, remember from the reporting that Brock was able to provide to us that one of the kind of call-out notes was there was actually more rental hours from non-residents than residents. And very few hours leveraged from the free senior periods during those off-peak hours. Again, it would be helpful to have that information.

Absolutely. I'll be sure we have it next time. In my head, I'm going, okay, yeah. What's that equate to?

A fun, really long rental.

Right. Somebody booked it for the weekend or something.

Yes. I do know it's staying basically fully booked as has been conveyed.

Yes. There seems to always be somebody there.

Yes.

Certainly on weekends and during the week as well. So thank you. Any comments or questions from the from council.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Adrian. Thank you, committee. Finance committee did not meet. Mr. Jenkins has departed. Water advisory committee did not meet, but will be meeting next Wednesday. Historic preservation commission. Is there anybody from HPC?

They didn't meet.

I don't know if they met or not. I don't think they did. Okay. So that ends up the committee reports. We have another time for public comments. Anybody wish to speak, come forward, state your name and your address. Do you see anybody? So I'll stop that area. There is now time for council comments. Mr. Greeson.

I'm good.

You're so good. Well, I know you're good. Okay. Ms. Clark.

Yes, first, sorry for the phone disturbance earlier. I'd pulled up information on Ridge Fest, and I just wanted to run people to coming out to Ridge Fest next Thursday through Saturday. It's always a great time, so maybe I'll see you there.

Mr. Stone.

Yeah. Please remember and reflect on the 9-11 this year, 25 years. It's becoming history that's taught in the schools instead of for the folks in this room that lived it and experienced it. The observance here or in Heritage Farm Park at 8.30 on 9-11. Please, if you're available, attend that. Also, 18th annual, 18 years of Ridge Fest. Isn't that amazing? It started out really small, and now it's just rocking and rolling. We can always use volunteers at Ridge Fest, see Randy Floss or anybody with the Merchants Association, help them out there. That was gonna be the end of my comments, but I've got to address one other thing. I have to question when a former town council member who had 12 years to make any recommendations, plans, proposals for the sports courts didn't offer any, but feels the need to comment and chastise decisions of the current town council. All of the park facilities have been phased, every single one of them. The town park didn't have an amphitheater when we started, didn't have picnic shelters. We added picnic shelters at the pond. We added a playground at the pond. So everything's being phased. Redmond is still ongoing. Parking needs are still ongoing. We phase everything. That's just good planning. If the 2022 town council had chosen to move forward on the sports courts, there wouldn't be any parking included because it's not on their plan. But I guess that town council's position was, we'll finish it later. That's what I heard. A good plan well executed is better than a perfect plan that's never implemented or no plan at all. This town council is working hard to plan. We're listening to the citizens and we're moving forward and we're doing it with due diligence. To think otherwise or to accuse or assume otherwise is just absolutely wrong. Thank you.

Ms. Snyder.

