Town Council - Regular Meeting

Our first agenda item. Our first agenda item. Just heads up, we're live on YouTube. Just so you have your mic turn on and pull towards you. Hello.

Can you hear me? You want me to do it again? Okay. We are going to call the budget presentation meeting for Wednesday, February 11th, 2026 to order. The first action item on our agenda is the consideration of a resolution to amend a previously adopted resolution regarding the reallocation of funds previously committed for fireworks and the composition of an ad hoc downtown seasonal decorations committee. So we had voted um to have this committee and to have five members including a member of town council. This resolution would allow five members with a member of town council on it. Um, yes. So, do I have a

I move to accept the revised resolution? Do I have a second? Second. All in favor? Resolution carries. The second kind of item on our agenda is that of departmental presentations. Um, looks like we have the police up first. Or did you want to change that? Uh, I think it's street sanitation. Street and sanitation. Yep. Yeah, I think it's street. Okay, I'm going to turn it. This is listed. Well, we'll go in any order y'all want to go. We're prepared to go with police first. It will take us a minute to adjust it. Okay, this is

whoever would like to go first. I am just going by what is listed. Well, I'm I'm going to uh real shortly kind of do a brief overview of a couple things. Uh so, back here we have some giant post notes. If y'all have any ideas, any questions, anything you want to make a note of, just feel free to get up, go back there, write it on the wall so we can take it, record it moving forward. Um couple of things I think just a uh just some information on the projects we currently got going on. Uh, of course most of y'all know we have the wastewater treatment plant going on. It's scheduled to finish December 31st, 2026. Um, so we have completed all the skip funding in it. Uh, we we're waiting on the earmark funding to start. Um, and then u we have already spent one of the $ 1.5 million earmark that we got. Uh we have roughly uh about $20 million uh in in projects that we have to do that that's done with either federal money or state money combined. Uh so that's moving forward. Uh we particularly got 10 million in one grant for that 105 $1.5 million earmark and then Anderson and Clinton had to pay us 600,000. Uh, we also have the EPA stag grant. That's fancy way of saying federal earmark from Senator Graham's office. Um, that will be a minimum of the $6.3 million project moving forward. We're we're just very bogged down with the EPA trying to get through their environmental clearance on to approve our project. And we we met on it yesterday and you know they're they keep asking us a whole bunch of questions. Uh but those partners of course are the EPA, Appalachin Council of Governments, Department of Environmental Services,

Clemson and Anderson with us. Um we did include our match in the 2024 bond. Uh and I say that because, you know, we're going into the budget, so we're going to be talking about the bonds we have out, the financing we have out, and what they're going to and a whole bunch of other things. Uh Central Road Pump Station, um we got a call from CAT. uh they have moved our generator up on the manufacturing list. So we will probably have our generator by the end of the month. Um that was originally essentially a 5050 um grant slash us paying it through our water and sewer bond that we released in 2024. Uh we did get $400,000 more dollars in grants from the state. So that has lowered that project significantly which is why we were able to add the generator. Um we will be we will have a total of about 900,000 in grants on that project. We'll be able to take our 400,000 move it to village hills water and sewer uh which will impact it. You know all these things have a trickle down effect on how your funding works through your budget. So the uh Winston Streets 90% complete. We had gotten a $750,000 grant for CDBG and we paid the match out of our fund balance. uh Bruise parking lot. We're starting um everybody needs to be patient with us. It's it's uh we're we're working on a more detailed construction schedule for the parking lot in particular so that we can start telling people exactly when it's going to be closed, but it will be closed for probably a couple months because we have to dig out all the sewer, level it, and then actually putting the concrete back will go faster. And then we're trying to work contract to figure out is there any way we can open up parts of it even if it's graveled to allow for some parking in there. Um but we are working in the alleyway behind there. Uh we've been meeting with Main Exchange and Swamp Fox. Um and we have some of the water

line in the hydrant set and we have probably 30% of the sewer line in there. Um so you know that's and once we get out of the alleyway we'll be fine. But Duke came and reset one of the polls, but now we have a problem with our retaining wall that we have braced up. So, Steve, I I'm new to this budget process. So, I came in prepared to talk about sanitation and police and so these are capital items and so this is an additional thing we're considering today. No, these are just broad overviews.

So, it's really hard to get a lot of these numbers not in writing and for me to understand. So now I've got another now you've raised another issue and I have some significant questions about that retaining wall and its height and what we need to do with it. I'm not clear what this for the whole budget process like why we're doing this now. You just need to explain to me why are we doing this now and why don't I have it in writing and what are we going to do so we can give it to you in writing. So we we does this as in common. So this is this is just general knowledge as we go through here because you're going to be talking about the budget for the next four weeks at a minimum. But are we going to have a session to talk just about these capital projects in one session? So these are your ongoing. These are already and you report on them every month.

And we report on them every month. But they have some impact into what you're getting ready to do these next four weeks. But are they going to have impact on what Jay and David are going to talk about today? Yep. And I need them to articulate what that impact is when that impact comes up because I can't keep all these things you've just given me in my head and focus on David and Jay at the same time. That's just me. I'm sorry. That's just my cuz I'm new to this. I I get it and I understand it because well, we're going to go from this and we're going to talk about what you see on the screen that just went dark cuz this is how you actually develop your budget. Well, we just finished that class and this Yeah. So, they did talk about doing it in the

um the uh village and hills water and sewer.

It's out the bid. We're 1.6 6 million. It's under the 2.1 million estimate. We're going to be moving uh in this budget or in a budget amendment to capital project 400,000 for Central Road into it. Uh we've got the Seymour out uh Calhoun and Queen Street and the Greenway down there. Uh those are going to benefit by us moving this money as we write these new capital project ordinances and this new budget. So, that's going to move up some of your streets and some of your other things that get moved in there. Uh, your branding campaign course is going on and you have a water and sewer system study. That's a $225,000 grant RIA going on right now. But when we talk Yes, ma'am. Don't get too hung up on these because we're gonna be talking about these.

The Brandon study is not affected by any of this really because that money was appropriate in the previous budget, right? It was. So, we have we have to track all that and carry it forward. No, I know. I'm just saying. And the other thing is Bruise parking lot is next to the Buddy Dorm. Yes. So, whatever work we're doing on Bruise, is it going to impact anything with Buddy Durham that we can get done instead of coming back a year later saying, "Oh, we got to do this in and

um I doubt it because we're probably going to have to bring in an engineer on that wall." So, we're going to have to talk about that probably in the street budget or building the grounds budget some point. Uh, but what does the budget actually look like outside of what y'all adopt? This is your proformer for the town. So, this is your actual budget for the town. And it has multiple pages and don't worry because we're all going to get to play in it before it said done. So, so don't get hung up on what's up here because we haven't finished updating it. Uh we do have our new funds added into it uh which shows up there in municipal facilities and special revenue funds. Uh but what does this thing do? So people ask well how do we come up with these numbers? Well uh we track the numbers. So this is all your tax, this is all your special revenue funds. This is all your water and sewer funds. It tracks we help it uh add in some cost escalation and stuff to it to help it predict the numbers. Uh this is probably what's most important as we talk about this and this is why I wanted to go over this

packet. I can't read this. No, you can't you can't get this. So this is a huge program that what happens is we So I want to know how much revenue we get from property taxes. We we'll go through that hospitality tax in a nice neat

Yeah. We we'll go through that. So that will be in your budget. But what this is for is this is all the the capital projects are projects that come out of this. We put in this sheet right here and you can turn it on and off and in real time you can watch what it does to the budget. So at the end when y'all write stuff on here and y'all do some other stuff, we'll be able to come in here. We'll we'll try to get as much uploaded as we can. We can sit here and turn it on uh with a number. There it goes. It'll turn on like that with a number and it'll be forecasted out in the future years so that it will actually show what it does to your budget.

Can you isolate like Nancy is wanting to know? Yeah. Can you isolate certain portions and and send to us? Yes, we can. We can we can do that. So, here's all your revenues on fund. Uh this is your actuals that we're we're up Whoops. We're uploading out of the uh audit and it helps it just starts projecting them forward. Same thing with your expenses. Uh these are just your other funds that get loaded up in here. Um

what's our total? So, this income so income is profit taxes and we are limited. Our debt is limited without revenue to 8% of that. 8% of your valuation, not your property tax. So, you have that valuation number? Uh, we have that valuation number. It doesn't get plugged in here, but that's a number we need to be aware of, but but it's about I think it's about 2.7 million and you've got about 1.6 of that out right now. That'd be a good number to have. And then the hospitality um fees, hospitality taxes right here

is 43,000. It's 480,000 is what it's currently projecting, but it was $454 in the audit.

$400,000,000 million. Yeah. And what is that percentage? That's growth. That's your growth percentage that you had going in year over year, not 12. Yep. And you're going to even though it's been very high. It's been it's been very high. We haven't gone in here yet, Nancy, to to look at these projections, but we'll we'll change these projections based on some other stuff that we see back here. Um and then Yes, ma'am. with hospitality taxes that comes from what? Hospitality comes from prepared food and beverage that's consumed on site or readily available to be consumed.

But it doesn't come from um bedding, breakfast, hotels, anything like that. Uh yes, it can if it's consumed on site. So if it's um yeah, if I think it's if they have someone outside, not stay. So if they had a restaurant along with breakfast. Okay. Um this is your uh this is your peer chart. So we can actually when this gets updated we can actually compare ourselves. These are the other people that are in South Carolina that use this same system to budget. So we

necessarily are comparables in terms of demographics or population are comparables in terms of people that use our same software. the same software. Yep. So, you you just kind of have to look at it and kind of know the size they are and you can just start making some intelligent comparisons. Um the uh and then these are your selected peers. So, as people people start using this same thing, we can we can add them in there. Um this is your debt service Nancy you were talking about. We can predict all the debt service. Uh we this is all of our existing debt service loaded in there and we update that. We update the amateurization schedule. So when you we talk about doing the budget, what y'all talk about today, we take all of this back. This is this is the main thing that that take out of this. We take all this back. It gets fed into this and and we use this along with that CIP uh tab to help for formulate the impacts of the budget based on certain decisions. And then what we have done in the past is we have sat down with each of y'all individually and let y'all turn on and turn off these tabs so you can physically see what happens. So that's why it's important put your comments up here. I think we're going to try to send some surveys out after this stuff. Get comments back on particular departments. Uh we have to try to take all that stuff and assign numbers to them to to get into the budget. Uh but it but it's all here. So, we just wanted y'all to see that because many of y'all haven't even seen this or knew this is actually how we we we start preparing the budget. So,

so we're not doing the individual like we've been doing. We're going to try to Yeah. Just just it's a good exercise for y'all to see, you know, personally. Um what the budget does. But with that, uh I think we're going to turn it over to David. Uh and he's actually going to start talking about the police department. So, thanks Steve. And if council has specific questions, send me an email and I will get those on the agenda for next

week. That way, we can make sure that all the questions are addressed and that council has the materials requested. Oh. Um, so let me know. I'm more than happy to All right, Mrs. Mayor, Council, good evening everybody or good morning. I'm used to saying good evening. Appreciate you uh giving us the opportunity to present this to you. My goal today is kind of introduce you to some of the things that we've currently got going on in our police department budget and then some of our goals and objectives for next year um dealing with law enforcement in the town of Pendleton. So, our agenda that we want to go over today is going to be our departmental overview. basically telling you what we do, how we how we do it, how many of us are there to do it. Do a quick 2025 in review. I'm going state some of our objectives in actually introduce you to our budget. I'm going to show you our current budget that we're on right now that we're operating on and then a budget that we're proposing to go to for in future of 2026. We'll also talk a little bit about some constraints that we have in the police department, a future 2026 and beyond. And then at the last part, any questions you guys may have. So, if you have any questions during any of this, please just just let me know and ask ask away. Good. Okay. All right. So, the first thing I want to talk about is is our overview for the police department. The police officer responsible for handling all law enforcement duties as well as ancillary duties with within the town as assigned. So those responsibilities include both proactive and reactive calls. So like if somebody dials 911 and needs law enforcement services, we respond to that. Anything like an accident where you have to direct traffic, those are all responsibilities that law enforcement handles. The ancillary things that we do is like directing traffic during special events,

administrative support where we have to do things like moving vehicles or anything that doesn't really involve an active crime or active law enforcement. And then community relations. You know, one thing that we really want to try and and work on this year and really bolster is our community enhancement or our community event. So, that's one thing that's important to the police department that we really want to try and and and work on this year. Um, going into 2027, we actually have 10 sworn officers. Actually, that number is down to nine now. We had one officer who put in his notice and has resigned from the town. Uh, so we will be working on, you know, where we go from there. But we uh we have a very diverse team of officers. We have a Spanish speaking officer. We have a very well-rounded department. I think we have a lot of, you know, self-motivated individuals. We've got a lot of instructors. I know that uh Chief Crosby has done a really good job of of sending people to training so that they can come back and extend that knowledge that they learn on to the people that work with them. Training is a real big thing for the department because the more training you do, the better officer it makes you. And it's just something that we really pay a lot of attention to. I'm having a Spanish speaking officer has already paid off. Well, even though she's on she's on light duty right now, if we have an issue, they can call in to her. She can go on telephone and they she can kind of translate for us on on any kind of situations. There is a service that is provided by the state for that, but it cost it's very expensive. So, having her on board is a real asset to the department. We currently have 12 uh cars in the patrol or 12 patrol cars and one Kawasaki mule. Our oldest two cars are our spare cars and they're both one's a 2020 a 2016 and a 2017. And I think you've all seen the Kawasaki mule. That's a great tool that we have. We use for events. You'll see it out for things that we need to do off-road or anything like we do on the square for for the uh special events. So that's

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Yes, sir. I just wonder are the 10 officers all full-time?

