Town Council - Regular Meeting

I'm gonna call this meeting to order and I'm gonna turn it over to Amy. Thanks for being here, everyone. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor.

So, I'm going to get started with the administration. Um or my slideshow. Um, I'm going to be talking about our team, the our fiscal year 2425, um, the municipal clerk information. We'll talk a little bit about human resources, some of our constraints, and our requests for the upcoming year. Um, so this is a listing of all of our team. Um, and, uh, there is one little change. Um we do have a vacant position open and right now we have someone with manpower who is um who's kind of filling in and helping out. Um and today we are a little short staffed. I have Stephanie in training and um Terry was not feeling well so she went home. Um so our phones might ring um as we try to help out because Ansley and and my uh just the two up there. Um so the fiscal year 2425 the overview. Um so we processed 11,928 transactions for a total of 5,188,99474. And so that is actually up 23% from last fiscal year. Um let's see. And then the um we had 12,487 online transactions for a total of 1,271,3448 and that was actually up 55% which is which is wonderful. You know, last fiscal year is when we rolled out the new um open forms and the new website. And so um so then I also listed

that 915 of those transactions were from the new website for 323,396. Um and then uh we had 648 pay by phone transactions for a total of 55,7801. Um the reason I didn't put up or down because um fiscal year 2425 was the first year that we had pay by phone. So we don't have any historical data but next year we will to know what that is. Um in those uh numbers I did take out the um the payments that we received from Clemson and Anderson for the waste treatment upgrade. Um there were 36 of those transactions and that was $10 million. So it would have really inflated our numbers and they would have not been correct. Um so I just kind of did a highlight of the revenues uh for fiscal year 2425. Um so we we received three mil 3,790,379 in property taxes and that did not include the homestead exemption and that was up 18%. Um, we received 320,666 in vehicle taxes and that was up 13%. Um, our hospitality tax was $457 and um, and it was up 10% and then business classes was 255,691 and that was up also 10% which is kind of weird that both of them were the same percentage increase. Um, and then we had 1,88,345

in water revenue and that was up 13% and then uh 1,578,738 in the sewer revenue and that was up 18%. Um, so our highest expenditures not including the salaries. Um, in the general fund it was the building and grounds, the capital outlay. Um, in the water and sewer it was the waste treatment professional services and that's where we pay that contract to Clear Water and then hospitality it was maintenance and repair Veterans Park and the reason for that is because um of Hurricane Helen and all the repairs that we had to do to um Veterans Park. Um so for the expenditures um payroll and the fringe benefits accounted for 35% of the general fund budget and 13% of the water and sewer budget. That was just that would be all the payroll, insurance, uh retirement, all that is that's the percentage. Um, and we issued um 1,115 accounts payable checks for a total of 6,229,588. And um that we did have a 4% increase in those amount of checks and the amount we paid out in accounts payable. Um so these are our top five collectors for hospitality tax. Um, so it's Foul Play LLC, which is Zachby's, Blue Haron, Dairy Queen, Bojangles, and then the Fiesta 2, which is out on 76. Um, and then our top five local business

license contributors. Um, so Quick Trip is the first one, Food Line, CVS, Blue Heron, and Foul Play Sax. And these were what inside it the um the other one was the hospitality what they pay in the hospitality or they collect from their customers and then this was business license business and this is yes business license fees yes back to the hospitality has not been on these for the last two years do they are they under fiesta

they are not they are separate and they pay separately But these are just the top five. This is not total. Correct. Yes.

How many people pay business? Businesses do we have to pay business tax? Um I'm not exactly sure of the total number, but um we did we are getting ready to send out renewal applications and we're sending out about 800. Just a little over Yeah, a little over 800. And how many of those are people who work from home? Um, so it was about 600 of out of town people and it was about 200 of in town um from home. I'm not sure. Yeah, I'm not sure how many on that one.

Um, we don't really completely have a good way to pull a list that just shows like homebased businesses.

Um, so this is the municipal clerk. This is the calendar year information for Amber. Um, so we had 22 council meetings, 35 resolutions were passed, and we had 17 ordinances passed. Um, and then a little fun fact, um, we answered over 2,50 emails to the town to the info@town of hamilton.org for the calendar year. We had 29 freedom of information requests and applications increased by 24 representing 480% increase from the last year. Um, we had three insurance claims filed and we had 1,69 voters vote in the 2025 municipal election,

which is roughly 50% almost of our total population. Right. 3200 voters. Pardon? There's 3,200 registered. Okay. I'm sorry. Yeah, you're right. I'm sorry. And the foyers, was there a pattern or do you know what was what they were requesting the most? Yeah. Um I think

okay substantially this year. Um so a lot of those dealt with development and um dealt with uh so a lot of it came out of the plan department and then the rest essentially finance and then you always have I'm not sure if you had any there police department we actually do yeah those are our police department's a big one as well

um so human resources um currently we have 33 full-time employees employees and we have one part-time employee um and we do have four people working through manpower that it may be more like three um we had one believe I don't know if they've been replaced at public works but um in that number three were public works and one is the manpower person working at town hall one other for every request we get and we're on what number already this year. We're already at 50. We have to spend about 40 hours of staff time per

So we're already at basically one of one point. Um, so for fiscal year 24-25, we had six full-time employees hired and then we had seven full-time employees resign or were terminated. And so that gives us a turnover rate of 24%. Um and um in the 20 let's see in 23 24 we had a turnover rate of 30% and then 22 23 we had a 27% turnover rate. So that's just some historical stuff. um for workman's comp um so for the calendar year workman's comp goes more on a calendar year basis um we had nine cases with four cases that had time away from work and it was a total of 144 days um calendar year 2024 we had four cases and one case had some time away from work it was only three days and then the calendar year 2025 we had 10 cases with two cases that had time away from work for 161 days and unfortunately that that will you know um we will see that in the future and an increase in the workman's comp fees. Um so some of our constraints are we're still in the transition phase for our customer service area. Um we are also out of space for town hall for any additional staff records or supplies. Um and uh we have begun to experience some issues with TSA Choice. They are the company that does our IT.

Um they're they're not getting back to us in a timely manner to resolve some issues that we have. Um we So this is possibly something that we will be putting out for maybe an RFQ um and maybe looking at a different company. um our contract ends um in April, but that's not enough time to put out the RFQ. So, we will probably be going back to them to ask if we can do maybe like in a year an extension. Um but I I mean the problems that we're experiencing like I've had to call their president and talk to him because I was not getting an answer. Is it almost

and and you know I don't know if if y'all know but there you know some of that was when y'all came in with emails trying to get them to set up the email and they didn't do it quick enough. Um so um so yeah so that is something that we'll have to look at. um just some you know increase in the paperwork and time when additional funding is given outside to outside groups like the fire department or the PR P you know it takes me more time with us giving the stipen for the fire department I'm you know having to cut checks for that quarterly for them I'm also um with the fire department I was you know y'all were approving stuff and then I was getting invoices and I was having to make sure that what we're giving them is what was approved. And so that does take more time um from us. And then um this isn't really a constraint, but it's a help. Um we have enjoyed having a a police officer on light duty at town hall because that way we can send our the police call straight to her and let um them be handled that way. And so whenever she goes back to full duty, we are going to miss her helping with those police calls. Um and then really just the request is that you know we're still restructuring the CSR area and so we don't know what impact that will have on our workload and so you know there's still may need we still may need some additional staffing staffing but um you know until that position is filled we don't know what that may mean. Do you keep track of how many times both windows are being serviced for customer service?

Um, we do not. No. Well, and that has been a position that's been transitioning for the last two years, I would say. Right. Because when after Joanne retired or whatever, well, we did have Jonathan for a while, so it's been it's been so it's been maybe about a year. Amy, how much is that space problem issues?