I want to thank you, Adrian, for mentioning the service of your youth liaison, Reese Bell, over four years. I've seen her in action. She's a neighbor of mine. She just did wonderful things for your board, and I'm so proud to know her. I'm also proud to know Patty Demchowski, and I'm so thrilled that she was honored tonight. She truly exemplifies what's best about our town and what's best about volunteers because her faith, her town, and her country are at the center of everything she does. And I think most people in this room would just be exhausted if they had to read half of the emails and texts that Patty deals with on a weekly basis. But that's what she's good at. She's good at managing all the details, but more importantly, she's done a fantastic job of inspiring others to serve. and that's exemplified by the work of everyone else on the Special Events Committee. So congratulations, Patty. Also, something a lot more boring but important, I did have a discussion today with Josh Evans at NCDOT, and I want to remind all residents that his number, he's the project manager, we are not the project managers, He is the project manager for all of the intersection projects. And his number is included on all of the town's posts, which I really appreciate. So I called him today. And I said, when do you think the roundabout at 68 in Linville is going to be done? Because there was a previous date of early June. He said it will be done this fall. It will still be the first one to be done. He also... He said in response to... There were a lot of complaints, particularly yesterday. He said paving, the paving that's been going on, the repaving, is always the worst part of any intersection development project, and that will continue to be the case when repaving happens. So they understand that it's hard for residents, but they have to do what they have to do. He expects the Linville 60... the Oak Ridge Road roundabout to be much easier with less construction than the Linville 68 roundabout. And he thinks that the intersection, the main intersection, will at this point be relatively easy to finish up. With all that said, he hopes and expects, but can't guarantee, that the project will be completed before the recently extended completion date of September 2027. I also wanted to say that I continue to represent Oak Ridge and the other 549 towns and cities in North Carolina as the second VP. of the North Carolina League of Municipalities. I've also been appointed to serve on the Legislative Policy Committee, which I co-chaired last year and was a member of the year before. The work of this committee is important to me because it guides the League's advocacy efforts on behalf of our towns and cities, efforts that truly make a difference at the General Assembly. given the amount of respect that the League commands in Raleigh. Finally, I want to thank everybody who's had a hand in creating the 9-11 memorial that will be unveiled and that, you know, if you look at the Fox News report, you'll see what it looks like. But special thanks to our parks staff. Brock and Kyle helped get the 1,000 pounds of cement into the ground. And the design was created by Pat O'Neill of Carolina Signsmith. And he really took the idea that Patty had and that I was working with her to help refine, he took it and turned it into what you will see is something very special. I also want to thank Mark Reeves, because he was generous enough since his firm designed the Veterans Honor Green to help guide us on what would be an appropriate placement for this new memorial adjacent to the 9-11 memorial. So this is just a very meaningful donation that Patty organized to get the piece of a steel beam from the World Trade Center donated to us by D.H. Griffin. It is just very moving and very incredible. And the speaker, Lenny Brzezinski from the Port Authority, who worked at the Port Authority on 9-11, he will be an incredible addition to this event. So please come out. Thank you.

Thank you. Regarding the work on the DOT, again, I encourage everybody to... You just have to be extra patient as we go through these next phases of putting in roundabouts and extending the intersection, et cetera. A lot of what I think you heard earlier regarding there's a fair amount of impatience that that shouldn't exist, but they're basically people that are saying, uh, I want to go that way, even though the signs telling me not to, and it's really causing problems for everyone else around them. So, um, it, it is probably something that at some point we might have to, um, and we're encouraged tonight to put, uh, uh, put, put a special police forces there to deal with it. Um, But beyond that, I just ask everybody to be patient, plan accordingly, give yourself a little extra time, and realize that there's going to be folks that are making the left-hand turn that are blocking traffic and just basically causing a problem for everyone else who's trying to do it the right way. I finally showed up. I do want to recognize Freddie, who's been a tremendous backup to Patty during her terms. And she didn't volunteer for anything else tonight, Freddie. But we'll catch up with her tomorrow because we've been noting 15 different things we'd like to have her work on. But that's a joke. I'd like to thank Mr. Page, former sheriff of Rockingham County and now running for Senate, for joining us tonight and learning a little bit about Oak Ridge and what we have going on. We have had a lot of projects going on for the last two years, two of which we have no control, the DOT issues that we've talked about. There is a gas pipeline thing that we have no control on either that's been going through and will continue to go through for the next couple of months. And one thing that we have had control on is our water system. And you've seen our new tower. We will be, hopefully, between now and the end of the year, extending it down to Oak Ridge Commons, and at that point we'll be turning it on. Beyond that, we have to work with the elementary school, the fire department, and other buildings along this road. And then, as Bill said, I think 30 individuals have signed up, and we hope more will between now and the end of the year. So I will stop there because Ann covered a lot of things. I really thank everybody for staying with us tonight. And I'll ask for a motion to adjourn. I'll make a motion to adjourn.

Second.

All in favor? Aye.