They are. Yes, sir. And that includes me. So, let's do a little 20 2025 in review. Throughout the year, we had 14 violent crimes committed in Pendleton. And these are your above average violent crimes. We had six sexual assaults. We had five aggravated assaults. We had two shootings and one stabbing. Unfortunately, we also had one homicide in 2025 um that everybody was everybody's aware of. So, you can see that, you know, even even though we we do a really good job of handling things, we're really proactive. Crime is crime and it happens anywhere. So this just this is what happened in 20 2025. We had the 14 violent crimes during that time. We also um it was kind of interesting. We answered 105 domestic calls. And that's not saying that when we got there that was an actual domestic assault, but it was a report that there was a domestic action going on. 105 of those were reported through 2025. We also responded to 135 animal complaint calls, which is astonishing. animal complaints are really gaining. They're just they're coming from all over the place. The problem again with animal control is we're kind of in the catch 22 because with the way pause is operating, we really don't have an opportunity to take these animals and really get them what they need. Once if you take care of them, you bring them into you, it's hard to to put them where they need to go because you have nobody that can accept them. So that's one challenge that we're still facing that I know we speak of a lot. So that's 2025 in review for violent crimes. on that.

I'm I'm sorry to keep interrupting. No, no, no. You're fine. Um, going back to that, are those totals included calls to the sheriff or are those just included calls to the police force? This is just and I'll get that's a good question. I'll get to that in the but this is just what this is what happened in the town. So, this is both this is both either the sheriff's office responded or we responded or both. So, these are actual calls that were told for everything.

Yep. It's a good question. So again, continuing with the 2025 in review, again, the shot with a cop, that is one of the one of the biggest events that we have. Um, I know that the police department really does a lot of work on that. It's something that's really true and dear to their heart because we really enjoy it. Like I've said before, all it takes is one trip to Walmart to watch these kids be able to pick out what they want, go to the register, and not have to worry about that. You know, that is something that is is it's a tool that we have to to create relationships, but also to bring a little bit of joy and and laughter to these kids. You know, none of this could be made possible without the support we get from our community and from our donors and from the businesses in town. So, that was a great great event that we had and I think we raised I want to say it was around $9,000, but I know it was more than $8,000 and that's just with people volunteering and and donating their money. So, we really appreciate that. Other things that we did was we also attended a career day at the elementary school. I know Chief Crosby and Gabe went over there and they set up a table and had all the neat little things for the kids to look at. They also participated in the walk from or the hike to school. This is where the elementary school meets at the doghouse here and they walk back to the elementary school and we help them with traffic and just kind of join with them and go through and make sure that you everybody's safe. And then other community events. So we did the um the splash of summer or the last splash of summer last year. I know me, Lindsay, and Amber sat around. We handed out icicles and lollipops and those things are really great. It's just a fun time where you can get in there when the community can interact with you when it's not their worst day of the year and it's after something that's fun and it makes them smile and it actually brings smile laughter to us. Uh some of the other community events we do like I know right now we're doing the um the bringing a loved one to breakfast at the school which has been really cool. We're doing it all this week and all next week. And then yesterday we had a really cool little kid that was in kindergarten and we had to play these little games and they had these Uno cards and they had to add up the numbers and find out what the numbers were and they had to tell us. So it was neat to watch this little kid in fifth, you know, K5 count

on his fingers, you know, what the numbers were. And then he asked me, he says, "Well, you do one, so I did one and I counted on my fingers and made sure I had the right numbers." So it was a lot of fun and the kids really enjoy it. So and then we did a Pilton Elks Lodge, a drug takeback event. This is where, you know, they set up these little boxes and you can bring uh medication that's no longer using or is expired and get rid of it because you don't want to just put that inside of the uh drains or flushing it down the toilet. So again, uh in 2025, the police department hired some new officers. We hired Wiria Miranda. She's our Spanish speaking officer. She's been really, really instrumental with the department. Uh Timothy Tho, who you'll hear be called Blake, that's what he goes by. He's actually in the academy right now. Cody Andrews, Steve Reese, and Jordan Wallace were all hired. One of these guys actually replaced Austin Morano who retired last year. Um, so we were really, you know, back up to that that nine space or 10 officers where you guys approved that last year in last year's budget. They also purchased three new police vehicles for the officers that were hired last year. Um, and all of those were were were brand new vehicles. Um and again I told you the active all of our active vehicles that are actively in the fleet are at least a 2022 or newer. So one other thing that the department did became NCIC compliant along with mobile inrogation that means that you can use NCIC. NCIC is your national crime information center. That is if if anybody is got any information like if you get a warrant taken out on you they can enter that into this system and we're able to go into that system if we interact with you and tell if you've got a warrant. Yes ma'am. for the NCIS um review. If um somebody in Pendleton wreck wants to be a sorry, somebody in Pendleton wreck wants to be a coach for the kids, do we run them through there to make sure they're not a a bad person?

Yes. So, we do we can do background checks for employment and stuff like that. So, that is also do it for P for the coaches. I believe they do do it for I believe they I know they do service, but they might not have to pay for the service if we're already paying for it here. So I'm not sure typically we can do it for employment but I don't know if that actually considers as an employment because of the relationship with the town but that is something we can definitely look at even even like for us when we do a background check for an employee most of the time I don't use the NCIC I just do a flood background check and unless they're they've just moved here then I have Robbie do that so because it's more of a national

Yeah. But if they're from around here, I just do the sled check. It's $25. And we do that for P as well. We don't. But the P has it done. Yeah, there is a I think there is a a waiver of the fee for a nonprofit. Okay. Sorry.

Those are good questions. Um the the important thing about the NCIC is again if we're on traffic stop and somebody has a warrant on them, they usually will associate with the tag or something like that. So a lot of times we know before we get out of the vehicle that hey the person that owns this car it has a warrant on them out of wherever you know and if it's a very violent warrant is very good information to have up front. It also gives us the ability to put information in um so that you know if it goes to a different state or something. So it's just a way to to get the information collect the information and have it readily accessible. Now the important thing of this is being able to utilize this as a mobile intergation in our vehicles is now we have this NCIC capability on our in our vehicles so that we can actually have real-time data right there in front of us. So the other thing it does it also keeps traffic off of the radio when you're talking to dispatchers on the radio. You don't have to sit there and you know tell a guy's name or lady's name and date of birth and social security number what they're wearing. It doesn't take up that much time on the air. So, it's really a tool that if somebody needs air time in another city or whoever we're we're sharing the the dispatch with, you know, we're not hogging up all the air time. So, it's really an important thing. It's really worked out well for for the department. We've completed or we our officers have completed over 500 hours of departmental training. Now, that training, there's 360 hours of inservice training. So, the academy requires at least 40 hours of inservice training to maintain your certification. So you can see that we've done 360 hours of inservice over 115 hours of specialized training. Some of those specialized trainings that we've been to is a specific skills instructor and basically that allows an officer to teach a class that already has like a lesson plan established. We've done basic detectives, um patrol crime scene investigations, um advanced DUI, field training officer manager and field training officer and training and uh training manager which allows the uh Joel to be able to actually be a manager of our training so he can report

everything that everybody does and have that one point of contact. And then the like, you know, there's a lot of officers that have been through the mid-level management training. There just really good training to kind of help them, you know, bolster their career in law enforcement. We've also done an in-house crime scene processing. So, we have the capabilities of processing the, you know, crime scenes if we actually happen to have one. There's a lot of things we still need to get to bolster that as as far as property and, you know, tools and evidence and, you know, there's a lot of things that we need to put together, but and and we're working on that. Now having in-house capabilities to be able to do that shortens up time and it really gives us, you know, maybe this is something we don't need to bother the county on or this is something that we can handle on oursel. And then we have two drone pilots. So those drones have really worked out well, especially when you need to inspect the top of the doghouse or, you know, if you have somebody that runs from you or if you have somebody missing, you can use these drones and they're really a very valuable tool to the police department.

Do they include heat seat?

They do. Yes, ma'am. Well, we have one that does and then one that's just a regular regular one. So, what are our objectives for 2026 2027? So, our first objective is is is our 247 24-hour day, 7-day a week response and coverage. And the reason why we're bringing that up is because we understand that or we feel that this this response and this coverage meets the town council strategic planning goal by addressing personnel needs to to provide an increase in community engagement and strengthen core services. We get it all the time. I know you guys get it as well. you know, how come I called and Pendleton didn't show up? Or how come, you know, we needed something and nobody showed up or the county showed up? Those are just things that I know you guys have gotten. We've all gotten it. I know there was a survey done in 2020 in 2016 where the community wants 24-hour a day coverage for a police department, and I just wanted to give you that information. So, we really feel that going and moving to that direction, it meets the the strategic planning goals that was set by council and it's something that we we would like to strive towards and and we've actually called it out as an objective for next year. And on top of that, the quality hiring. We understand that, you know, you can hire somebody to come in and sit in a car, but that's not what we're looking for. We're looking for somebody that can come in and truly fit into the town of Pendleton. It's easy to get somebody to just have a body and and and have them in a uniform and sit them out and tell them to do something, but what we want is we want to we want to foster that community relationships and really have somebody that's bought into our our train of thought and our mentality of what we want to see in the town and how you should be treating our residents and how our residents should interact with you. So, that is something that we're really going to spend time on. That is something that is really, really important to us. So, quality hiring. The problem with hiring is, you know, 10 years ago, you'd have one position available on a police department, you'd have 400 applications. Well, now you have 400 openings and you get one applicant. So, it's it's a different world, but there's still good people out

there. There's a lot of people that want to do this job and there's a lot of people that we could find that are really really understand what community policing and community problem solving is. So, when you talk about we have 10 full-time, you said it includes you. Yes, sir. So to get to 247, how many more hires would that require? So I I have a whole slide on that, but it's three. So if we could go three more officers, that would give us the 24-hour a day, 7 day a week coverage. And I'm gonna Sorry, I'm going to respectfully ask that council jots down questions and waits till the end just because David seems to get in slow and then we're interrupting him. So if you wouldn't mind just waiting till the end, whatever, whatever works best, I would appreciate that.

Okay, great. So then um again uh updating our report management system. So we all utilize a report management system or RMS system which is a database that we can use is we use law tracks and that is basically if you have to put in a report if we do an accident report or any information that we have involving a a crime we use this system and we it utilizes all of our reports. Well the system that we currently have has been sold out and they're going out of business. So everybody, it's not just us, everybody in Anderson County is having to switch to a different RMS system. We can't operate, we cannot operate without an RMS system. So we're we're we're working through, you know, where does it look like we're going? Where's the county going? You know, the goal is is to try and get everybody on the same page so that when one of our officers make a report, and let's say we make an arrest and they put them in this computer, well, it's already linked to the sheriff's office so that when they get to the jail, that information is already in the computer, you know? So they're using AI generation to to get that information from us to the jail so they don't have to duplicate services or duplicate input on the information. So it's really a tool that is going to be very valuable. Now the problem with RMS systems is they're very very proud of them. Um and they're very they're very expensive. Some of them are. So the most of the people in the county and the Anderson County is going to the Motorola system which is just a system that Motorola built and that is what everybody's trying to to go to. So we're trying to figure out what that cost is. So we've been to some training, we've been to some seminars to see what other options are available because like I said, this is not a cheap tool that we have to have. And then again, the the fully integrated technology to strengthen our current fleet of patrol cars to include the uh the Axon cameras into all patrol cars. So these cameras, and I'll show you, I've got an example. These are really set for for safety, deescalation, and risk mitigation. So, these cameras give us the ability to actually watch the the person if you put somebody in the back of the car that you can actually film them. I've actually seen where they've successfully

prosecuted somebody because while they were in the back of the car, they took something out of their pocket and got rid of it, some dope or something, but it was all on camera. So, having that capability really, you know, enhances our ability to to affect crime and it it helps us. It also covers us. So if something happens, we can, you know, if somebody makes a claim in the car, then we've got this on tape that is showing, hey, this was, you know, obviously a madeup claim. So that is one of our objectives. Uh, so that's something that's important to to all of us. So as Mr. Jeff was asking earlier, what what is our current budget right now for 2025? And I'm going to pass this out to you. This is our current budget. You'll just take one, Mr. Jeff, pass it down. This is the actual current budget that we're working on. Our operating budget is $1,162,17642.

Now, where that number comes from, if you look on that page, I've actually broken it down to you that says, you know, what does it cost for us to have a cell phone for every officer? What does it cost for us to have a computer for every officer? What does it cost in insurance? What does it cost in uniforms? So, you've see we've got that number broke down. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So, that number is broken down and it it's it's it's right there. so that you can see how those totals come up because some of those numbers are large. You'll see our contract services is a large number and I we'll get in that and explain to you later, but our current operating budget is that number and then that that's what was approved by council last year. Now, that also included a onetime capital purchase of $200,296.58. That is the purchase of three cars that was purchased last year for the new people and also including the outfitting and all of that. Now the the the thing I really want to stress to you on the capital purchases is is that is a cost that we have to capture in the original budget. But once it's captured there and Steve works his magic and he's able to find you know either a bond or there's a you you do a a consumption loan that where it really you know includes the public works and you buy all these vehicles at one time and then once that's done that debt is actually carried to a non-EP departmental debt line. So it doesn't really affect us after that initial our initial cost. So, our operating operating budget is what it costs to have the officers on the street every day after you get past that that original capital purchase. So, again, you guys have have approved the one 1,362,473 which included the purchase of those vehicles. So, now I'm going to pass out the my proposed 2026 2022. If you'd be so kind again, sir, just to pass one off. Again, this is set up the exact same way. Um it shows you what that number is and how we come to that number and again it all it all it just adds right there. So our proposed budget for 2026 2027

just I'm sorry.