No, maybe having to get around and move around and not being able to have what you need at your desk or currently in your space. I mean it's something by the rework of town hall the structure of it you imagine it is is a or a technology issue

um I mean it probably could be a combination of all of those things um you know the the biggest constraint that we have up there with the customer service area is one you're you know you're at counter height and um so you're having to get counter height chairs and And you know, um, and there is a a chimney that's between those two areas. So, it's not like you can just

combine them and have just one because that would be great to just have one solid counter. Then maybe everything would be there and they could kind of um use that whole area, you know, two different um CSRs. So, that's um, you know, that really is a constraint. Yes. because it would be nice to have everything there. Um, we are as far as like technology goes. Um Stephanie has started to where I I purchased her a just a small scanner and um she's actually whenever a customer comes in for new service, she's actually scanning their driver's license, their lease or the um closing disclosure and she's actually just putting it on the account and so that we're not making folders. Um, and so we are looking at some of that and that is probably something that we would like to do for everyone but it's um, but Stephanie is doing that at this time.

So is that something open forms can do or is that we have I can let me speak to that. Yes,

there are some constraints in open forms on the type of file format and oftent times the user has difficulty providing open forms the correct file format that it likes to upload. So what happens in my experience being back there is then people will call you and that also the CSR is now handling phone calls constantly about issues and so then they'll end up coming in with the document or emailing those types of things. So there are a couple things with open forms that aren't user friendly on that end, but I haven't been able to find a solution to helping the user through that process other than email and then 90% of the time they call us with the problem. Hopefully that clears up.

Yes.

Yes. I guess I just want to thank you all for what you do. Like I don't know, but I know before I was in this role, I've called over here so many times for requests that I'm sure you all rolled your eyes at and you just smiled and got me what I needed in a timely manner. And I know that I'm not unique. like I you know I very rarely receive complaints about the customer service that administration provides and so I just want to thank you for that and um and I hope that through this budget process you can get some things that you need to some

okay thank you so and I know that when the state changes fringe and and benefits there's usually an increase with the fringes, not necessarily the salaries. And that usually happens in June, right? Um well, the insurance, the medical insurance that happens in in um it actually happens in January. Any any increases um in the insurance, it happens in January. So yes, percentage of fringe

um well and and You know, we don't talk about this a lot and I didn't really talk about this in my slide, but with the state health plan, it it is very hard to budget y

for that because you have um you know, the employee gets to choose whether they have employee only, family coverage, a spouse, um or just a child. And the town pays more for the employee who has full family coverage than we would for a spouse or just employee only. And per the state, we have to pay that. We cannot pass any part of that along to the employee. So, and then it at any time if that employee has a change in their status um then it can change it. they could go from having single coverage to themselves to having full family coverage if they were to get married or um you know have a baby things like that. So it it is something that we have to you know I have to let Steve know who has what coverage and then he also has to kind of you know increase it just a little bit because at any time that could change for the employee. So yes it does make it hard.

So let me ask you one more question. As far as the increase in paperwork with these additional funding and all these eyeball kind of things, is that a problem that can improve the outcomes of the time by having different software or is it just um out of

It's just really doing something out of the ordinary. And um I mean yes, we can use our software to see what the budget is and not go over that budget, but like with the fire department, you've got you've allowed um a certain amount for equipment, but then you've got the stipen, too. So that you know, they're only being paid out of one line item. So, you know, I I'm I'm just having to make sure that what he is giving me is what was approved that we're not going over line item. You still got X amount for equipment, X amount for stipens, and you still have to keep it separate. And but it's all in one thing,

right? It's all in one. I mean, it's not as easy just like, oh, we take it off and take it off. You have to make sure that it it gels on each side. Right. Right. And then two, you know, there was a little bit of an issue. We we require that they fill out a W9 um just like any of our vendors do. And so this last time I cut all the checks and then there was a few that I didn't have a W9 for. And so then it was like they kind of straggled in and I had to go back and cut a check for the next for that person. So So yes, um it's u it's a process.

Yeah. So is there a form that maybe we can get all of that and make sure the first year on everybody whether they're getting the second or uh and I mean uh I will say Tommy has you know been good about getting those he got those to them they and got them to me. Um so no I I do have a process online for any new vendors that um that we would be cutting checks to. I actually did that through open forms and it's worked great and it actually has the W9 and they attach it to it and it's worked wonderful. Um I'm just not sure that they want to do that for the fire department just because it's a lot of information.

You know that's but it is still a process where I have to go back and cut a check for somebody. I get that. Do you do that at a time differently than your cutting checks or do you just say like if I don't have a if you don't have a W9 for me by the day you cut checks you just got to wait the next week or the next month or whatever you don't stop and do it on Monday.

No, I do try to do their checks like when I'm doing I try to do those separately from from the other a just um it just makes it a little bit easier. But but yes, whenever I have to go back, I just do that with my other AP checks. Anything else?

Okay, I'm guess I guess it company you looked at any of them or you talked to other towns. Do you have any other ideas? Yeah. So, I actually have talked to two different companies. Um, I've got a quote from from one company, but with the cost of it, you know, our purchasing policy states that we have to have a an RFP or an RFQ

and they're not just hopeful, they aren't already on the system from MASC possibly that already been preapproved. Uh, one of them is one of them is um is one of their group. Yeah, it's MASC actually uses them also. The other um they actually have other municipalities so they do understand our needs. Um we also have a you know we just did an increase for the police department with the um the NCIC and making sure that you know through sled we were good. Um, and so that that makes it a bigger animal,

making sure that that company can knows what those requirements are. I actually had I had one of the companies that I talked to, they actually came on and they asked to run something on our computer kind of like as a test to see, you know, would this company c would our present company call us and say, "Hey, something's running on your computer, something, you know, kind of do a a test on the security." And I still have not heard from TSA Choice

that that happened. So that that just kind of um that um nailed their coffin. Huh? Um well I I only one has no one doesn't do better or you understand better than the other. Um I mean they're all saying they they are quicker on the response time. they're salesman for and and so I you know I I um

talking more comfortable one than the other um well I didn't really get a price from this the one of them so I'm not sure um like where they even come in

um yeah well the the one that I talked to and got a prize from they actually their CEO O came out and their CFO came out with the person. I also like that they do um checkups. They come in and CSA Choice used to do that. They would come in once a month and look at all of our equipment and they stopped doing that. Um, also this company will give us a listing of like computers that are going out of date and what, you know, so that at budget time we can know, well, this department needs this many computers and um, and I like that because I'm not having to think about that or the department heads are not having to think about that for them. They

they'll have it right on the sheet to know, okay, this year we need to replace this many and next year this many. So one of the things one of the things that a lot of um government agencies are transitioning to now is leasing rather person. So because the tech cycles so quickly so they just lease the laptop um and the cost of ownership was less. Have you looked at that? Is that something we should be doing or is that We have not um I'm not sure what the benefits are because we are smaller.

The benefits are these things cycle quick. So same with phones, watches, pads, tablets all cycle quick. So anytime you have something that cycles quick, you want to release it. Yeah. I mean, as we do the RP, I was Oh, I was going to This isn't a trap. I was just going to suggest that perhaps we look at leasing equipment as an option. We're going to do an RFP. What was it? Okay.

Okay. Thank you. document large on your site. So you have it in your email. Um so we do sometimes

okay so um so yeah I mean you know we can get a list of but understand things. It's easy. She can she does she does all that.

Thanks. cry. Good. Yeah, we do have dessert. Amber,

where are the cookies?