So again we are proposing uh going to a 24-hour day 7 day a week police coverage for the town of Pilton. That operating budget would be 1,59,35848. Now, that operating budget does include, like we did last year, a onetime capital purchase of 200 $232,992. So, again, that's the vehicles and everything it cost to to include that vehicle for a total cost of 1.742350. Again, once we make that capital purchase, we really operate out of the operating budget. So, you're like, "Wow, that's some big numbers. How do we get to those numbers? And where do those numbers come from?" So again, what does it take to get to a 24-hour 7-day a week coverage? The way we've got it in this budget, the way it's figured out, it's an additional operating investment of $347,1826. And again, that's that's the operational budget increase that we would need to go to a 24-hour a day, 7-day a week coverage after we do the per the capital purchase. So again, that's like I said, that's some really big numbers. So where do all those numbers go and how do we come up with those? So what does it cost for a full-time employee? This is actually one of our advertisements that we have out there. It's kind of hard to see, but you can see what our salary ranges are. For uncertified officers, our salary range is 45,000 to 50,000. For a certified police officer, it's 50 50,000 to 60,000. And then for corporal is from 56,000 to 66,000 if I'm seeing that right from here. Um, so those are the ranges that were set by our comp class that was done last year. So those are good numbers and that range gives us a little bit of flexibility. if you have, you know, if you have a a degree or if you have a special something we're looking for or like if you're you're speak a foreign language, it gives us a little bit of leeway to play in those numbers. But that's real numbers. That's what we're that's what we're paying officers when they come into to the town.

The other thing we talk about is is uniforms. It really cost it cost a lot of money to put somebody in uniform the very first time because you're buying everything new. Now, once you buy that the first time, all you're really doing now is maintaining it. So, you're not buying four pair of shirts, four pair of pants, you know, all that good stuff. So, like a vest, a vest that we issue the officers is $1,800. The badge is $125. That radio that we carry is $3,300. Every radio we have just that's on your that's on your side. These tasers right here. Now, there is no battery in this and there is no cartridges in this. So, I just But this is that's $800. I mean that but now you know we do those on a contract so we're able to to to stretch that out but these are tools that we utilize every day that is something that is important and is really really interactive and helps us out but there's a cost there's a real cost to that duty belts you know to have a a holster and have ammunition all that stuff $800 $150 for boots $700 for uniforms so you can kind of see how it adds up and then the average cost per officer is $7,838 per officer So now we got to put them in a car. So what does it cost to get them in a car? Well, a car is $51,31. That's what we paid for it last year. Upfitting cost where you got to put the lights in it, the radios, the push bumpers, the all the special things that make it a police car is $21,000. The graphics are $800. The car radios for these inside these cars are $4,000 a piece. It's unbelievable. But it cost us $77,000 to put a car on the road. So these numbers add up pretty quick. And then our contract services is another department that we really have a a pretty large number, but it is something that we utilize every day. So Axon is is the is really the they've got the the the gambit on the body cameras and the the tasers and stuff like that. So we have incar cameras as we talked about earlier. We also have these these are

our body cameras. We issue them to every officer and these are very valuable tools because they they're they document everything that goes on. Again, we use those for mitigation, for liability purposes. They're really just a good tool to have. And we have those for every officers. Now, for that camera and that for 12 units, those cameras are $2,133 a year. So, for 12 of them, that's $25,000 a year we have to spend in that. 13 of them.

Well, that' be 12 for right now. So, then the body the the cameras are $3,200 for inside the vehicle. But again, these are really tools that we utilize and it really helps protect the officer as well as the town. Law tracks is that RMS system I was telling you about. That's the report management system. That's $3,000 a year and it's done by a subscription. The All Traffic Solutions, which is the uh the speed sign and that thing that's so we pay $2,500 a year for that. Gold Shield is that NCIC and and CAD for the inside the vehicles I was telling you about earlier. That's $5,040 a year. And then power DMS, which is our policy management system, that's $4,000 a year. So you can see how, you know, that's a big number in the budget, but you can see where it's going and the benefits that it's really paying towards the department and the town. So that's our contract services. So special event overtime. So overtime is a big big line item in the police department. These are all things that we we spend time on that we enjoy doing. They're fun, but it's actually there is a cost to that and there's a cost to the department. So, you know, the P basketball, we really, it's been a good thing. It's been fun, you know, working those things. It's great to see those kids that are having fun, but it cost us about $560 every week to do that. And we work it for about four and a half weeks. So, again, it's not that we we we don't mind doing it, but there is a real cost to that. Uh the 5K race, and I'm not going to go, you can see all of these. All of these are things that we do as a police department, as a service to our town, but there is an actual and legitimate cost to it. So, that that's really noticed in our overtime budget. So when you see an overtime line item that's that's a particular number, just keep in mind that these are things that we do as well. And then some of the constraints we have at the current staffing level, the police department is unable to provide services that are expected of this department. As Jeff was asking earlier, we um we responded to five over 5,000 calls for service last year. That was

Pendleton's Pendleton answered over 5,000 calls for service at our staffing level. the to provide the services that are expected to those department. You know, we don't have coverage on Saturdays. So, that's a time that people there's a lot of things going on in town and that's a lot of times that people call. So, those are things that we we that we feel we'd like to improve on and and going to that 24-hour day, 7-day a week coverage would really just take that whole thing out of there. So, the Pendleton Police Department is also unable to ensure consistency of law enforcement to the residents of the Pendleton due to the lack of 24-hour a day, 7-day a week coverage. Out of all the calls last year, 1,15 residents of the town of Pendleton called 911 and the Anderson County Sheriff's Office had to come out because we weren't in town or we weren't working. So that's that's a large number and that's a service that the town that the residents want to see that if they having to wait, you know, because the deputy could be anywhere. Now the deputies don't mind coming, but they could be in powders, but who knows where they're at, you know? So, it's just that's a number that we want to knock down and and by having 24-hour day coverage that would take that number out. Again, our current report management system is being discontinued and will lack any technical support. We've talked about that. And then number of officers on light duty or in the academy. So, I have two officers that are currently on light duty, will be on light duty for a while and I have one that is now in the academy. So, out of those nine, not including me, three of them are on light duty or or you in the academy. So, we're really working what we can and when we can. There's just there's so much more opportunity for things that we can do in the department. So, again, some of our goals for the future 2026 and beyond is continued to expand to our community outreach program. We've talked about that enough. Replacing the aging vehicles in the fleet just by replacing our our spare cars, like I said, our 2016s and 2017s. Continued introduction of technology enhancements inside the police department. utilizing all these great tools that we have and continue those is really an an advantage for us. Advanced uh training, additional training for

police officers, continue use of the incar camera system, and then additional speed memo trailers. We utilize that a lot and there was something wrong with our batteries. I'm trying to get that figured out, but I we I bet you we could put one on every street in town and and everybody would love it. So, but those things are kind of expensive. So, that is something that we're looking for maybe maybe adding on to our our goals. So, that's my police department budget in a in a nutshell and I'll be glad to answer any questions you may have and I'll try and do my best on

I'm just going to make a quick comment and um questions we could just go by word. Um that would be helpful that way not as question. Um, we uh me, Councilwoman Bunmier and I met with uh Sheriff McBride about two weeks ago and I thought it was a really wonderful and constructive conversation and I learned a lot and um Sheriff McBride was very candid with us and he pretty much said that Pendleton needs to have 24-hour police or turn coverage 100% over to the sheriff's department and just pay for it. Those were what he said and I I did appreciate it um because it definitely made me think about you know this differently and he basically said that unless it is an in progress that they do not have officers respond and so if we have something if we have a breakin and you know the culprit is not at the house they do not come and if this is on a Saturday our residents are then told to file a report on Monday

and This body has a lot of conversations about what are the benefits of living in town and in my opinion investing in public safety is a number one priority. We talk about quality of life a lot and I think this is the first step um to that. Um my only question was on uh are we utili like I um I've watched some stuff and read some stuff about police departments utilizing AI technology to help them write reports. Is that something that we're looking into? Would that be helpful?

So that is actually something we're already using. So, so I know that a lot of our report writing stuff they will take like narratives and put them in in chat GTP and get the you know a better way of saying things just to make it you know flow good and they already are using those the the cameras that we have inside the vehicles are also using AI capability you know it's really helping the department in like identifying suspects using facial recognition as far as you know data collection and migration so AI is a big thing right now it's still sort of new but I think that you're eventually the The body camera that I sent you around has got an AI thing in it to where it'll, you know, it'll do all kind of things. It's got GPS and it and there's just it's unbelievable some of those things do. So AI is a big tool and and we're learning more about it every day. Thank you.

Yes, ma'am.

Um you mentioned that the county is looking to go to Motorola. Are we looking at doing maybe a a large purchase with all municipalities and the county so that you might get a better price? So, that is one of the things. The other thing that we're actually working on is the county has said that they would be willing to purchase some of the things that we need for the town to be able to utilize that system because it's going to really be a benefit for them. Um, we Joel went to Colombia last Friday so that we could get some more information on on these things that they have and what what we utilize now. Will it fit into what they're going to pay for or if there's something we have to kind of maybe still need to continue this thing, but the RMS system works. So, we're still working through that, but the goal is is to have everybody in Anderson County on the same system so that they can use the same data.

And are you satisfied with the system with the Motorola system? So, what I've seen so far, it's a really, really good system. Now, they're very proud of it, but it's it's a good system. I understand all of them are very proud. Yes, ma'am. Are going up substantial on annual basis. Um, so if we go 24 hours, does that eliminate special event cost so that because we already have coverage or you or is there savings there? So

So let me ask you. So you qu the answer the question is is it's going to it's going to substitute some of that but you're not going to take somebody off the road to work an event especially like an all night event. So we would still have you know maybe an officer that would there to do that. Where it's going to help is is where we need two officers. We may only need one now. So you supplement that by having what's on the road because we're not going to take people off the road. We want to make sure that each side's covered. So that would I think it's going to supplement it, but it's also not going to just take it away. So that that overtime number right now is $22,400 for for the budget year we're in. All right, that's all my questions.

Yes, ma'am. Um, basically, you answered pretty much and you went on. Yes, ma'am. Because my questions was going to concerning the uh what's going to cost us, how many more officers we need because, you know, I've had for a long time for 24-hour um protection growth in the area. We need that. So, I'm pretty well I'm good. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. Thank you, please. Thank you, David. That was a great presentation as always. Um, thank you also for coming to the great time

to the party at the library last night. It was good. Um, I'm going go from the top. So, on the uh animal control, do we have an animal control officer? We do. So, officer Wallace. Officer Wallace is the animal control officer now because we had that one officer who has has has resigned. Officer Wallace was working day shift. So, now he is now working evening shift. So he doesn't come in until 3:30 in the afternoon, but he is our animal control guy. He does a great job at it and he really he he he kind of seem like he enjoys it. So, you know, we're we got some training we're sending to. So the we're going to have it in the evening. We just don't have anything in the daytime.

So would the animal control officer be in in addition to our 247 number? We would have the 247 to cover plus we would have the animal control officer during the day eventually. So the goal would be to maybe be able to bring him back to a dayshift, okay? And then utilize him. We won't have a separate new animal control person, but because he enjoys and he's really good at it, we're going to tap into that. And if we could bring him back to dayshift, then obviously that would satisfy that that requirement. So, the other thing you and I had talked about was um maybe setting up a pet day where we would have a blue tag or something and it would say I'm a Pendleton pet. And then your officers would know if the dog was loose and had a I'm a Pendleton pet tag that you would know that that animal's chipped and that it resides somewhere in town and to whom it lives, right?

With whom it lives. Um, when you talk about I'm I'm trying to decide if that would help you or not or it's just an additional burden.

Well, that what it's going to do is if you immediately see it, you know, we're not going to we're not going to say, "Oh, we're not going to help that dog because it doesn't have a blue tag on." We're not going to do that. But it will help us maybe identify who the owner is so that we can call them and try and, you know, the goal is to get the animal back to home. And that that's really the goal. And I I just saw there was some, you probably seen it, there's some technology now where they're actually utilizing Ring doorbell cameras to where if you have a lost pet, you can you can call this service and they will notify the individuals in this area using data fencing and stuff like that that hey, this dog is missing. Check your Ring camera. So if it goes by and you can at least try and follow it, know where the dog's gone. So there's a lot of AI technologies coming up with that. But the goal is is to simply say if I get a dog, I'd rather call the owner and say, "Hey, come get your dog." than having to maybe take it a pause or something.

When we talked about the cameras, the safety cameras, the Axon cameras, um, do we also provide Axon cameras to our code enforcement? The body cameras, he uses a body camera. We don't have one for the vehicle.

So, would that be an advant since we're purchasing? Do you feel that code enforcement also needs to have some camera backup or do you feel that he's safe enough with just the body camera? So, I personally think that having one of those cameras in the vehicle is not really going to benefit animal or code enforcement because it doesn't typically have people in the vehicle with him. You know, the body camera has the capability where he can leave it on all the all, you know, the whole time he's out. So, personally, I I don't think that expense would justify in the code enforcement car as long as he's utilizing a body camera. So, but we would want to include his body camera in our purchase of body camera. So, there's always one for code enforcement. Correct.

Yes, ma'am. Um, do the cameras have officer down or fall um, indicators on them or how is that done? Is that done with the radio or the camera? So, all of our radios have, and I thought I brought my one, the little button on it that you can hit that if you're in an emergency, it alerts the the emergency number. And are we always going to have this kind of one-third of the force out? Is that a fairly normal number where they've got an injury or they've encountered some difficulty? It looks like we're running, you know, a quarter to a third. I'm just trying to think in terms of the hiring and the and the um how we stack that. So, we've got backup because So, unfortunately, that is a a constraint that the police departments all over the world have because just the nature of the nature of the job,

but that's where the benefit of having three officers per shift comes in to where if you do have somebody out, you know, you can move somebody to a different shift, you know, there's there's it gives you some flexibility to work. But that's a fairly normal number. you're thinking that third to 25%. And then when we hire somebody um and they come on board uh when we were talking to um the sheriff, I was curious to know like what ad what are the advantages for when they come to Pendleton? Like what things do they cite for you? Is it the small town? Is it the weekly pay? Is it the tell me what advantages they they think when they come up so we can attract continue to attract officers?