Or no, where were you one time? No, you're not there anymore. At the very beginning, your head was like right here. It was blocking me while I was eating. I was very I got a big head for a reason. Are you done? You still watching save for later? I'm done. I'm done.

I feel like I'm just keep coming and coming up here. Should I turn the mic off until we start again?

Long time no see for three hours. All right, welcome back. I'm going to turn it over to Jay to talk about buildings and

so public works. We're back up here again for the fourth time. So, building the ground. So, this department and before I get started, I do have some handouts that I put in front of you that's going to kind of streamline some of this and it also has all of public works, what we're requesting holistically. That way, you don't have to go back and look at each presentation. It's all on one spreadsheet for you. Um, and it is a wish list, so don't fall out or pass out when you look at it. Uh so building the grounds this is kind of this department's kind of become a source of unknown expectations and we kind of want to bring some clarity to that. I feel it's more of a capacity and prioritization issue than more than anything. This department is responsible for the entire town's footprint. So with a population approximate I just used 3600. We currently only have two employees dedicated to this department. So, we can keep the town safe and functional, but maintaining every area probably a level that you would prefer is going to be very difficult for us to reach that. So expectations again, like I said, 3,600 residents, two employees. Expectations have just grown faster than our staff. And there's nothing wrong with that. We're just playing a little catchup. So hopefully we'll get some some relief out of this presentation. So current levels of service said we keep things safe, functional, maintained at a basic level. We can't keep everything showcase ready. We do try to put emphasis on our especially the green west queen streetscape the areas that really help us stand out but two staff can maintain

safety everywhere but we can't do perfection everywhere. So our scope of responsibility now bear with me because I don't know if anybody's ever really thought about everything that these two guys are responsible for. So, I just kind of want to go over this and this isn't a small scope. Like I said, it's the entire town footprint. We've got the marquee, the field at the marquee, sister city park, the square, the green that area, West Queen Street, streetscape, the hill at the bookstore on North Mechanic Street, sidewalks, the rideways on West Queen Street to Mechanic Street to Scott Drive, North Mechanic Street and Brown Road Park, the hillside in front of Bruise, Cherry Street Municipal Parking by the Methodist Church, gravel parking lot in the alley, and that's behind ind Mlelen's woodworking. There's a little gravel parking area back there. A lot of folks don't seem to know about that, but we do have QR codes up that'll show them that. Uh West Main Street to West Queen Street rightways, North Depot Street at the bridge. The Garden Club does have a little area there that we try to help them maintain. uh town hall, the depot building, exchange club, veterans park, but that is specific to Barrett's playground in the pavilion, public works ground event support. We deal with contractors for ground works or they do installing seasonal swag and then maintenance and repair of their assigned equipment. So, this is all for two guys. one of them calls out sick or wants to go on vacation, we are drastically understaffed. So, current projects these guys are going irrigation for the green. We got a goal on that, but we are waiting until after spring jubilee because we do not want to trench up the green until we get

that behind us. Um, we are going to look for sod for the green. Uh we've talked with several other landscaping companies to get it to a level that I think folks will be satisfied with. We're going to look at putting side on it. We we've done treatments. We've done top dressing. We've done amendments. We've overseated and we're about all we can do with it as it stands right now. So fencing. Yes. Oh, okay. Um, we also have quotes for the fence as we mentioned last night over that's over the gravel parking lot beside Mlelen's. I will have those options available for you to look at. The only thing I do need to make sure of that it meets the requirements. I think there might be some historical parameters that we have to meet that we can't just put anything up. I think we're really out of compliance with the what's there now, that chain link. So, whatever we go back with, it's probably going to have to meet some certain requirements. Water fountains at Veterans Park. I'm hoping that will start this week. Those go in at field one and field three. Those are to stand up, have bottle fillers in them. So, these will actually be on concrete pads. Um, very large setup.

So, those are hydration stations.

Yes, ma'am. Absolutely. Practice field cleanup that should be complete today. So hope we'll be able to use that for whatever we deem necessary. Replanting the bumpouts on Exchange Street that's already been done. We took up the old boxwoods that was out there and we've got mu grass in right now. We're going to try that. So it's a little sturdier. the dogs urinated on it won't kill it like it did the other stuff. So hopefully that'll look nice by this fall. Crate myrtle trimming on North Mechanic. We just completed that as well. Pavilion repairs, those are kind of ongoing because we have folks after hours that like to go out there and damage stuff. I am talking with some contractors about getting the camera system upgraded out there as well. So, we can probably do put better eyes on what's going on after hours. The depot building, we have tree trimming that should actually start this week. So, all the trees around the building, it's hanging on it that's in the power lines, that should be taken care of this week. And we're wanting to put a town sign up at Brown Road Park, but we're going to wait till the branding because we don't want to put something up and then have to change it. But we've got it at one end of town and we were wanting to put one coming in on that side, but we just want to wait for the branding to get done. And then we have some irrigation repair at the islands on Highway 76 coming into town. We did have a leak there, but we have found the wiring in our control box is also damaged. So, we've got to get that repaired. So, that's a And again, these are pictures of these places. And so you can see this is looks like a Jackson Pollock painting, but it's all over the place. But these are all the areas that these guys are responsible for.

Did you say they're responsible for the sign that tell us what's happening? The marquee. Yes, ma'am. Yeah. Um right up there across by the post office. Yes, ma'am. And that's the brown.

No, just a sign basically like uh Pendleton, South Carolina. Something of that nature is what we've been talking about. But we want to wait till the branding committee makes a decision. So operational risk areas for those who've just come on as new council members, we're on our third landscaping supervisor in about two years. So I'm hoping we can maintain somebody in this position long term. These guys are just getting burned out. Deferred maintenance turns into higher costs later. When workload exceeds staffing, the results are inconsistent. We just have burnout with them. And this is where small issues become big issues. So, what if we do nothing? What if we just stay where we're at? Well, it doesn't keep us steady. It's actually going to increase deferred maintenance. We're going to have uh increased public complaints and we're going to stay reactive instead of proactive. So doing nothing is not costneutral for us. It's just going to put us deeper and deeper in a hole. So expected results, improved cycles is what we're looking for to move from a reactive work to a predictable schedule. We want to be have consistency to reduce complaints and improve public perception. Event readiness, we want to improve that. We don't want to fall behind in it because I know we are we're big on our events around here and we we support all of them. So, we want to make sure we do our part and we want to reduce burnout that protects reliability and continuity for us. So what we base these standards off of is APA standards. And before I go into the next slide, I'll kind of explain what that is. It's

the association of physical plant administrators. And it's a nationally recognized levels of service. And this is for custodial and grounds maintenance. They're used at the universities, institutional environments, municipal env. and it defines what a clean or a maintained what that actually means in measurable terms. So with our current staffing and the map that's in your handout, these guys have roughly 66 acres that they're responsible for and this is just in the mowing side. This doesn't even include the facilities and and maintenance on the buildings. The best we can produce right now is a level three with APA standards. If we want more than that, then we'll need to look at upping, you know, our employees in that that department. If we and just to give you an idea, if we added one employee, we're still going to stay at a level three. Um, that just it improves consistency, but it's limited structural change. We add two, now we're at a high level three. and we may reach two in some of the key areas. Three puts us at a consistent APA level two townwide. Now, if you want to maintain a level one all the time, this is an astronomical number, but you're looking at 9 to 12 employees just in building and grounds to maintain a level one. Most places do not maintain a level one or they have what they call showcase areas. So like our green or our streetscape on West Queen, we would want to make those a level one. Everything else would be a two or a three. It's just impossible. It's too expensive and it's too labor intensive to try to keep everything at a one.