Sure. So, one of the big thing that we have is is that you guys as council and leaders of this town allow us to have nice equipment, nice tools. And I'll give you an example. So, I was at a meeting a couple weeks ago and it was a bunch of chiefs there and one of the chiefs came to me and said, "Hey, you know, we've got these officers that come in to come to work for us and they're they're asking about all these new cars and new guns and new things." He said, "What we tell them is, hey, this isn't Pendleton. You know, this is this is somebody else." So, I believe that the town of Pendleton sets the standard for what we do in the county. And I think that really goes a long way because your biggest advocate, your biggest hiring person is your own personnel. You know, that's your biggest recruitment tool. And if you can make sure that they're happy and give them the things they need to do their job, they're going to help you recruit people.

So, you've mentioned that the things that attract them would be the cars, the radios, the cameras, the drone support, the RMS with AI support. Are there other is there anything else key in that list that you think is? So one of the biggest things that we offer is and I know that Chief Crosby and council has done a really big work on this is the salary. We have a pretty good salary for for nonsworn or just entry offer entry officer coming into town. So salary and the good benefits and the good the good equipment is a big big tool.

Okay. Um oh one last thing um on the transportation side we have 12 cars now with nine fully sworn officers but two of those cars are spares. Yes ma'am. So then we bring on three more officers. We get three more cars. So then we'd be at 15 cars because they had three more, right? And then Yes, ma'am. We're going to have some spares. Yes, ma'am. And we need those spares, right? Yes, ma'am. And you put them out as dummies sometimes. Yes, ma'am. Don't tell them about it.

I don't tell. Um what about Have you looked And you have the ATV thing. Have you looked at um other modes of transportation? So is there any advantage? I'm just asking because I don't know. Uh, obviously not horses, but like motorcycles or any other kind of mode of transportation that would be efficient for you. Sure. For your department.

If you let me buy a Harley, I'll ride it all day. So, no. So, I I agree. You know, there's we can look at bike thing bike patrols and things around the square. Those are all things that I think we can our goal right now is to get to that 247. Once we get to that, then we can start adding adding, you know, services to that. I really think that there's a there's a especially with the the trails and the things that are go around, we're going to have to have something that we can access those with. So, there's those are different opportunities and if you can't get the the mule down it or the side by side, how are we going to get there? So, those are all things that I think we can look at. Again, once we get to this stage, I think it opens the door for a lot of other things. Okay. Thank you, Dan. Yes, ma'am.

Yeah. Um I know in the Winston uh street in that uh development we got plate readers coming in. Yes sir. Um are there is there going to be uh an expansion of plate readers in this town? So I didn't see you mention that.

So I I did not and right now there is not I know there's there's two of them that are involved in a grant that are in that system in in that in that grant area over there. So, you know, that is a tool that all departments are using now and it's a tool that is a very impressive tool. Um, again, our thing is is that we want to get to a point to where we're fully staffed and then look at the other technology thing because like I said, one of our objections is to make sure that we're using technology to our advantage and that is definitely something that we can look at. We just haven't spent a lot of time in it because we're kind of using what we have as a as kind of a test market.

All right. I mean, I'm not particularly I have some concerns about that sort of technology, but um at one point for actually the last two years we were talking about this on foot patrolman downtown. It was going to be a halftime job. Uh now going to 247. Is there that concept of a a patrolman on foot patrol person on foot around town? Is that something that would still be in being considered? So we if we go to if we can get the three additional officers and go to a full-time department that like I said gives you three people per shift which we can dedicate to doing this walking patrol. That is very important to me and I want to see that happen to say we have a dedicated downtown officer. I would have to see how it works out once we get the three shifts or the four shifts going. But again that is something that we want to look at down the road in the future. I know in in Robbie's report last year, he was talking about really working on a mid-level management uh as an objective. Uh do you have a report on how that's going?

So, we have we have two or three officers who have just completed the leadership mid-level leadership training. We have one that is going to a little bit more of advanced leadership. We've got three or four of them that have really showed an interest in in moving to that next level. Um and then that's where our our job steps in to make sure that we give them the tools to do that. I've been over here for about five weeks now. So, the first thing I had to get done was this budget. So, I'm I'm still learning some of the things, but that is something that we that we need to look into and make sure that we you know, our biggest thing is we got to support our officers to make sure they're successful because if they're not, we're not successful.

So, I mean, we increase by 40% to get to 247. And so how would you envision the chief and then how would that how would that uh um right how would that look? So again the the goal is to get the shifts on the road and and that's the main important thing and then if there's if there's a way to move a ranked structure to where you have more of a you know more of a you know level of of authority that may give you the ability to do that. Our concern right now, our number one goal is to get officers on the street and make sure that we have our coverages and our and our shifts covered.

Okay. Um the um again we're if we're expanding 247, I mean you guys work out of a closet. Yes, sir. Uh so you add you develop your court your your uh the police force expands by 40%. I don't know how many more people will fit in that closet. So we we have is there a evidence room anywhere in this town? So there is one in the town, but it's it's it's not in very good shape. I think they will move all of our officers to a friend of mine's house lives down off of Pro Street. It's got this new shed in the backyard. So you know that may be our headquarters, but that that also is a concern. Got a lot of bears back there.

That that is a concern. Um but we're not the only department. Everybody's stuffed up on top of each other and it's just one of those things that that we have to work through. Fortunately for us with the shifts, hopefully we can arrange it to where there's not a lot of overlap, to where there's not so many people here at one time. But again, that's that is a concern that we will have to address one day. Okay. Because you're right, we're talking about $347,000 for 247, but that doesn't include capital expansion to to uh facilitate that huge increase in officers. The only capital except for the except for the the vehicles. Vehicles.

Yes, sir. that is the only capital that it captures. Okay. Um well the other question I guess was in addition to that and Steve might the whole idea of the police force in the police building down the tiff but that's that's a different different subject I guess. Um yeah that thank you. Good no problem. If there's no other questions I will retire to We have we're going to take about a minute. What's that? We have the students.

Yeah. I didn't know if you're going to have

resume. I saw Nancy write something up there. That's great. Anybody else got something?

Thanks for

Oh, good. that they were saying what we had to do the old thing

how much we got in taxes% of that not so much to deal with now. So it's 2.4 million for us. At the beginning of this year, we had 1.5 million. This is already in the hurricane. So we tried not to go to

got 5% out. Then they said when you're doing the thing to separate that's why I was kind of reacting so I apologize but the they said that you should do the expense things first and then you should sit down and add in all your and what I was thinking on our capital is some of that might be grant eligible too. So it looks like we need a new police station. I put that in. I just throw it out there.

But what we do is we when we load in there, we start estimating all revenue and everything, but we go ahead and pre estimate out. Well, that's what you had on that. That's what I had on that.

So, when we get done with this, I'll be able to sit down with you. Is that right? Yeah, we plan on sitting down. A lot of times we sit down. A lot of times when we get that fully updated and I got to send it back a couple things out of it. I get that fully updated I go back. I make sure everything uses affect and then we get like everything put in there we got. So, we'll go ahead and try to load that into the budget and then we'll sit down.

So, in that regard, I'm proud of J. Is there some way we can figure out what I'm done? I'll put it right where you want it. You can find your grand

check the air quality in the Oh my god. Do not come over here. Do not think it looks like Oh my god, that's so disgusting. It does.

Yes, sir. So, I can answer.

Yeah. No, I'm aware. Well, I think when you get that completely sit down, you'll have your own. If you break it, we just delete it.

Just normal, not like I just normal. We bring those backless right now. Three

sweet. They're low in sugar. I mean, not low in sugar. They eat low in carbs.

Yeah. Nancy, you ready? Take it away. Good afternoon, Mayor Council. You good over there? Yes, we're good.

All right. So, I just want to give um a clear picture on where our street department is right now. Just want to put this disclaimer. It's not a complaint. It's just an operational reality based on staffing and workload. And hopefully we all have a better understanding of streets after this. Um right now nearly everyone assigned to streets is working in sanitation daily. And the shifts happen because our population growth has increased and increased the trash workload and the trucks are heavier. So we had to keep routes moving. So we've had to split weight on those trucks to be legal on the roads. So we basically been forced to prioritize trash collection every day to maintain basic service. Uh the end results become mostlycome reactive and proactive street maintenance is not happening at the level that residents expect at this time. So we want to street sign prevents let me just go to streets they prevent crashes they reduce liability exposure. Uh missing or damaged signs are one of the fastest ways for a town to get in legal trouble. So, let me preface that. Signs is one of the the core services of streets. I didn't really make that clear with that. Sidewalks are northern conditions directly affect pedestrian safety, ADA compliance, their trip hazards, uneven panels. Blocked sidewalks are just not complaints. They're also liability issues. Streets handles this as well. Drainage failures lead to flooding, erosion, accelerated roadway damage, and when drainage work is deferred, the repair costs are later or more significantly higher. Uh, rightway maintenance ensures drivers and pedestrians can see clearly at intersections and visibility issues are a major contributing contributor to

accidents. So, key point is when streets work is deferred, risk increases and long-term costs go up. Just my thoughts. This preventative work is not optional work. Um, what are we responsible for? Obviously, this is just a quick look at some of the things I just went over. Rightway clearing, sign repair, striping, thermoplastic, drainage, ditching, pothole, pavement maintenance, sidewall repairs, and cleaning. Uh, so these are all things that our citizens would expect from our street department. Rightway maintenance. It's one of the most visible services residents notice immediately. Overgrown grass limbs create sight distant problems at intersections. Also impacts pedestrians and creates complaints quickly. Uh this work's falling behind because it takes time, equipment, and consistent staffing which we don't have available at this time. Signs, like I said, are a major safety issue. They're also a liability issue. We can't keep up with our sign maintenance. It becomes a risk to drivers of the town. Sidewalks, and I'm kind of going through this quick because there's a lot of things with streets, and I just don't want to just pound this to death. I just want to kind of give you the overview. Sidewalks are another issue that can create liability exposure. Like I mentioned earlier, trip hazards, crack sections, blocked sidewalks. People complain about this weekly. Um, we also have sidewalk cleaning needs. We try to do that every year, at least twice a year, where we bring in a group of folks to help us through contracted services. Drainage. A lot of folks overlook this. I know we're not SD4, but we are still

required to maintain our drainage, our storm water. So when they're clogged up and the roads flood, that's on the town to make sure we got those clear or jetted out. If we don't maintain ditches and culberts, water starts damaging road bases and shoulder areas. Once that happens, road repairs become much more expensive. And we're kind of going through some of that now with an outside contractor fixing some of this as as quick as we can. So drainage is a big pay now or pay later item. And right now we're I would say we're behind. Pavement maintenance, potholes, pavement edge failures are what residents call about the most.

If I've got one call about a pothole I've done, I've got a thousand. And even if it's not ours, they don't care. They still want to tell me that we need to do better. And if we can patch quickly, we prevent bigger failures. If we can't, we dam the damage spreads and the cost repair grows. So the town's roads are an investment and pavement maintenance protects that investment. And like I said, currently we can't do that. Thermoplastic. So this is something we just started this past year. Um, obviously if anybody's been on Exchange Street, you can see that my thermoplastic work did not hold up very long on that street and I've got to go do it again. So, this is probably going to be a learning curve to make sure that we get this right. Um, striping and thermoplastic markings are critical for traffic control, especially crosswalks, stop bars, school zones. Uh, when markings fade, driver compliance drops and safety concerns increase. The work is hard to schedule when staffing's tied up on sanitation. Um, that also includes we've got the lights that we can put in the crosswalks, too. It's just I don't have the staffing to do it, but I've I probably have 500 lights that I can put in the ground. So, what happens when street work stops? The overall impact is uh the streets is nonf functioning day-to-day. Safety issues increase, drainage problems worsen, small pavement issues turn into larger failures, complaint volume goes up because residents see it immediately and ultimately costs go up because deferred maintenance is always more expensive later. So, street staffing and resource reality. Street assigned staff are frequently reassigned to sanitation, like I said, to keep trash routes going.

Trash collection is a one of our primary core services, so it takes priority. We've got to get trash up. So, because of that, there's limited dedicated street labor available daily. Plan maintenance gets delayed. The work is handled only after failures, complaints, or safety concerns arise. And it's not a staffing performance issue. It's a resource allocation issue. The same employees being asked to cover multiple essential functions or they're being asked to cover multiple essential functions. So the result is re a reactive work model. Uh street work doesn't stop because it's unimportant. It stops because staffing is diverted to meet mandatory sanitation needs. And just kind of give you a heads up, I've only got two people in San or the streets department. Um, so that makes it difficult. Even if I had those two fully dedicated that department, we we're still going to be behind the power curve with with these responsibilities. Street equipment needs. So this is not a wish list. I know it looks like it. It's a capability list tied directly to safety, drainage, pavement maintenance, and sign work. Equipment shown supports work council already expects us to do such as pothole patching, drainage repair, sign replacement, and rightway maintenance. The cost range reflects low, mid, and high estimates. And I've got this a handout for you so you can see cost on this equipment. Um, and not all equipment would be purchased at once. you know, there'd be items would be prioritized by tier and that st allow staff to, you know, purchase in phases. For the most part, we are not terrible with a lot of our equipment that we have on hand for streets. We do we do need a few pieces, but staffing is our biggest concern

and I think it's it's everybody's concern. So, equipment strategy, buy verse contract. So tier one through tier three equipment represents core assets and that's on the handout. I'll give I can give it to you now if you prefer to look at it while we go over this or if you I can do that. And with this, I've got this there's canvas survey on here and it's just basically because I want to know what your level of expectations are from so I can actually tailor if you will streets department to meet what you expect is the last sheet on that is where this budget breakdown is tier four through seven items are more project project specific or volume dependent and a lot of those we're actually fairly decent on. Um this buy versus contract strat allows the town to control costs, avoid underutilized equipment and focus spending where it provides the greatest public safety and operational benefit. So, options. Option A, and the more I thought about this, I almost hated to just put this as options because sometimes that's just a loaded question. Um, option A is we just what we're currently doing, sanitation takes priority and streets stays minimal and reactive or will restore streets as a functional department again. But that means sanitation would need support. That means staffing and equipment and route changes possibly. I don't like changing routes because people like their schedules. Or option C, we look at a hybrid where we keep core town staff focused on urgent work and oversight, but we contract out mowing, ditching, or

striping, so the work still gets done. We can operate under any of these, but I just need some direction on how you feel we need to move forward with this department. So in the short term staff recommends I would say a hybrid approach at this time at least maintaining sanitation priority while using targeted contract support for street functions like rightaway mowing, drainage work and striping. And this allows the town to address to address safety and liability concerns without immediately adding permanent staff. Long-term staff believes restoring baseline street staffing capacity is the most sustainable solution as the town continues to grow. I know everybody's asking for personnel and equipment. So, I just kind of wanted to throw an option out there. Our best bet is to bring this department back to staffing levels that it needs, but if not, at least give us the ability to contract out the funding, I would say, to contract out some of these needs so we can get them done. And this recommendation balances operational reality with public safety needs and it acknowledges current constraints while providing a clear direction for the improvement. When now the staff, we can meet the council's expectations, but the expectations got to match our staffing and our resources. That's the biggest thing. If the town expects sanitation services at today's demand level and expects proactive street maintenance, we need the staffing or contracted support to make that happen. And once we get a clear direction on how we want to proceed, we can build a clear plan. We can set standards. Uh we can deliver

consistent results. And that is where I'm at with streets. So now you didn't do that's basic is public works is now streets. Well, we have streets. We have sanitation. We have building. This is what your bank got. Yes, ma'am. Just the that specific department streets. This is what I'm talking about today. We have a lot of facets that we cover down there.

And unfortunately, we probably come up here and ask and beg for the most of anybody. Um because not minus the police department, you guys probably get the most complaints and from what our staff covers and I'm sure you get tired of it. Yeah, I'm not sure about the highlighting what the highlighting versus the tearing sections.

So the tier ones might that would be the primary the the the the most important equipment that streets the street departments could use could use streets if those me for a loop I want to say street or streets hot box like that like a trailer for asphalt where we could do our in internal patching instead of contracting that out but here lies the staffing issue with that there's two guys one drives in sanitation the other guy is kind of on his own and plug him. Sometimes I'd plug him a building ground. Sometimes they're both in sanitation driving or if it's something say sign replacement. I see I can send a signal guy out to put signs up. But as far if you understand

these other things that are highlighted down here. So the highlighting really

if Yeah, I'm sorry. It really it isn't too relevant. I I've matter of fact I made some notes on mine and I probably made that a little confusing by leaving it that way. So I apologize but so out of that list the dump truck. Obviously we got to have something to haul asphalt with amongst other things. Dirt, we move dirt. That's public works for you. asphalt hot box. So, we can actually do internal patching with appropriate step staffing. The plate compactor, I've got one down there. I could probably do some work on that to make that work better for us. It's small. I don't think we need one that's too awful big at this time. A mini excavator. Yes. when you start looking at the ditching and it's not it's not highlighted so I'm sorry I left those in there. This was just a matter of me going through picking at this and then traffic control devices especially for our events. We started using jersey barriers this past year for the uh like the fall festival. World of difference. Um it beats the old standard. park.

Yeah. Or them old uh stand up what I call bar Yeah. The old style barricades that you know you can get about five of them on a trailer and it takes three guys not trying to kill themselves to get it off because it falls apart. The water barricades are great and you don't necessarily have to fill them all with water. You just got to put them up and they're they're solid. They're stackable. I can carry probably 50 of them at a time. So those on they are on there. It's traffic control kit and it says cones, signs, barricades. Well, that's the Jersey barriers. Yes, ma'am. So, how many of those are in there? Is that Is that as many as you would need?

That number probably should be higher, but that is based off us renting those because right now I'm limited on space down there as well, too. Um I don't know if you've been by public works lately. I've had to scrape the back part of it out and get all the brush gone so we could put trailers and stuff back there cuz we're just running out of room to park employees and the the equipment that the town owns. We're just limited a little bit. Um Jay, yes, ma'am.

I'm as you know, I'm I'm new to this role and I have a lot of respect for you and what your team does. I really enjoy getting to know you and I really enjoy getting to know public works. They are just wonderful and I see them around town and they wave and they just I'm I just very grateful for what you do and what they do. I appreciate it. Thank you. If you were in this chair knowing what you know and you have a lot of institutional knowledge not only in regards to public works but also in regards to other you know your department head like other departments in this Yes ma'am. in this building. What would you advise us to do?

Wow. That's why I don't envy that chair, ma'am. I tell you. I don't envy because I should also represent I don't like when people come in to tell me or tell me how to do my job. Like, I'm an expert in doing my job. You're an expert in doing your job. I respect that. I think this body respects it. I mean, I'm not saying that I can give you the moon, but I'm really gonna try. But I really would like to know what you think and there's no right and there's no there's no wrong.

Okay. Due to just I would say what I know with what most department heads are needing my focus and I hope I don't get in trouble for this.

I I do believe David his department is the priority just based off what the town needs. I but I don't want the town to lose focus on what I call the invisible work that public works does and what we're responsible for. If sometimes what you hear is loose rhetoric through the town to where people are not satisfied with a product that's being produced, but they don't understand the limitations to get to that level of expectation. The green's a prime example. Um, we hear a lot of it's never anything directly, but the green needs to look better. We wish it looked better, but I don't have a, for lack of a better term, a punch list of what's expected of it to look like. And we've I've spent several thousands of dollars in amendments, mulch. Um, we've even had it top dressed. We're in the process of having a new irrigation installed after Spring Jubilee because we don't want to mess up any of the functions that go on as well. But it's hard to give a level of expectation when we're not 100% sure what that expectation is at any given time. Everybody seems to have a an opinion and that's the problem. There's a thousand opinions out there what it needs to look like. But if if I could get a clear direction, I say again a punch list of what what do you want it to look like and I can realistically then tell you I can make that happen and I can make it happen with what I've got or I'm going to have to go outside and contract some of it too so we can get to that level and this is what it'll cost and are you okay with that cost? So, until I can get that clarity, some of

this, I'll be honest, all of these departments I'm over are difficult because they're all kind of there's a there's a lot of gray in them right now. More spec from us, more clarity in the survey. Um, my other kind of question is based on your what you hear from the public. Yes, ma'am.

Where should our priorities be? that the green is something that you're hearing consistently. Um, that's also what I'm hearing consistently. And I also want to preface this by saying you respond back to every citizen that emails you. You respond back kindly, politely. Um, I'm very grateful for the time that you spend in responding to all of our citizens on a lot of those emails and I'm constantly impressed by your communication. Well, thank you. Um, can you can so outside of the green where are you really seeing the needs in our community based on public input?

I would say anything on the corridors specifically when you look at the marquee field uh city sister park because those those are bringing you right into downtown. Obviously the focus needs to be there where some of the focus may diminish. I'd say the exchange club, some of the depot building. I know that's a big thing, but something somewhere has got to give a little bit so we can elevate the the time and attention to other areas. It's hard. We We can't really let West Queen go because that streetscape, there's probably a million dollars in that upgrade. So, you can't just go we'll get it next week. We need to do something there as well. So all that's corridor area coming in Brown Road uh well North Mechanic Street, Brown Road Park. I know that's a corridor area, but it is I'll be honest with you, some of that would probably take a backseat. Just more of the stuff downtown. And downtown is another thing. Everybody seems to have a difference of opinion. And this will be in the building and ground side too of what downtown what we actually cover. And it's not just the green and exchange street. Sometimes that's we get tunnel vision and thinking that's downtown. Downtown really goes from the alleyway behind the candy shop all the way down East Queen to Depot down to Cherry back up to Mechanic. That's a pretty significant area. And it's two guys that's got all this. If one's sick, one's on leave. Now you're one guy. And we're about to hit spring season. So grass is going to explode.

And we're on our third person over that department. People, the last two just burn out and quit. I mean, no notice, just left. So it um and they all tie together. You know the all of my departments bleed over to an extent. In a perfect world they would not. They would be stand alone. We we just that's difficult to do and still meet a a baseline level of expectation and safety and try to put that extra in other places.

Thank you. I will um and I also want to say I will this is a promise and I know they say politicians shouldn't make promises but I will make you a promise that I will individually get with every member on this council and we will have expectations for you. I appreciate that. Thank you. We're operating in the dark. That is a that is a promise. I appreciate it. Thank you. Um, I got just a few questions, I guess, and this is just because of my my lack of memory as I get older, but uh, from last year's budget, there was eight major requests, and I don't know what we bought or not. What? Okay.

So, we had, uh, one of Melissa was a John Deere compact track loader. Did we get that? We did not. We did not. That's not listed on yours, but we brought it up last year. A compact track. We talking ways. So just just clarification kind of like he's talking about all his department. All your money melts together too.

So we use water and sewers by public works. They're trackers and the other thing instead of pulling out of general fun. So, he has a new track loader. He may not have a new track lod. I'm sure he'd like a new track loader. Um, but he has that. In fact, it's about 110,000. So, we just bought that. I'm sorry. I call that a skid loader. So, to me, a track loader is a different thing. So, I'm sorry. I do have skid steer. Yes, sir. This is another one. No, this is from last year, right? This is last year's request. This one a second one. So he has two skid loaders. I don't know

is that is this I'm just following up with Jeff. So you bought you bought one and now you got a skid steer loader here. Is that for to have a second one on instead for a smaller one for building the ground or streets? Yes, potentially. So we have two of those. Yes, ma'am. Okay. Three of them or three of them? One of one of the Bobcat that you have right now. So, the second one is a compact excavator. Did we get that? No. The mini excavator? No, sir. Did we do Are we asking for it this year? I It's on that list. It'd be nice to have one. Okay. With a ditching bucket specifically for ditching.

And you mentioned backho, right? We don't have one. We didn't get that from last year. You have it on this list, right? Yes. Yes, sir. Okay. And uh switch and go bed. We got that. We got that. Yes, sir. And we have two two distinct beds for that option that we can utilize. This guy too, the big text, whatever. Yes. We didn't get that specific brand. We got one from STE Anolan. It's It works. I'll put it that way. Okay. How about the skid steer forestry mulchure? We did. We got that. got that too.

We have an array of attachments for that skid steer. All right. And then the underground inspection camera system. Yes, sir. We got that. So, we actually got about five of the eight on here and you're requesting two more of those items. Okay. It's possible. I mean, I'll shoot for the stars and just take whatever I get. Brush cutter uh package for the skid. Is that the skid steer that Jeff about? Yes, ma'am. We already have We already bought one mulure head, right? And the one you have, we already have. Yes, we've got it. So, this gives you a second one, but you don't have anybody to run it. I don't. I actually piece of equipment, but no, we have don't have anybody to run it.

Some days I do, some days I don't. Generally, I don't. But generally I don't. So, I don't know if this is the right group to ask or this this particular section of your presentation, but we I know we uh incorporated truck tracking devices a few years ago. And are we do we do that in all vehicles or just the pickup trucks?

No, sir. I've got them in all. Matter of fact, I have GPS insight. Angel's helped set up to get our three latest vehicles installed as well. We had driver eye actually working as well. Is that is that obviously you're including you're continuing with the program so you feel it's successful. I like the tracking aspect of it like if I need to know where one of my trucks are I can find it. utilizing the map history on it sometimes is a little it lags. So sometimes it's frustrating trying to pinpoint a certain route,

but it does it does the job. The biggest thing is I know exactly in real time where my trucks are and if they're moving or not.

Okay. Um and this is um we are working on these galvanized lines and all that and how is is that time to ask this question or can I ask that now? That's water and but yeah, I'll be glad to we're at about 89 unknown still that we've just got to go out and physically look at. Everything else has been identified and actually this year we'll be putting out the second set of letters that's required by DES just to notify the citizens. But we're moving it's moving forward. Okay. Good. Good. That's all I got. So

Yes, ma'am. Um, how is the salaries for what we're paying our public works employees? How is that comparable to other areas? I think it's comparable. Um, naturally, you know, you get a this group of guys, they're always going to want more money. I think that's what is what's the average salary? Well, let's if I hire somebody straight in as a tech one, we're looking at $1610 in an hour. Annual salary. That would be probably

30 32. I was going to say 32 33.

And what's how how often what are we looking at as far as turner? I know you just said you had two quit. And see, that's that's that's what I want to make sure of that we can keep this department with people. You know, it's not like it used to be. People are not going to stay where they're not going to be compensated. Um the long long the days are gone where you could just, you know, y'all the lowest PE paid person there is. Another thing we don't have the option of anymore is we cannot have youth interns working like we used to. That's a huge liability thing. So what do we my concern is what do we need to do to make sure we get sanitation staff 100% because right now being underst staffed it's it's like the dog chasing his tail. he ain't never gonna catch it because you know everything that you're you're looking at is infrastructure and once our infrastructure which is it's already you know every time it rains we got another line going down so our infrastructure especially with our sewer and water I mean to me it's essential that we we make we do what we can to make sure this is a department that um is fully staffed and and fully funded and also look at what we can do to make sure the employees want to stay here.