But a one also comes at a price, too, because some of the requirements, of course, we can always fudge. you know, there's a gray, but it requires seven days a week some type of touching that area, whether it's trash pickup, whe whether it's turning irrigation on, but once we get irrigation, we can actually do that through Wi-Fi automatically. Won't have to mess with it. But in realistically as far as appearance, the green and probably West Queen could probably hit level one potentially in theory. I I hate to say absolutely because I just this is all theory. So service levels, they must match our capacity. So we can the town can receive probably any level of service it chooses. We just need to make sure expectations match staffing and funding. Right now we're responsible like I said for a full townwide footprint with two employees and that means we have to make tradeoffs every week on what gets done. We spent a lot of time this week at Veterans at Barrett's playground actually. We're trying to get those swing sets back up and we're trying to put them up to where they're going to last 50 years. They're not going to last 20. We want to put it in right. We don't want to cut corners on anything we do. We want it to last for the next generation that's sitting up here talking to the next generation up here. So each week with these two employees, we have to prioritize. So, and we never know from week to week what may come up. So there is a survey in this and I'm I'm sorry I'm the one that calls the survey stuff this year. I apologize for it, but it was specific for this department. And I really needed some guidance because I

want to know what what council expects. What are you looking for? Because everybody's going to have different expectations and priorities for building the grounds and that's understandable completely. But it's just meant to capture what areas matter most to you as council holistically. So that way it gives me clear direction on which which way I need to push these guys, where do I need to focus their attention. Um, so with that, I'm going to push over to the Seymar and what we have going on through building and grounds with that. Um, for those out that don't know what a Seymar is, it's construction manager at risk program. It's a delivery method where construction manager will guarantee a project cost and assume financial risk for cost overruns. So, we've got about $136,144 that we've set aside in the Seymar 68,000 we're looking hopefully will get a fence around public works for us. We've had we have struggled getting those numbers to match what we need, but hopefully that will and we've got, for those who don't know, we had 42 Leland Cypresses that came out from around public works. So we do have to put some type of barrier back at some points once this fence goes in. So that's we're hoping that cost will all be in Seymar as well. I don't want 42 Land Cypresses. We're not going to put those back. I can tell you that. So the remaining 68,000 we're looking to for facility upgrades and these items will be delivered through the Seymar basically because this scope cannot realistically be completed in house with two employees while still maintaining townwide landscaping and daily building and grounds responsibilities. So there's things I just these I can't expect these

guys to get done. So, the remaining funding, what we're looking at is shower and washer in installations at public works. I already have a washer and dryer. It's just sitting there. I just got to have somebody to come put it in. Like Steve mentioned last night, council meeting, some of these sub $100,000 projects. It's like pulling teeth to get somebody want to do them. I think 20 years ago I'd have been knocking the door down to try to get everyone I could, but nowadays it's a lot of folks just aren't interested in it. Um, we want to look at some grading behind public works. If any of you been out there lately, we've cleared out the back because we've just run out of space up front. And when we have rain, it's it's a mud hole back there. And it is it's difficult to get some of the trailers and equipments and attachments on the skid steer when we need to without causing a mess. And we have some electrical work that needs to be done. We have found some burn wires in the building uh that's beyond our capabilities of handling. Not that the place is going to burn down, but it's stuff that we we really need to have a looked at. And if funds allow, we're going to look to put some shelters up for the equipment down there. We have a lot of equipment that just sits out in the open. Hydraulic lines, they bake in the sun over time. They will fail. Uh some of the equipment, we have exposed motors on them that need to be covered. Leafbacks are f are prime example. pony motors on them, impeller motors, the new uh trash truck, the whole back of the motor and transmission. You can see from the way it that chassis is built, it really needs to be under something. So hopefully, this is a wish list, but hopefully one day we can get that taken care of.

So, what would you prioritize in order? Go back one. Go back one. So, which one of those would you put at number one?

I would say at this point, I'd almost want the grading just so we can have parking available for the equipment and equipment that that we'll continue to bring in. Now, we're obviously we're not going to hang on to everything. If it's older stuff, we can sell it. Um, I've got stuff up on the hill that doesn't even work anymore. Uh, that I need to get gone. We can gov deal it. we can recoup some money, recoup some space, but but paving the back half because I don't know how long we're looking at for I'll use the TIFF district. Supposedly, there's going to be at some point in history a a public works facility back there. I don't know when that's going to happen. I don't think any of us do because, you know, it's just a fluid process. Is it going to be two years or is it going to be 20 years? But for right now, I've got to have somewhere to put equipment to keep it safe, to keep it serviceable. And the first thing would be to keep it out of the mud back there. If we can get that back half, even if it's a base of stone, it don't have to be asphalt. It don't have to be gravel. It could be a stone base. Uh, and that might be the most cost effective option, but it and then that keeps our equipment better shade, more serviceable. Shelters, we can add on. I mean, I'll do whatever I can. I'll put sun screens up or shades if I have to, but parking is our biggest issue right now. We park all over the place. So remaining in-house. So even with the Seymour building and grounds is still going to complete several projects inhouse and these projects we believe are realistic with current staffing while maintaining a townwide landscaping

program and this includes the veterans park repairs right now. Like I said, that is primarily Barrett's Place playground and then whatever damages we find on the pavilion. U we're working on power restoration on the sheds out there. And our goal there is to if you rent shed one and you plug your crockpot up, you're not going to blow all three sheds up and everybody loses power. So we've got I'm waiting on Clemets. They're giving us two options to get that repaired. Uh, and then water fountains. Like I mentioned, it fills one and three. The doghouse I had on here, but we were able to confirm that what looked like holes in there is actually test strip tabs when they put it in.

So that goes off.

So that goes off. So dog house is good to go. And then tree trimming, like I said, at the depot building. That should be happening this week. I seem to jinx myself every time I get a call and get a confirmation. seems to get pushed and townwide landscaping and routine maintenance is going to continue across town assets. So, Seymar does not replace staff work. It just prevents staff from being overloaded with construction scale size projects. Um, and then just closing the main point of this presentation is we want to be able to meet your expectations on what what you want from us of what do you want us to produce in the town for you. Um, again, like I said, Seart does not eliminate building and ground work. It just helps us with larger construction scale projects that these two guys cannot handle theirelves. Um, we're going to continue completing target projects in house. We're going to continue maintaining townwide landscaping responsibilities. We just want to make sure that we are going to give you a product that you don't get those phone calls or emails at 10:00 at night asking why ain't this done? Are we ever going to do something about this or that? And if I can get a I'll say a clearer picture, not a clear picture, but at least a direction of priorities that you all would like to see completed. That would help me tremendously with this this department because there's a lot of unknown expectations with it and we're very limited with staffing.

And that is it. How do you have covered parking down there? Oh my goodness. Um, wonderful. I have We have a two.

Well, yeah, we have two and the leaf trucks are backed into them. So, we keep the leaf trucks under those. We do have a shelter over the loading docks, but we try to keep the loading docks clear for when our on-site maintenance reps come in, we can pull those vehicles up. So, the mechanics are under under shelter or for deliveries. So, we don't utilize those in a manner and they're not big enough to cover the equipment as well. but two that are actually a full shelter.

And when you ac Yeah. Yeah. 66.4 acres and that includes what? Veterans Park. We have to pull that out. Veterans Park, we do not cut it. It is contracted out through First Impressions, but we handle they said the pavilion and then Barrett's Place, the playground. All right. And so, um, but the rest of the post office I do. Yes, ma'am. We don't How much how many acres are we cutting? We don't

probably right there. We might be at a acre and a half maybe there because some other entailment as well that I understand. Clemson forest area. You're also property, right? No, those are our rightways over there. Those by the railroad tracks actually are rightways. So, we are responsible for those even on the state. I mean, if we don't cut the state road, nobody else won't cut it. We cut state road all over. The rest of us are cutting our own right away, right?

Not really. I mean the good people are so but you'd be surprised what we have to cut. All right. So which one you mentioned Nancy? I was just going to state road but you know from Brown up to where that tree fell down and then on the other side we got those.

We do because when the state comes through they only have a certain distance they will cut. We've actually had to ask them if they would have trimmed the crate myrtles last year. They were very hesitant. So, for us to get down to the tree line or for it to be cut, we have to cut it or we do because otherwise it's going to get grown up. They will only cut so so much. All right. And the as far as cameras at Veterans Park can do just the entrances or is most damage people walking through or do you have any idea people driving in after dark? It

it's hard to tell. Um it's I would say it's after hours because we typically find it when we go in the mornings to unlock it. The problem is when we have events out there, you don't know who's coming through at any given time. So without cameras, we can't say who's doing it. We just know it happens. We're very reactive with that. There was an existing system out there. There are cameras up, but there's no computer for it or the the control modules where we can actually utilize it. It's gone. And where? I don't know. It's the same with Barrett's playground. We have a lot of uh vandalism. Like they like to go out there and write cuss words all over the the swings and stuff. And that material, it's not wood. It's it's so our vandalism treatments that we have, they don't work. So, we end up having to go out there and either paint over it or we actually have to grind grind it down to get rid of some of the language that gets put up. All right. The green.

Yes, ma'am. I think there might be some electrical needs or so. Can we can the plans be coordinated before the sun goes down? Well, we have talked about that and it probably needs to because once that side's down, you probably want to go back in there and start cutting that up. Um behavior. Yeah. You know, we can color outside the lines too sometimes, but we don't want to. Um well, you know, and the thing is I'm in the same boat. You already have an irrigation plan? Yes,

we do for that. The side I do not because basically I have to make sure that we can get funding for a site because it's going we're looking at $50,000 to saw it. It's 35,000 square feet and the only other option was synthetic turf and I can tell you you don't want it. The uh at $450,000 about $450,000 to do synthetic turf and it still requires maintenance. So you still had to bring sand in and work it out and then Yeah. And then irrigation has to be worked on. So 35,000 there. It sure does. It'll get every bit out

because we've got issues with irrigation there now. It's I think it's severed where that sidewalk connects to Exchange Street. So, when do you foresee that project taking place? Well, we're going to do it. But our plan was the irrigation right after Spring Jubilee because we do not want to cut to green until we pass that and then get that cut in. We've I've got the funding set aside for it. the side.

No, not the sod. I've I've got I've got to get funding for that. I'm going to have to come in front of you guys and ask for that because I did not expect it. I really didn't expect it to be that much. I hadn't messed with side in years. So, when we got to price, it was like, can we split it? Tell me what you'll do irrigation for now so I can go in front of council and say this is what it's going to cost to do sod and be tiff turf Bermuda. So it could be next year. It could be after the lighting.

A question for you and David. So if we put a camera out of the road, how much of the park is the road? How much would that help that you as far as No, I mean I know parking lots now have one for the whole floor. So if we had one out there that would

that see what we as well as help the police department. So, we were looking at having them installed replace the ones on the pavilion because they actually look out so we could actually see the exit entrance Barrett's playground. It did give us a 360 of the whole park going from top tier of the pavilion and then having some in the lower so we could see who's tearing the bathrooms up because we have constant damage on the the bathrooms out there. When you say constant damage like every week or

almost I mean but it's it you know it varies like one day we'll come in and somebody's just took all the soap and they dumped the whole bottles in the toilet and try to flush them down or they stuffed the toilets full of toilet paper or we come in and like the men's the entire mirror has been busted off and the doors tore off of the stall and they flooded it by stuffing toilet paper. It's it's hit or miss. We come in last week and uh the dead bolt on the women's door doesn't work anymore. Somebody tried to pry it open and damaged it to where it doesn't even work. So, are they driving in or they walk? I don't know.

It's because it's overnight. We So, we don't have any functional cameras out there currently. So, we don't know those cameras. So, I've got Duke Power. We've got all the lights fixed now. So when we come the third night goes to the bathroom trying to sleep. We don't have camera, right? We don't. The only thing we've been able to do is get every nightlight and it was like nine of them. So the park's lit up very well. Even Bear's playground at night, the whole trail in the back is is lit now.

I think he needs to clear most of the damage happens in use. It's not nobody's at the park and they're coming in and damaging. Most of it's there when there's activity happening at the park and they're being locked up after the activity ends and then they're coming in unlocking the next day and finding all damage. So, it's not like some random person's coming in 2 a.m. unlock. He just said the lock was

they tried to in that case they tried to probe open the lock but the damage he's specifically talking about most of it is in the bathrooms events going on and then the people holding events lock the bathrooms back up and they don't report the damages that happened in there. So is that like when when we having pavilion reels? It's the P. It's the games. It's the children coming to the P. It's been happening for years and years and years after this since time began everywhere. You get a you get a a child in there for baseball bat and you know everything's a mail.

We used to get reports when they were locking the bathrooms up at night, they would send us reports at the end of the day that they found this damage.

Yeah. And it's just something we go in and it's not something you can't put a camera in a bathroom. All you can do is point the camera toward the doors of the bathroom. So, you see he goes in and out. Um, and we we've only had one successful prosecution one time where it was people that came in after the event, but that's when they damaged the whole outside of the building. So, a lot of the damage he's talking about, especially when it relates to the bathrooms, are happening during events. And we we did twice a whole system. to monitor the whole park is $99,000. And so, you know, your personal thing probably go out to bid, get free bids and everything else.

Is the damage that we're seeing at Veterans Park comparable to the damage we see at the bathrooms behind the bookstore? I think it's actually less, believe it or not. Which is less. I mean, the bookstore is less less. 100 store bathrooms have much less vandalism, would you say? I would say yes. So, the lighting at Veterans Park that was talking about, is that motion sensitive or do we just light it up?

No, it's once it's dark, it's on all night. Those are Duke power lights, but they were all out like 9 or 11 on So, we require a picture. I do have pictures. Um, no, like before you lock up, you have to submit a picture in that each day. That's always kind of been a struggle. Um, it's just been a struggle to keep them doing that. So

to hold the deposit until you get the picture.

We don't it's a P. We don't have a deposit or anything. So and they're pro the problem. Here's the problem is that they're volunteers and so they're having a coach lock it up who's not a board member and they're just walking up to the door. Hey, hey, anybody in there? If not, lock it up going home. I mean, it's nine o'clock at night. I mean, I get it. And then our guys come in in the morning and you know our guys really probably are not reporting it to Jay fast enough so that we can take the correct action informing P because Amber and I are finding out a week or two later that we had $5,000 damage. Well, week or two later,

you know. So you've talked a little bit about adding another building out the veterans park for P for mowers and recreational equipment I assume and perhaps the building that we could get some of our equipment undercover as well and get so would you anticipate that that building would have the same damage? I mean we need to look at camera and lighting or is it just because it's a bathroom? Well, we I think the problem is children are unsupervised. just running around being crazy while mom's watching or mom or dad or somebody is watching a ball game over here with another child. Yes, boys will be boys is all I can say.