Right. Well, the the biggest thing that I've tried to implement with the people I've hired and and like with Terry, our new assistant director, and having Norm come back to help is the environment that the guys work in. If I can't I'm limited to what I can control with salary. It's it's usually set and I think it's set comparable to what our surrounding agencies are for the most part. Obviously, I'd love to see them paid a little more because a lot of these guys don't factor in losing 9% on retirement for whatever reason. They get fixated on a a dollar amount an hour and they add it up and they think this is what they're going to get on their check and they get it and they come to me. What's up with this? Well, buddy, you got you're going to stay employed now. You got retirement coming out and if you can hold on, it's worth it. Some of the younger guys who have families, they struggle. A lot of them have second jobs. Um, it's a burnout. you know, was you work Monday through Friday and then Friday night through Sunday afternoon a lot of the guys are driving tow trucks for another company somewhere. That seems to be the the norm for them. Um, so we try to offset it as much as we can by making the work environment as appealing as possible. So we we do internal thing like we've I don't know if anybody been in public works a couple years ago and then walk into it today. We've tried to update the place. We've taken a couple of walls out to expand it to make it a little more inviting when you come in. Uh we've gotten better equipment. Um and we continue to do that. We we try to make sure that the guys have the tools necessary to perform the work that they're tasked with. And for years, I think that was a struggle or they just had folks that

didn't care to do it or just didn't know how to get the equipment or just I don't know. I don't I don't know. I can't speak for prior to going there, but but if they need it, we're actually outsourcing. We go we talk to other people, talk to other agencies. I've got my guys, two of them in a conference this week um down the coast for meters and stuff so we can look at other options that make things easier here. That's doesn't make it so labor intensive. If there's tools out there that can make the job easier, then we need to take advantage of that. And then if a guy's not in a ditch every day, he's willing to stay there. I mean, we don't have what happened on West Blue Ridge every day, but man, when it happens,

Yeah. it was 10:30 that night before the guys got done and they're in 40°ree water up to their armpits trying to get a 6 in. We had to call for help. We didn't have the equipment to get the water out of the hole. So, it's frustrating. You know, I don't want to see those guys in there either. And you have to start rotating them out. So, they can actually work because you start losing fine motor skills when you're in those conditions. The other thing, um I I know you're saying, you know, what what do you want with the with the village green? Yes, ma'am. And me personally, I think that It

it would help us if you would say because you know what needs to be done. Then you need to give us a plan because otherwise if if it goes down into people wanting you know pretty flowers and hedges and this that and the other. We need to take in account that people don't realize this is you know you can put trees out but you got to realize where those roots going to go. what type of trees these types. So, I think it'd be helpful if we had some guidelines as far as Yep. And I'm I'm absolutely going to give those to you with the building and grounds because I there's I've got a couple of options for you. One of them is probably going to make your jaws drop, but it's an option. Okay.

Yes, ma'am. fully staff. What What number you think? It'd be nice to have four dedicated to street department. Now, I understand everybody's asking for people, but four like when you when you break it down by department, four, you currently have two. I I've got two in there. Four more, you mean? four

four total because one of them currently is having to drive a sanitation truck because we had to cut weight and the other and the other guy I I plug him in if it's something that obviously I can't have him go out and do ditching by himself. It's it's too dangerous and you got to have traffic control depending on where it's at. And you got to have a spotter because in those rideaways we got utilities and I'm tired of arguing with AT&T every time we go dig somewhere. Not every time, but AT&T can be a pain. Um, and they like to blame us for it doesn't matter who does it. They want to town of Pendleton damage their stuff. So they always end up in an argument with them. We've won every one of them so

so far. I don't mind arguing with them. So Jay, I have a few questions for you. Um, I have a sense and it's it is not criticism, but I have a sense that separating out the um public works into departments is actually a little bit of an artificial thing because you shuffle people around and and you I understand that. I'm not being critical. I'm just getting an indication that there's not a

you don't you're not able to say, "Okay, here's uh Rebecca and she's going to be in charge of the streets and she has four people working for her and here's her tasks for the day and here's Chris and he's in charge of the pipes and he's in charge of this for the day and here's Charlie Brown and he's in charge of sanitation and the roll carts that you really have one department and you're shuffling a lot of people. So this four dedicated people would be would be hired as four people to do to do streets and backup only on water, sewer and roll cart. Is that what I'm understanding? No, they wouldn't go I try to keep general fund and water and sewer completely separate because you've got

So these Okay. So these four would be just doing streets. That's all that streets and possibly roll carts. you you're no you're correct because sanitation streets and building and grounds are all in general funds. So you're absolutely right. I'm having to bleed bleed bleed. So if it's an artificial division, why do we have it? Like is it going to be easier for you to manage it as a task list where you have buildings and grounds and streets as one group and the roll carts as a group? Is that better for you to manage? I'm getting a sense that you're struggling with the managing of it.

Well, no. It's the expectations that each department's supposed to produce for the town. So if I have four dedicated, let's say to streets, I don't have to worry about anything that streets needs to happen in that any type of service. I've got four people that's dedicated and I can keep them busy on streets. If I have four or five on building and grounds, then I know they can be totally dedicated to building and grounds and I don't have to go, okay guys, I've I'm short on streets. I've got to pull you over here. So then that's where services start lacking and that's where we start getting complaints and that's where I get the

So maybe so maybe it would be wise to look at the public works as a whole and get a sense of how many total people we need, not just the isolated streets. So if we had four for streets, four for buildings and grounds, and then however many we need for roll carts and reclamation, I mean recycling, sorry, mining term. Um, so we would have that so we get a sense of those total numbers. So it's it's it's a struggle for us to figure out what the priorities are when it's not clear to I'm willing to be clear to you, but I I'm asking you to be clear to me. Sure.

So the so I think that's something we just need to work through this budget process and get an understanding of that. And then along with that is Barbara had mentioned um the pay rate and the benefits like what attracts people to come to Pendleton. Is it the nifty uniforms they get? Um do they is it the hours they work? Is it the marvelous uh parties we have for them? Is it the great supervision? What are the things that draw people to come here instead of central? I got you.

So that kind of thing. Um on the equipment um is there any way that we could do a shared uh purchase? I know that one utility has to own it, but the hot asphalt box, could that be shared with Central perhaps or with another surrounding community because we're not going to use it 24/7? And sometimes when a hot box sits, they don't sit well. Well, you wouldn't leave it in there any length of time. That is basically So, you're going to use it 20 You're going to use it at least once a week. Hot box. Well, the way we are doing sewer and water cuts right now, it is very possible. I I'd hate to say no and then next thing I know we've got 32 leaks as soon as we walk out of here. It's it's one of those

but I was just thinking that it's a pretty big expenditure. Not super big, but 65,000 is not a you know shy away from it. Oh, this is 65,000. I'm sorry. I shouldn't know. It should be about 6,500. That's a pretty different number. That's a huge number. Okay. Well, then I'm not going to have a discussion with only $6,500. I'm sorry. I thought it was 65,000. Oh, I'm sorry. Um I've been looking at a lot of numbers here like so we need to we need to so we want to revise this because that makes a big difference in your total as well. Yeah. Um is there any um indication and perhaps not so much on streets but I mean I feel very strongly about the sidewalks. Mhm. And I have been told we have a grinder. I don't we don't have a grinder. Okay. So um

we need a milling machine for that for sidewalks. For sidewalk or we need to tear them up and repour them. or or tear them up and report like the ones in front of Franks. Those all need to be pulled up and report. If you walk them, they need to be pulled up and report. I I understand what you're saying, but then you get into what SED do is responsible for versus what we I get that. I'm trying to stay away from them. So, I got you. Yeah. Because they're trouble. So, just on a clarification, you can crossing the D, but you do. Is that what you're saying?

So, anything to do anything, we have to get DOT permission. So there are some things that we are already in a long-term contractual relationship with T maintain. For instance, the the sidewalks between Queen, those are all hard to maintain. Now we're supposed to do the streetscape up. We can take over, you know, certain sidewalls like from broad back to here. All those are SCT sidewalls and we go clean them. We we make them passible, you know, just to just to make down. They actually should be the ones doing the maintenance on it. Uh so we go back to them like we have them do a bunch, but we didn't have we asked them to do a bunch of repairs on mechanic street going out towards 76 and they came in and did a bunch there. So we just have to get with them and give them the list and and see what they will do. But anything past that, like they don't go and edge, they don't go and cut, they don't go blow. Yeah,

got it.

So, the we have a sidewalk inventory that we that's pretty good and we just need to get go through and clarify the responsible agency on those because we did not get that when we captured it cuz we weren't sure. So, maybe we just need to sit down with you and and capture that information from your brain, get it on to the GIS so we know and then when Sarah meets with the DOT, she can say, "Here are the 18 sidewalks that are exceptionally bad DOT. Do you want us to do them or are you going to do them or do we need a grant to do them?" Whatever. right? And get whatever equipment. Jay, have we ever looked at not so much, not that I'm asking to put citizens in the middle of the street cuz I'm not, but um have we looked at any role that volunteers could play to help with some of these things? I don't want to cross the buildings and grounds in the street department thing, but I'm thinking the buildings and grounds in terms of of uh flowers and trees is something more volunteers can do than

than your streets were. Correct. You know, the garden club in previous years has has done a lot of that. I think that group has shrunk some. It's not as not as many folks involved with it now. Um, but that's something that would help us. We could and I think they still do some of that for us like at the depot building and here at the corner of the bridge here, they may like if they need uh mulch, top soil, stuff like that. We'll bring all that and then the ladies normally they know what flowers they want. They do the point, they do sister city park, they do the gossip bridge bridge, they do the this bridge, this one. Yeah,

I have um directed staff to put together kind of a list of what different organizations are doing so more aware. I think that would be really helpful. And then I did just um I have directed Amber and um Lindsay to politely add more meetings to Jay's calendar and you know have you sit in on the mayor's beautifification committee and the decor committee because I feel like committees like that could be a big advocate for public works. I agree. And your mowing is mowing in streets or is mowing in buildings and grounds? Building and grounds. Okay. Right away cutting is streets though. So like if so the the 61 acres that we figured that a lot of that was right away mowing.

I'm sure some of that Yeah. But the but the building and grounds guys they do have a lot of acres that they're covering for two guys as well. And the green the village green that's buildings and grounds. That's not discussion here. It's building and grounds. Yes ma'am. Okay. Thank you. All right. We're going to go right into sanitation. So, you know, you get another dose of me. And then I I do apologize. I have a standing commitment every Wednesday. So, I will be ducking out in about 22 minutes. Can you close this meeting on? Thank you. All right. This is the sanitation side of us.

And that one is in their email because it was so large it would not go to the side. Where's this is in our email? Yeah, this one is

a little larger because there's so many services that fall under sanitation and the touch base on each one. So, this is about sanitation service delivery and how we keep it reliable, safe, and sustainable. Um, this transition is already underway. Obviously, we'd already have a side loader in our inventory, and we're looking to continue to add at least two more in the coming years with that process. So, we're going to cover trash collection equipment, recycling, leaf, bulk, brush limits, and staffing impacts. So again, we just need a service model so expectations match what we can deliver. And I think we've got a fairly decent service model in place already. Um sanitation is not just one route. It's, you know, it's trash, recycling, leaf, brush, bulk. All services draw from the same employee pool and equipment. So when one route gets delayed, it ripples into the next and it shows up as complaints up here for our CSRs. So rear loaders they are labor intensive by design. This is what we has basically had for for years. Uh to run efficiently and safely. It takes three employees as a driver and two collectors. Uh the model is hard to sustain with staffing realities and increasing demand. So manual handling increases fatigue and injury exposure as well. So, one thing I always say about side or rear loaders, they don't just pick up trash, they consume manpower as well. So, rear loaders still have a place, but for most daily residential collections, they are outdated compared to the side loader options. I said, they require more staff per route. They're slower and they increase risk. They also reduce

flexibility during callouts or training. So this it's a model built for a workforce that we really we don't have anymore. Side loaders are the modern standard for residential collection. One operator can run the route once carts are used correctly. We're I currently still have two guys in our side loader because we're trying to get people educated on how to place their carts. And we have put stickers on these carts with an arrow telling them point it toward the road to help out with that process. It seems seems to be working. So these things improve reliability and reduce repetitive lifting and injury risk. So you know we can have a one essentially a one operator system versus a threeperson dependency with the side loaders. So right now I have eight total sanitation employees in that department. If the rear loaders had to be used daily would would require nine to operate efficiently. That's a driver driver driver. And the only reason that I've need nine is because we've had to run two trucks on every route each day to cut weight because we were severely overweight. Um, so the side loader purchase last year still allows us to run a twoerson setup, you know, but as we educate our citizens, hopefully we'll get that transition to a oneperson. I can loosen that guy up for other sanitation needs. recycling. It's a public expectation, but contamination is frequent. Common contaminants include, and I'm I know we just went over this on the last council meeting, but household trash, cat litter, glass, dog feces, pizza box, unwashed plastics. We get it all in

those 18 gallon totes. They are just another trash can, basically. So we've tried multiple approaches refusing pickup that all that done was increased calls up here to the CSRs people upset. We've distributed flyers in the past. We've even manually separated items in the field from time to time, but it's time consuming and it's not sustainable. So we can educate, we can tag it, but we can't staff our way out of it. It's just one of those services that just does not seem to benefit us currently. We still got to complete routes on time. So if we red tag every contaminated tote, it delays services, reduces capacity elsewhere to keep routes moving, contaminate recycling, gets diverted to the landfill. This is a call I made is I've got to get people taken care of. The only thing I can do to make sure the services after sanitation get touched or done is just to send everything to the landfill. So we can either enforce recycling perfectly or complete routes on time. And with current staff and I can't do both. Leaf routes, they run after the trash routes. This also requires two employees. I have to have a ground guy with this driver. ground purses needed because leaf piles, they're often contaminated with sticks, bricks, toys, and dirt that damage the impeller system that, you know, sucks the leaves up. So, leaf season is not a a route problem. It's more of a contamination problem, too. But, it's one we can deal with. The new leaf truck, we've already had to take the hose off of it twice to get sticks out of it because of contaminated leaf piles. And of course, people get upset when their leaves aren't picked up and they call town hall or they probably call one of y'all sitting here.