Yeah, Lyn's 100% correct. When I was eight years old, I think my baseball bat hit everything it could hit at one point in time and boys will be boys. And because it is if it was you know if it was a town of Pilton staff member out there we would have more control when we open it up to the public especially when it's unmonitored unsupervised. Some of that's just an inherent risk of what we do as a government and it's not limited to just the town penalty. I mean that when I go to places, everybody talks about the damage that we get the parks or the damage we get, you know, elsewhere and it's it's a constant damage, especially cars, um, bathrooms, things like that. So, you don't catch them breaking out windows. You don't catch them doing some other stuff. They they, you know, but they have tore the gutters off the buildings before, you know, trying to hang them, things like that. So, Barrett's Place is probably the next place that gets the most damage and it's not, you know, it's going to be playgrounds.

Yeah. I mean, or where wherever people are, there are unfortunately people in this page. Yeah. Caution business. That's the building that we've been talking about off. I'm not clear about this building. what it's going to be sized and all the options for placing it. But is that in this budget? No, for the ma'am. No, that's a different Okay. But it could eventually house some of the stuff Jay's talking about potentially.

No, that's will be totally separate from the shelter. The problem is that I think what you're talking about is the building that the funds have been given to P. So P is going to use their funds the town has given them to build that building. So I was thinking about they're going to build a building which use Tiff money, make it big enough that Jake can put some of these mowers in the cover. I don't problem with that makes a lot of sense. But that's going to be different money. That's okay. Did you just say that's okay? I mean, if it's not here, why don't you use it? Why not?

No, I thought you meant like So, what if it's I'm sorry. Go ahead. Okay. He's trying to get the big picture. No, I I I think that's a a good suggestion about looking at the possibilities of Tiff because Jeff needs he needs cover for his foot so he could kill two birds in one stone. Be nice. I mean, I'm not going to complain. I'll take questions where you put it. Well, that's a valid point, too. I understand that too. That's a dilemma.

Is the building itself the can it be in the semial building? So I mean like could you Yeah. Take it back to the stud and put in more commercial grade equipment. Yeah. or is it just

No, it's it that's one of the reasons why we wrote the Seymour RFQ, you know, certain way so they can go out there with with Mosman Associates and assess the buildings and then essentially they come when they come back with their recommendations if that's one of them y'all want to assess and y'all proven to do it that they're going they're going to tell you the price, you know, and then it's just up to us to budget it or do whatever at that point. So, yes, the answers they they could look at changing those bathrooms up because they're they're um we have maintained them as best we can through the years and they are due for a better renovation.

Yeah. Well, the material in there is not prison grade which is uh what a lot of outdoor recreation facilities use.

Yeah. people people um they did a they did a good job building the building but when you build one of the reasons why our stuff costs so much like Jeff said is you have to build it I hate to use the term critter grade vandalism proof there's a lot harder material out there that you can use and people use those things just for this reason I mean there's there's lights uh we looked at at the Veterans Memorial um they're vand vandalism proof lights and they're probably five times as expensive as what's there. But we bought a replace there twice and could have paid for those lights and built them aboard.

Well, you put some real grandmas out there with some switches. A lot of that cut. Oh, I don't have a problem. But I I'm not a grandmother. Yeah. Really? They're out there. So you

what do we need? So like I really like how do we get from level three to a level one and what do we prioritize and I would I would almost say since we have time and um we are can be all together which we can rarely be. I would kind of like to hear from council what areas of town you would like to see at a level one. Um, I know like right off the bat is like that's a no-brainer. Queen Street, no brainer. 76 that intersection really nice and in my opinion park should be one. Um, I'm curious to see what council makes. I think it's imperative that we look at the green being a level one. If we prioritize which one we're we'reing level one upgrade to, the green to me should be number one. Um two should be Queen Street. Um and and then again I want 12. Yeah, it should definitely be we've already put money in Queen Street. We don't need to let it fall down. Um, and then I think the third should be veteran's park in Barrett's place. That's just me. Those are my two cents and everything else is just great.

And then there is a PPA standards in your handout that you can look at to see what the requirements are. So yeah, I think I'm agreeing and then all the different ways and you know if comes in and there is that oval in that area then that go but I also would like to look at using some technology. I know that when several times when I talk to people about park um the recommendations come up about the automatic boat or it seems to be on that type of system which did not be there and help with some of that things maybe some of the other places as well. Oh, that what

that the mowers like and and then we come in for the morning and we find one of them in somebody's house because like a way cart. So we tested on way shrimp plant way plant so expensive cut it couldn't cut things but they're they they located so if they move out of their city cities that they're out of fence I mean these are not these are they're just easily

yeah they're extremely different than what you see at Lowe's I think once you get right they can they run Um I I don't think the entrance ways in the green but the green is I mean I think you have to redo the whole streetscape around the green too and uh that's a whole different animal. And then uh Veterans Park is the whole first power right the first bench.

What's that? your picture on the building and ground operation. Is that what you're looking for?

One of these pictures or Oh, I'm sorry. Oh, I got you. This one. That That's the first one. Uh, no. I think we could put some more trees around the, you know, bump out the Well, you could do a lot of things to make it. Didn't we just finish doing upgrades to the parking around three? Is it even what they did? I think it's definitely time for new trash cans.

Whether planning and that's all good stuff as well. I I do I think that committee has been really but I also think that we need to be cognizant of the fact and what he has to do with the grass before we start looking at other stuff that may have to be redone after you lay the grass. You mean if we go in there with things now

and then you know few months down the road here you come with grass. So I think what we need to do is look at what we want after the siding has been and and to what degree we want to do. And we put some sheets back here if y'all want to come right down each section on which levels, but then we probably get to consensus on which ones y'all want for one, two, or three. So, Steve, with your experience with the you saw the test drive, could it do sister city as well?

Oh, yeah. I mean, you know, the biggest thing is you build it. You you need to build it essentially. is a dog house with some electrical to it and it goes back there every night and or actually goes back there during the day cuz they run at night and so they don't even run when people are there and uh yeah it's it's a very unintrusive thing that you build for off on a corner somewhere they can get to

the level or lack of levelness of Sister Park would be another I think that I think that you know The EQ basin was what it couldn't get up at at uh this wastewater treatment, which is why we were testing it originally because we we were having to bought that thing and we need it. It's so steep. I mean they they still have to but um you know it's it's a very steep incline but all sister city um village green we we tested at the water tower just kind of see because the water tower is another place you have to cut it you can do the they're pretty you know those kind of flatnesses they're they're pretty good

what sister city one out across the library. Yeah. If you look in Liberty Hall end right to the right got three flag poles three bases. That's the quads and huts. Jay, does the mowing for the rideways rightways included in that 61? No ma'am. That's done strictly through the water and sewer department. So it's different fun. It's not just one. No ma'am. So how silent are these hers? They're electric, so they're like a vacuum cleaner.

So, we won't have people if we do get the the night time, we won't have people coming to say we need to, you know, this ordinance. I don't I don't think so. It's been it's been years since I've seen one, but you know, they're they're they even make them now for steep inclines. Duke Energy runs them now. some of their stuff they got like four tires, you know, two tires on each wheel and, you know, they're a different makeup. And a lot of people are switching to them and getting getting people based on steep inclines, getting their people off the motors and they're running them through remote control or just through a a geo fence area that runs up through there.

Course uses them. What course uses them? Mhm. Yeah. A lot of golf courses, a lot of golf courses are using them because of the constant molding they have to do. So they can get I mean, you know, golf course can use it get that that level. There's there's machines out there capable, you know, as long as they're maintained. The greens, they don't do the greens, but they do the fairways and stuff. That's Did that Did we answer your question?