Challenges, like I said, contamination, contractor abuse is another one. We have a lot of folks that have a contractor come in and clean the yards up and they pile everything right on the side of the road and expect us to get it. And most times we do, especially if it's a senior citizen or someone with disabilities, even though it's a contractor, we end up with it. So the Leafac holds 20 cubic yards and one stop and I'm going to use Broad Street. I'm going to throw it out will take up the whole truck and they're notorious for it. So now we have to go dump before we can even complete the route because of one stop. And our older one is still currently down. It's got selenoid issues with the controllers for the arm on the outside. I'm trying to find a retrofit option for that truck. So, we don't have to purchase an additional truck and still use that one because we do have money invested in that truck and we need to put it on the road. So, bulk route. Bulk route that runs after trash routes and it requires at least two employees as well and the right equipment. So, this is for everybody that throws out their their stoves, their couches, and their their bedroom furniture, refrigerators. This is stuff we have to go get. Unfortunately, we have some folks that will clean out their entire house. I don't know if they're still living where they're at. So, I don't know if they've just re put, you know, everything in their house and just do everything out, but it is unreal. Sometimes there is a cost with this and they do not like it when we tell them there's a cost. We don't mind getting it. They just need to pay it. They have to come up here to do so. So, but when a and a lot of this stuff requires a bulk truck to pick up. I can't send the two guys out in the pickup truck like we normally do to pick

up smaller stuff. So this is becoming more and more of a issue and it's it's a bulk pickup's not a separate operation. It's I mean it's a separate operation. I mean it's not an add-on. So they people expect this service problem of bulk. It's not predictable. One street can have one couch, the next street might have three appliances and a full household set out. um fuel disposal, equipment wear, it's all wears on these trucks. Bulk also competes directly with roll cart service for the same staff and equipment. Trash collection is it's expected and I use the term mandatory a lot, but it's it's a ordinance that we have that it's a service we offer. It's a core service. That's a better way of putting it. So when bulk spikes, bulks got to wait and then residents feel that delay. So why u this is why bulk service needs to remain limited in control and why equipment real reliability matters. The the knuckle boom I've got now for bulk. It's an older one and we've had to do some work on it. But when it's down, these guys are right there picking this stuff up by hand. And and if they can't, that's where that bleed over comes from where I may have to rob from another department to go help them and they got to pull a trailer to get stuff. So it's uh always interesting. So brush pickup, brush pickup is intended for seasonal trimmings. Some residents are effectively clear-cutting lots and expecting the town to pick it haul it off for free. This overwhelms routes and it's unfair to compliant residents. We do have a fee base for excess pickups. That's $150,

but they have to come up here and take care of that cost. We will not argue with people roadside. We just advise them of the process and we have to move on. Sometimes That's uh easier said than done. So limits are required regardless of staffing or equipment to protect core trash services. So standards, I know this has been a topic for years and I wanted to go and just go buy some PVC and build this and I was actually said I should and I just ran out of time. But this is your bulk pile really should be no more than six feet long because that's the length of the the limbs that the facility at Clemson takes. It can be six feet wide and about four feet high. That is a that is probably at least two to three grabs of that knuckle boom. That's a good bit of seasonal trimmings, if you will. But we still have people that put root balls, they put logs out, stumps, and we we cannot take that to the facility at Clemson. It just does not work in that chipper system. But so sanitation equipment requests, obviously a side loader. I don't in in all reality, I don't know if that's an option this year. I was kind of understood that it may be an every other year thing that we may look at. We just got one, so I'm not being unrealistic thinking we're going to get another 400, you know, plus thousand trash truck, but you're not going to hurt my feelings if you say, "Hey, let's go ahead and get that second one in." It'd be great. And then a secondary grapple or knuckle

boom, if you will. That's our biggest things for sanitation currently. Um is getting that new side loader option going completely townwide. So it can and it's not freeing up guys to go to other departments. It's actually freeing them up to start other sanitation services earlier. We can start a brush route earlier. We can start the leaf route earlier. We can start the bulk route earlier. So these other services can actually start quicker and get done sooner and get processed and get where they're supposed to be instead of having to park a a truck full of trash or debris on public works and then that next morning they have to run it to Star or Clemson or Belton. We'll have time actually get those trucks unloaded if they need unloading for that day. So other thing I would request and is one additional full-time sanitation employee. This estimated annual cost is about $62,26. That's just based off the tech three.

That number again $62,26. Now my math may be a little off, but it shouldn't be too far off. That's based off a tech three uh of our hiring range. a midlevel fringe benefits up upfitting cost, but this is that's about the standard cost to get a new tech 3 hired in. Just to help a little bit, the tech three is the one that has a CDL license. Do they need the CDL to do the side loading? They do, right?

They do for the side load. It does require. I can though get a non CDL required knuckle bone though. It's not as big as it's the same size as the orange one that you see going around town picking up brush. The blue one's a little bigger but due to weight I can get a non CDDL required knuckle boom which would allow me to utilize guys that do not have a CDL. How much is that? The knuckle boom. You're looking at $275,000 probably for a knuckle boom for the orange ones. Yes, ma'am. The one we have now, is it CDL required? The orange one is not. The blue one is.

Okay. So, that's has really benefited us to have a non CDL. We can't carry as much on it, but it works just fine. Especially since the turnaround for that truck specifically is Clemson and back. If we were going to Star or Belton with it, you know, then you because you're looking at a twohour turnaround a lot of times with Belton because you get there then you're in line with every other facility and municipality and private trash collector dumping. But do you need the bulk loader for the um if you use the knuckle bone for bulk loading? You have to use a blue one, don't you?

I do. So I have to get a CDL driver for that one. And and that's the guy from streets I've been pulling using that one. So Jay, yes ma'am. Um can we do questions now? I'm I'm fine. I'm at 18. I got 21 total. Okay. Not even I thought it was by you. I'm almost there.

I'll finish this up. So, I mean, we're right here. I just need council direction again so we can maintain the current model, accept staffing strain, we can enforce limits aggressively and increase calls and reduce capacity elsewhere. And this is not just S. This is the services that come after that roll cart that where people get frustrated with, you know, my brush has been out here for five month. Nobody's brush has not been picked up in five months. I can tell you that. I can track that truck, know exactly where it goes. Um, or C, we look at, you know, a structured approach. We enforce clear service limits and invest the right support equipment so special routes can be completed reliably. The biggest thing is just getting folks to understand if you have abnormal excessive loads for us to pick up, it's not free. You have to come pay for that service. So with the right model, enforceable standards, we improve safety, consistency, route reliability. This reduces staffing strain, helps reduce long-term equipment damage and overtime pressure. and we wrap it up with the key message. It's it's like everything else I'm dealing with. We can meet your expectations. I just want to determine what the priorities are with certain our current capacity. Um I know you guys like me, you get inundated with calls. This is not picked up. Why are they skipping this or that? And the every little call takes, you know, probably got 10 or 15 minutes invested in it. then a followup with staff or you're following up with me or Steve or Amber. So, it's it's time and by the end of the day, you probably hadn't got other things done that were the priority just over dealing with somebody who said their

brush didn't get picked up and or their bulk wasn't picked up. and and I can give you a time and date when the truck was there at their specific residence with this GPS insight, which is great for that. So, that's that's it. Any questions or concerns?

Thank you. I I just more of a comment. Um I've lived in a lot of places like living in April and I've lived in places where if your trash lid is open this much, they refuse to take your trash. And I um I don't want to say I feel like our citizens are given the benefit of the doubt, but I definitely think they do. And after hearing your presentation, I think, you know, I don't know if it's education that we need to do. I don't know if we need to just have consequences for that's not good but if your trash lid is open your container not you know is overflowing and there's additional charge. I I don't know the answer but I do know if this is a consistent problem maybe we do you know maybe we do need to yeah I don't I guess quit enabling it or I'm a teacher so you know but anyway but that was interesting. Thank you Barbara. Um, again, um, I'm going to reiterate what you said about education because I think that's key. Um, there things on here like I do six feet, you know. Um, but

I had went out my yard and pulled up a bush and put, you know, put the whole thing on there. Um, did not know you couldn't do that. But here's the other thing. Ever since we moved here 20 years ago, we were told firsthand, you need to call sanitation for large appliances, the sofa, the mattresses, and and let them know. Um, but apparently people aren't doing this.

No. And just my thoughts, I think for the longest time we were had such a smaller footprint as far as a town and we were able to accommodate folks where it was like, hey, we can do it. We don't have a lot going on right now. Let's just go get it. And unfortunately or fortunately, however you want to look at, we're we're growing, which is not a bad thing. And I don't want anybody to misunderstand that growth pays for all this stuff that we get. and I'm thankful for it. But the byproducts of our growth is some of these services that we were able to do years ago because we were a smaller footprint, we just can't do it anymore. We don't have the the staffing or the ability to do it. I think that what we need to do is um sit down with Lensen

and or whoever you need to sit down with and we need to here's what with the communication I guess we work on this on our team but I think it is time for us to send an update. Um what was given to me 20 years ago is not going to be something that is going to work now. Um the other thing is um the leaf pickup. Yes, ma'am. So we don't bag leaves. You can. Okay. If you bag leaves, we will pick it up. I won't pick it up with a leaf bag. I'll pick it up with a sanitation truck, but we will pick it up.

And I've had to reiterate that with my guys a few times. So there's there's fault on both sides there. Same with leaf trim or grass clippings. I've had to tell them you go back out and you pick it up. So that it's not totally on our citizens all the time.

It's not. But I but the majority of this what I'm seeing is really a local problem so to say is that that there's citizens not knowing what we're supposed to be doing and what we're supposed to not be doing. Um so there we go. And as far as $150 fee pickup, um there's a town that you rent the truck and and they can come and pick it up and it's $150 to rent that truck to put all your stuff in. So that's a reasonable thing.

I thought so too. Um, it's Jay and Dave, thanks for all the time you put into this. Um, a couple questions. How's our What's it look like for fees for 27 2027? We looking at increasing fees in any areas.

That I don't know. Uh the main impact will be what y'all decide to pull off to do with commercial containers to recycle. Um if you get rid of commercial containers, you're about 50 to $60,000 revenue out of your budget. So there will be have to be a discussion on whether you want to absorb that into your tax or whether you want to go up sanitation fees. And then just your general thing, do you want to go up on your roll cart fees? Uh, we haven't gone up in a while. Um, I mean, you know, we can we can call around some of them, Miss Kylie, and see what they're at. We we all kind of track each other throughout the course of couple years. Uh, all the other fees, we ask department heads all the time to tell us, you know, like what's your biggest request? What do you spend the most time on? We have all kind of needs that people don't realize we have and we kind of do the same thing. We look at what some other cities have in Georgia. Last year, one of the things the things we spent some time on was all the voya stuff. I'm going tell you boy where

we're at 46. We're 46 voyer requests this year already. And as in this calendar year, this calendar year in our presentation. Yeah. And that I mean that's taking a lot of time. We may have to you're probably looking at eight hours of your request the time being taken up. So we we try to look at that minimum.

So we try to look at that. Then when you adopt your budget, you adopt the whole fee schedule behind it. um that deals with like copies and permits and tabs and uh the extra bulk pickups and things along that nature and then you know whatever comes out of the tax model study you're already in the rate increase your water se I believe it's three years off top of my head so if we if we do a rate increase that money specifically goes to to cut the word sanitation.

So it so what um when you don't when you take in revenue if you're just looking at general fund when you take in revenue when you look at the first page of your general fund budget you see all the revenues. So because we you know they're not to a certain point we don't have to actually allocate out the revenues each specific function. However, at some point we will have to break sanitation down to its own fun and you generally have to start doing that when it hits 5% of it and it it is real close if not at 5% and so it may be a very real thing that we have to break sanitation down into its own fun. So I think going back to answering NY's question about why you just don't drop everybody in there because we actually have to track and we report to the state certain things and to our workers comp and everything else which is why we try to keep them as separated as possible because it does affect some other ways but it's a very real idea that you may have a fund 13 and it be sanitation and the sanitation have its own fee going in there and it have a transfer general fund also the rest of

Well, the reason I asked because um I mean I would feel that if if my roll cart fee increased that I'm going to assume it increased because sanitation needed you know things change of course you know all of this expenses on everything and I would just think okay that's because of that I wouldn't look at it any other that no money was going anywhere else. That's all I

Yeah. So, so just some history on it. Um, you know, sanitation when the town had to eliminate a lot of different services. They eliminated police, they eliminated several other things.

Sanitation. Yeah. Sanitation was like the last surviving service. So when you talk about why our service level sanitation is so high, it really comes out of that because council like we've got to show the citizens are getting something. They want their sanitation services to be as high as we provide at the time. Um now you're kind of getting to a place where some of it like the commercial side of it uh we probably really needs to go. Um recycling is just not

right. it's just not sustainable, but it's just an extra trash can. Um, and then now you really decide on is this the service level that we're at? And if so, then then that's what we got to do. But there's other things that obviously this this current council uh likes such as Jay said it. It's one of the things I probably said to many of y'all. We struggle with what the expectation of us is for building because there's 4,000 expectations of what the dream should look like and and it's real hard to put those expectations into actionable words when we go.

But I also think that people don't realize that what what the green should look like. And that's why I asked Jay, he needs to tell us what he feels it needs to look like. They don't understand that it's just not a space that's green with some swings on it and some benches. There's more to it. There's more that they don't see underneath that grass. You know, everybody, oh, just might cut the grass. Well, that's not all that needs to be done. And and the whole maintenance of of the area is a lot that it encompasses. And that's why I felt that Jay should say, "Hey, this is what we need. This is what it should look like." Um, aesthetics is one thing, but the aesthetics is not what is going to really be what we need to know. We need to know what is going to be needed infrastructure wise, what's under that ground. Um, you know, what can and because until we know that, we really don't know what we can do.

So, Barbara, you finished? Oh, yeah. Okay. No, somebody got a question. I didn't want to interrupt you. So, um I had a So, now we're on sanitation. Yes, ma'am. And, um we talked about um we did not talk about the bulk loading that we talked about at the public hearing, the commercial bulk loaders. I mean, I didn't see it in the presentation. I I got late. I wasn't paying attention. So, it's just standard part of the sanitation itself. I run two trucks. Obviously, the side loader can't do it. So correct the other truck that's running like route he would pick up every dumpster. So we the old we call her old Betsy in our neighborhood but the the back one.

Yes ma'am. That that those are um dump the dump the commercial dumpsters as well as the roll carts. Yes ma'am. Um so we'll all so um I wanted to um talk to you a little bit about that. So, we get uh you estimated at the public hearing, we get $55,000 approximately from businesses that pay for that. Yes, ma'am. And we've talked about um we've Lyn and I we've done some interviews with some businesses that have those loaders, those containers, and this is something for us to explore. I'm not asking you to do it today. Sure.