I mean, yeah. And I would like you to use the the postits if you would either now or during break and just and like I've been reading what level one two three four and as you look at these levels and you look at the criteria that are here. One of the things that that I noticed with people I work with in town is that I know people are willing to help. But I know that there's reluctance to rely on people at some level, but definitely for some of these plankings, the litter, we talked about the benches. I there are things that people are definitely willing to pitch in and out. So sometimes it just takes that little bit,

over the edge. I think that we can I think as much we utilize some volunteer services for someone. And the other thing I just want quick is I put on the board is that we're gonna throw two hydration stations out of the veterans park offers a bulk sale on those, but we should throw a couple of those on. If you're going to put in irrigation systems, they're going to be running water. Just think Oh, I know. They they are I was surprised at what that those two cost $22,000. Yeah, they're expensive.

I can always ask. I'll ask. I'll be glad to. I I might fail out when they give me the price on them and then they've been sitting for a year and a half, but they couldn't find anybody to put them in. So, are you rewiring? I might have answered this already. They will have to be wired in. So, I meant But you were talking about rewiring throughout the Oh, the green for the lighting project. I'm not sure. for the for the committee there's we've been told we have to upgrade some of the electricity

we can put the water and electricity in the same some people have suggested putting outlets near the swings what condos well there's 16 there's a bank of 24 outlets near each swing right if they're sitting in swing. They don't have to they don't have to get up 10 feet and walk, right? They can sit and swing and recharge their home. Don't like that. N there's damage being done to the swings too. So that's not necessarily.

Yeah, we are getting pads for those as well for the damage on the swings where they Knock them into the supports. You don't want kids rocks or metal things into the either? Let them do it.

Everybody good? or if something comes up after the fact, just reach out to me. Let me ask you this. Yes. The landscaping people we've hired. Yes.

Have become overwhelmed. And what what kind of criteria did we have in making those hires? Well, we wanted somebody that had previous experience in landscaping, not necessarily residential, but we wanted people's had some commercial experience as well because in all reality, everything we do here is at a commercial level. There's really nothing we do at residential level. Um, we look for we wanted somebody with over five years in this type of work. And Aaron has it. I think what we've run into is we get scattered too often trying to do too many things at one time instead of we we've set schedules and it works fine for a while and then we get off track because well we need to go take care of something at the depot building and next thing you know it's it's off and well now we need to clear out the parking area in front of the Methodist church. So now we're down there cleaning out brush, but I also need to have that survey because I want to make sure how far we can how much we can do. So now that offsets it a little bit or we get to a point where the mulch beds start looking rough. So when you look at how many mulch beds we have between all of these areas, any type of schedule we had on mowing is pretty much shot for at least three days, maybe the entire week. And then you throw rain, storms, anything in, guys are sick. Now we're we're three weeks behind and it's like where do we leave off? And then we have to look at work order system. What's in the work order system for them? Now we have to prioritize. Do I send this guy here? Do I split them up? Or is this project or we need to get the

green cut today? Or can it wait till we go get signs up on the marquee? Or because the depot building was left cluttered, we got to get down there and clean it because we have a function. It's just the little things that can get these two guys off. And the problem is prior to me getting the latest person in building the grounds, we were having to use manpower. I could not keep guys employed in here. They just didn't want to do the laborious type work. They may last a week, they're gone. I'm back with manpower. So now I'm at one guy. Until manpower can find me somebody who's willing to come do that kind of work.

So two employees includes the landscaping supervisor. Yes ma'am. So if four people if you had four people would you split to primarily some were doing buildings and some were doing grounds.

So yes I would at least have one over well I would say the facilities. Typically that would be a landscaping supervisor but with this most recent hire I've got he is better suited for the facility side where I can let Aaron handle the the the mowing and the ground side of it. It just worked out better that way. But he has he needs support because we're about to go into our peak season and knock on wood, this is going to be our first peak season to figure out how bad it's going to be with at least two guys. We just haven't had people here through a peak season where we can really figure out where do we need to focus our attention at the most. Obviously the green west queen, but where do we go from there? And how bad do we let the dog house get? Do we still cut around the doghouse? I didn't know if I mentioned that. Or the exchange club or the depot building because those ladies will let us know when the depot is not looking good and we need to get some mulch out there. And rightfully so. And then next thing you know, we've done bypass some of the smaller areas that the garden club does. the hill beside the bookstore. Nobody ever thinks about it till it looks like crap. And I'll tell you, that's an aggravating spot to have to clear because it's right there at the intersection of West Queen and North Mechanic and it's the incline. So the guys are basically you have to pull down and drag everything to the below the public bathrooms and where it I can't think of who owns it. that little brick or cabin looking twotory house there. I think

yes. That whole intersection though. I mean is it that diffult? It's very difficult right there. So we we we thought about trying to put some kind of tough plant material in there that has very minimal needs. But what did we put in there? We don't want to plant that whole hill and then something go that looks like garbage. We want it replaced. Unfortunately, you're always going to have weeds or acorns that become trees. Yeah.

So, with the things that the change on the grain, how did you decide to pull up the plants and put it? How did you choose the grass? So we So the issue was I mean I know that it was great but it didn't I was a little surprised that became a priority.

Well it was an easy one. It's where we start prioritizing or picking what task can we get done quicker that's going to make an an immediate impact. So we could either keep looking at those little boxwoods that the dogs pee on. Some of them were killed. Some of them are missing or they're dying. or we can put something else in there that's a little more hardy that can handle a little more abuse. And once it's up and bloomed, it's kind of got a pinkish reddish hue to it. So, I'm hoping I mean, I went out on a limb. I'm hoping that it looks nice once it's up. And it may be this fall I'm back in front of y'all and you're like, "You're going to have to take that mess out. We want something else." And I will. But I wanted to do something that was immediate impact that looked better down there than what we had instead of patchy boxwoods.

So yes, ma'am. You have people who are being employed by manpower. You also said you want somebody with five years experience. Are we paying people according to their level of expertise? Yes, man. They absolutely are. That is or are you finding it hard to find people with that level? Absolutely. It's cutting grass. We probably interviewed 10 people for that position. I think it's just the supervisor and that's just a supervisor. That's not the the work the labor is under him. He can guide them however he's that's why we wanted him to have certain criteria behind him so he would know where to place these people to be more effective.

So you're you're basically needing a labor supervisor. I need labor. But what's the problem with the labor though? That's what I'm trying to figure out. They won't do it. And I only have two positions. So, I've got a landscaping supervisor. And the guy I just hired is phenomenal with the building, the facility side. So, I've got my facility part of it pretty much wrapped up. I just got to get that supervisor, some laborers under him so he can task them out daily where they need to go and and so we can set up a consistent schedule. So, we've got continuity on what these guys know what they're supposed to do, but finding people who will do that kind of work day in and day out.

I mean, they can go to Walmart.

Well, you're right. And see, and we filter, and may I don't know if this is good or bad, but we do filter a like through manpower because if I hire somebody in, and I really don't know, I can only base off the interview and say I hire him in and what if it doesn't he ends up being a dud? It is a process now as a town employee versus if he's manpower and he just don't want to work. He's just looking for a paycheck to paycheck. I can go, I need another guy. We find diamonds in the rough through manpower all the time. I might have to go through 15 guys, but once we get that one, it's it's worth it. But every now and then, I mean, we may get somebody who applies through the town and they are just phenomenal or somebody recommends somebody and we have a position open and they absolutely are a great fit. I just haven't had that a lot. And also, this is just talking out loud. Um, I think what's one of the things that's so special about our town is community. And I'm trying to think of how we could like I don't want to put more on Lindsay, but how could we kind of incorporate community engagement in a little bit of building in grounds? So maybe it's like we do sponsor a planter. Maybe we do like you know we have you know some people have donated benches or maybe there's some sort of endowment to you know with that to take care of like those that area around the bench. Like I know. I mean, heck, for my birthday, I was like, "Oh my gosh, it would be so cool to have like what do you want without your own square?" Like, how cool

would that be? So, I'm just trying to think of ways that we can incorporate community in this and get community involvement and investment um in certain things that we want to do. Does the high school still have the greenhouse? Yeah. Mhm. Well, I mean, that's an area you can look at as far as apprenticing with young students. I mean, they also have the FFA, things along that line. So, and I know it used to be um that was a big deal around here for kids that they just work during the summer. But here's here again,

you know, with the way that Walmart's paying and everybody else, you got to have to look at who's going to want to work in the hot swing sun. But if you find these kids who are looking to make a career out of agriculture, horiculture, that might be your app. Same say with using um student interns from Clemson. I I am more than happy to accommodate any of these facil these folks that want to come in. I just would still request that we at least have a baseline of continuity so I can maintain it year round. You're talking about employees. You're not talking about volunteers. Yeah.