But to look at possibly contracting for that service where that contract would come through the town in some way so that we could control the time of pickup, where they're placed, and how many there are. And then if we had to subsidize that, it would be a benefit to be in a business in Pendleton that you would get some subsidized service.

And then for the people that dump the um empty their like you and I saw on Thompson Street the other day, I think I was with you. Who was I with? No, I was with Steve, but they just emptied their house on Thompson Street. If we had a contractor that we had hired, they could also go do that as part of our agreement with them perhaps. I mean, it's something to think. I'm trying to think of creative ways for us to cut our costs, still deliver that service to the customer, but not overburden your your folks are obviously overburdened. The job is obviously overwhelming. So, I'm trying to think of ways to ease that burden. And if we had a contractor that did the commercial dumpsters and was also available for us for the bulk services, it sounds like that might be an ease to your folks.

It would. Now, the one thing that I didn't mention that that would would probably be need to take into consideration if we go with say a private company for the dumpsters, bulk containers, they're not going to have the setup like we do. They're going to have that front loader. So, they would have to provide that would be part of the deal, Jay. They would have to provide that. They would have to provide the dumpster and then the dump the dumpsters we have would probably just have to go to scrap. I don't think you can reuse them. I think they're just they're done. Yeah. So that so that's just part of the deal. That's fine. I didn't know if that would be something the town would have to absorb or we'd figure that out. Okay. We can figure that out. Um on the recycling, I know we're all willing to say, "Well, forget recycling." Well, I've had a number of citizens approach me

that have expertise in um establishing recycle establishing and maintaining recycling programs. I would like us as part of this process and I don't know if this is where we do that or not. Is this where we do that? Ask somebody to look into this. Um

this is this is so the budget N is like your largest policy setting of the year. So if you want us to look into like recycling, this is where it starts coming out. Maybe we do have to do that. Maybe we tell you we can do it in house and it's something we report back to all. So, we've identified several people that are willing to citizens that are willing to come forward and meet with y'all um in I'm not sure about the mechanics of how this would work and I don't know if this is the time to do it, but they would like to explore with you what it would cost to break even on recycling and then what it would cost how many house could we identify how many households are actively doing bin recycling and not been not recycling trash. But I could walk around my neighborhood and tell you who's doing it for trash and who's doing it for recycling, right? And these people will generally self- select. And so is there a way that we could find a way to make the curbside recycling work with some education and working with these citizens that have that expertise? I don't have that expertise, but people that have that expertise have contacted me and I would suggest that we if you're willing if we if we could do that, that'd be great.

And I think one of the ways that a lot of places have done it is they actually charge recycle fee and like you said, they sell select. So there's another version of truck we can buy that's on like a gun chassis, right? Those trucks are less than $100,000 and it just needs one person. And they're also easier to operate and they can be used for other things and you can do it with a sticker system on the existing blue bin. So I self- selected. I get the bright blue and silver branded sticker. So I don't I don't I'm not an expert on that. you guys have experience, but I would like us to if it's okay to suggest that we do that. Um,

there'll it'll go it'll be kept within the budget documents. Okay. Thank you. Um, the other question I had was on the leaf pickup. Um, put down. So the the question is we currently have the VA the snuffophagus. Yep. Very entertaining vehicle. Um have we looked at the balancing the cost of putting um leaves in a clear plastic bag? Is that is is it are we doing it with this snuffus because that's easier for us to offload that.

No, we have citizens that do both. Some folks will bag it. Now, the disposal where it comes into play, if we take it to STAR, we have to tear open every bag and dump it out. They won't take the plastic. Okay? Otherwise, it goes in the back of the sanitation truck and just gets compacted with trash. Well, we'll pick it up either way. So the issue with bagging the leaves is that if they're they go to the landfill essentially if they're bagged and do leaves and they that's never and they should go to star. In all reality they should go to star but they have to come out of the bags. They won't.

So that's not really an option then. Um and then um so we talk about adding one additional sanitation. I'm fine with that. Um, but with people are going to ask me, hey, I thought we went to the side loader, which is a very entertaining truck as well. We had a lot of good enjoyment in our neighborhood of that truck. Um, comment. It's a slowmoving neighborhood. Um, so we're getting three people, reducing it to one, and yet we're adding one to sanitation. But if we had this contracted bulk loading and that could also help us with the commercial that you know,

right? Was that a way to not add an FTE or would we still need the FTE? No, because you're still looking at bulk services leaf route and No, but if the bulk but the bulk of So it's the leaf route and the brush and those are two separate trucks that would have to run with two separate employees on each one. So leaf and brush is four employees and then the side loading if you had one side loading sanitation that's one presumably eventually they'll get to those one yes and then old Betsy's three and then we've got the so that's eight employees just but if we contract it out for the bulk I I understand that

I think you're talking about contracting out for the large things he's talking about picking up the bulk like that kind of stuff well I'm thinking if we hire some if we can get into a contract where somebody does our commercial we should just call something different. The commercial dumpsters, if we contracted that out, could the same person that did that also, if we identified where there were issues, could that firm also pick up the curbside? I think that would be extremely difficult to because it's not going to be a consistent thing.

Okay. Okay. So, just to possib But you're right. No. And I get what you saying, but unfortunately right now I don't have that option. So I have to I have to look at what I understand. I'm just I'm just looking down the road what we can do to make it. So we would um So then So the total number we would need So if we invested a half a million dollars in another side loading dump truck or sanitation truck that would free up two more people. Yes. And then we would still need an FTE in addition to that. Or is it a truck? Is it a truck or is it or is it is it one person or is it a truck and not one person?

One more time. If we buy the side loading truck, do we still need the additional one person? Yes, ma'am. Because we there's still other services that instead of waiting until the sanitation route's done, they'll start. So, you're down one person in sanitation no matter how many trucks we get. We're just down one person. Yes. Okay. Is that good? Yep. Um, so last year we talked about as an objective for sanitation to decrease the muddled funding. I don't remember that conversation. What What was that about? And did we decrease the muddled funding?

So, um, I don't think it came to me by sitting on the council right now.

Okay. Um the the funding, honestly, the funding is fairly straightforward. You get about 300,000 to $400,000 in roll cart fees and all the rest of it made up in property tax. Um so that's that's all that's that's not just our case. That's that's the case for most cities around here. Sanitation is supported by by AP and property tax. Um the the difference is is we right now it's not big enough housing minimum fund. If you broke it out maybe you'd see a little bit clear. Um but it's still 67 $800,000 cost. Um so 2020 census said we had 3,489 residents in this town. If we add Morton Farm, the tiff, uh the oil millennier to

Champions Village, Mihen Falls is kind of filling out Piper Glenn. So that's be about 50% increase in our population from the 2020 census. So we'd be anywhere from 5,100 to 5,300 I don't know where you guys are thinking by 2032. So I mean with this increased this is this isn't for you but for our whole town in regards to thinking about this because when we do these budget things we're kind of talking about in a year. Yes sir. what you need for next year and that year. But the reality is we got a 50% increase in our population in

in a 10-year period right in the middle of it. So, um are we thinking that way on these different issues? I mean, for instance, when you go into these newer developments, is there less pickup less? I mean, is there is there a difference between Puit Street and Dalton Road?

There is. Currently, yes, you're correct. The newer neighborhoods coming online, we're not going to see the the brush or the the leaf amounts that we see in what I call the older part of Hamilton, but it is coming like you said. Um, and we also have got to look at Friday being another trash route in put into effect. I don't think once all these neighborhoods come online that we're going to be able to compress them in a Monday through Thursday model like we're currently doing. I just I cannot see it working to where we can get everybody taken care of and get those trucks emptied for the next day. I and unfortunately we're just going to have to open up Friday for another route just so we can wait as well just to maintain the weight. Now if we do go away from dumpsters or that would definitely help with weight and the only way I track or the way I track that is the slips that come back from the landfill. So I can actually see how much each of those trucks are are hauling daily. We have cut our numbers almost in half which has been absolutely great because we were probably three times heavier than what we should have been on some days to be on the roads legally. does.

So, I don't know if it was Robbie or Steve or somebody I was in a conversation with police department about growth and they said that there's a certain point where you what your staffing requirements are and your population can grow and you kind of plateau and you level off and you don't really need to even though the population might be increasing a bit you don't really need to increase. Is is that was that you telling me that Steve? I mean, so so when you look at police like, like if y'all went 24 hours with 13 officers, I mean, you could probably conceivably get 7 8 9,000 people. The only thing that you may had in that time might be a detective or whatever else that council felt was like a specific patrol objective. when you get into sanitation, um, sanitation, it does kind of flow with the cans, but we also, as y'all said earlier, we offer a high level of service that that you don't necessarily get other things. So, sanitation is like your gold standard of the service you want to offer. That is going to grow your population. But if you're going to run at at a basic level of service or maybe a little bit enhanced level of service administration, we you know, if we add one or two more people again, we're probably good at 10,000 people at that point between technology and everything else. So you're not looking at having to back field unless it's just something specific the council wants to do. Um

so economies of scale, economies of scale. Same thing with street departments. the street department, we would buy bigger equipment that allow them to maintain the especially road moments faster, but they may maybe we get to 8,000 people. He only has to go from four to five. Um, so it's just your economy, the scale. Then when you your tipping point seems to be talking to other people, seems to be in that 8 to 10,000 population and then they're preparing to go to 15 16 17,000. So they're they're in a growth period at that point. Okay.

Go over the weight and how So we're we're sending the same amount of the same weight, but we're sending in two trucks. Am I hearing you correctly? Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. All right. And the county determines the

state does. So it's based on vehicle weight and then it also is based on how many axles that truck has. So, like our recycle truck is a single axle, rear axle truck. It can only hold, I think it's 36,000 lbs total. And the truck, it may weigh 28,000 lbs. So, now we're looking at or the 8,000 lbs total that we can actually legally put on that truck. You get to a dual tan like our trash trucks are dual axle. So, you go up to 48,000 lbs, I believe it is. to hit 66. Now you got to look at a drop axle added into it for three. So we're we're kind of limited on our weight depending on how big the truck is, how much it weighs, and how many axles it has.

So how many trucks are they sending with less than capacity but but maximum weight? do that. The two the two trash trucks currently are still a hair over, but they are in an acceptable range, if you will. The recycle truck will never hit its full capacity on weight. It it's drops off anywhere between 1 to 1.9 tons and hitting that weight. The trash is the space at capacity. Are we having to send half empty or 2/3 full trucks? No. to manage the weight. Does that make sense?

Yes, I see what you're saying. Um, no, currently we're we're packing them because it's hard to tell. You don't know the weight when we're out there. Honestly, the only way as we look at the back tires and see if they start sinking, then we know we got too much weight. And that's what Highway Patrol will look for. They'll stop them if they see those those tires kind of mushroomed out. Would we buy Isn't there a way to weigh a truck by just driving one wheel on one scale? I mean, doesn't Nick run around or something like that? How much do those cost? They can't be that expensive because they're

trucks. I mean, I don't even know. I you know I don't know how or how well and it's not I think but if it doesn't help you I don't well the town see the town doesn't get fined it's a driver so the drivers are at risk of getting fined or losing CDLs I say they lose their license

yeah they they eat all the penalties personally so the town you know I could put 20 tons on a truck and limp it there And if they get pulled over, I'm like, "Well, Willie, I hope you can talk them down on your fine when you go to court, buddy. Good luck." It don't, but have you really? You don't have to. Usually, it's on the drive. We don't let our drivers. Yeah. But it's their license. They don't take those. I'm saying that's what the town's done. That's just

right. Yeah. And the cost on bulk and all that. Can y'all have that? I've never seen those commercial things. Not the commercial things. The the mattresses on Yeah. So, we don't get um we don't pay tipping fees down there. So, so I mean we can tell you what it cost for us to run a truck, but there is no tipping fee associated on the No, but I'm asking what you're charging the citizen and how much are they pay? Yes. If it's Oh, it's 150.

It's 150 if it's outside. If it's like a mattress and two other things, it's picked up and look. Yeah. It It has to be excessive. It has to be excessive. Okay. I know that in Anderson they had a problem and because all of the um people who were renting properties, we go and just dump all the stuff out. Is is that one of the when you say your the whole household is are renters being cleared out and is it I think they added a different fee for evictions evictions than they did for a citizen maybe cleaning out a room or two.

We can we can find out. Um, I thought there was a fee with that. Oh, but it was a really big problem in control. Um, so I got it all that was that was an eviction that I mean that was landlords going.

Yeah, that was a whole different person making money off these properties. But but but still um if you if you know that you're going to have a whole lot of stuff that needs to be picked up and then we citizens still pay 150 but they pay $150 at one time they used to have the truck. You can rent the truck and other towns still do had the truck rent for $150 for a weekend. They drop the truck come pick it up. You put all your crap in there and they take it off.

So we used to when we had the top kicks or one caught fire. We used to do that. Now our trucks now um the only one that we would probably consider doing that in now is a 3500. But you really need those those top kicks. They have a bed if they throw something in it. That's all right. That's all my questions. Anybody else? You got anything on the sheet for us? Start start tracking.

Did you want to put the fees up there, Jeff? Should we put the fees up there? It did. Yeah. It It says fees, charges, sanitation. Okay. Is that clear to you? That's good. All right. Okay, good. That's all our it one question before we get off of that. So, are we doing buildings and grounds on another day? Yes, ma'am. Next week is water and sewer wastewater treatment plant

and that's Wednesday at from noon to 4. Yes. Yes. And did um Owen have his baby? Owen is on his way to the hospital right now. Just check. He said they are ready or at least she's ready. Bet she is. She just thinks she is. I know. I feel her. I feel her. Hurry up and get him out. All right. So, I have a motion to move to second. Second. All better. Thank you very much. Thank you. All right.

Hey, J on Cambridge when they rolled in that water line, they left that road a mess.