You're right. In order for us to achieve the post back there, you need you need people.

Yep. And I I don't want to cut my nose off and spite my face. I think as far as equipment, we are really good. Steve has made a good point to help us get equipment that we need for that department. Um, I've talked with him in depth about it and and we really have a good inventory. I just need the guys to actually put the stuff in their hands and put them out there. The only thing that you'll see on that request, I did ask for a a light duty truck because to pull that landscaping trailer. I do not want to put it back behind that that 450 because we we utilize that landscaping bed on it. So that kind of kills that whole process. But then that way I could have facilities and grounds separate. I could actually have two crews at any given time engage in something.

Thank you. We're going to take we'll come back at 1:25 and council wouldn't mind utilizing this post.

Thank you.

Thank you. So here I guess the service line is They should give us a heads up this.

Sorry it took so long. Yes.

giraffe tower and you can go up there to feed the giraffe, but you probably get some food and you can feed. Send it to me. That's fun. We're up for an adventure. The mics are on just so everyone's aware.

All right, welcome back. We are going to turn it over to Owen to discuss planning. All righty. Um, so I'm going to be doing the planning and zoning presentation. We're just going to cover just more of a review of last year as well as, you know, maybe some of the needs that we need for this next fiscal year. Before I start, I just want to thank uh David for, you know, hiring me. This is my first year here. I really learned a lot from him this past year and I really appreciated um the opportunity gave me to have this job and I'm really proud to be working here. So,

thanks David. Um, so we're just going to do a department overview. Um, just kind of talk about some of the things that we do in the planning and zoning department and also code enforcement. Um, just kind of cover the year and review some of the projects that we completed, some ongoing projects, um, some of the constraints we face as well as the future needs and um, we didn't have a proposed budget. I think we're kind of got everything that the department needs at the moment. So, we currently handle all the permits that come into town. Um, whether related to development or, you know, individual homeowners trying to get a remodel done or electrical mechanical upgrade to their home, those are the most common ones that we get. Um, we do all the plan reviews. So, anytime somebody submits a commercial plan here, like the People's Bank, that was the most recent one we did. We review that, make sure they're in compliance with their landscape requirements. We check to see how they're hooking up to their our utilities. So, sewer um or if we service water there, we see that as well. Um and any other things like parking as well, that's an important one that we make sure they comply with all their parking requirements for that type of business. Um currently handle all zoning issues and questions from the general public. Um so, if anybody like I think while I was sitting there, I maybe had three or four phone calls. People were asking me if this is something they can do. I got to get to them whenever we get done with this. Um, so, uh, code violations as well. I get a lot of complaints. Um, I have that later on in the presentation, but we handle all those. Um, also driving around town. That's one of my major responsibilities is to drive around, see if people have a business license, um, and respond to complaints that we get. Um, currently we act as a leazison for four of the boards, which is the planning commission, the design review board, and the board of zoning appeals. Uh, the international property maintenance board. we don't have enough members since I've been here for to have a for them to have a meeting. Um, so

that's one thing that I would hopefully we can get a full board at some point to be able to actually um work with them. So this is just a overview of the past five years in terms of building permits, what the department has done and kind of gives you an idea of what's been going on in town. Um 2024 we had 11 apartment buildings which was the falls of me hand and I think Cheney Mill was one of those as well. Um 296 actual units. So that's individual homes or duplexes. You see a lot of those with Champions and those have a lot of duplexes. Um and then five commercial buildings. And this past year of 2025 uh for the calendar year we did 366 total permits. Um, of those 124 of them were new homes. Um, and two commercial buildings. And this is just a breakdown by percentage of the type of permit that was issued. Uh, you can see that 36 36% of those um 366 permits were new homes. Was 124. Uh, the next majority was electrical mechanical. So, a lot of times people do any kind of, you know, if you install a generator, that's a lot of what I probably got up after new homes. Um, especially after the storm. I think like the first two months I was here, I did like eight generator permits. Um, and a lot of renovations as well. Uh, new roofs. Um, so that's the majority of what you see is just a lot of people kind of maintaining the homes that are here in town currently, as well as building new ones. Um,

is there a dollar value about which they need to come in or is it the type of renovation that's going on? What do you mean? Like if I do renovation that's below 10,000, I don't need a permit for the solar system. So anything that they have to get a permit with us because when they go to Anderson County, they need an inspection. That's why they they have Yeah, they have to come get a permit from us. That's HBAC, but not a hot water replacement roof. I think Anderson County requires them to do a permit for a water heat replacement. Okay.

Currently, I think it also depends if they're running new lines or not gas lines or electrical lines. That's kind of the requirements for that. Um, some of the projects that were completed in 2025, uh, were Falls and Mihan Apartments, the Cheney Mill, uh, I think recently they stated they were about 20, I think 24 to 25% leased. Um, the McGuin town homes, which is across from the post office, the Pendleton shops, um, that is on Highway 76, that is next to Dunkin Donuts. over there and as well as the Anderson Anderson Skin and Cancer Clinic. They uh completely remodeled that that building there and they've been open for a few months here. And Wterburgger will be opening I think next week. I think they said on the 12th of March. So that'll be that'll be cool to see. Some other projects that were completed. Um I put the Pendleton shops there as well. That's in case you know you might not have noticed it's kind of the very edge of town. um rising to great clips went into there. We have uh that is Tucker Ridge down the bottom right. It's about 19 homes that went up um this past year in that area. And then over here on the left you have the Westinghouse extension and Waterburger.

Yeah, I think they I don't they have a they don't have a sign yet. I think they they should be reaching out. Mon go home should be reaching out to me about putting one in so whenever you're driving by you know what you're you're looking at there. Um and this is just that whole area over there office 76 and 187. Um using Google maps or Google images. I went off there and just kind of show you all the past 10 years in terms of like how long it's taken for some of those things to get there. Um so you back in 2017 it was just an empty field and then starting four years later in between then then there you can kind of see um the process of some of the developments going in. That is the storage buildings. You kind of you can't really see it too well in this in this image. Um back way back there you see like the the storage um

in 2020, right? I believe so. Yeah. Um that's that was the start of it and then since then Piper Glenn went over there and then up until today. This was at I think it was January. This is when they updated their their imaging. So now you see you got the Express oil change, Advance Auto, and then the the new um shopping center over there. And Wendy's is going to be going in right here in this empty lot. Uh right here.

Yeah, this empty lot right here. They've gotten all the permits they need from from the town currently and also Anderson County. So we're just pretty much waiting on them to begin. Um some also some current ongoing projects. We have the Cheney Mill. Um they've completed their their build. Um the Village Hill small area plan. I think we're getting the process currently of getting the design overlay done for that. Um the code violations that I have over there, I've heard back from majority of the property owners. Uh, as well as I've been talking to two blue stallions, so hopefully I'll have them come into compliance soon. Uh, the UDL, we're working on that as well. That'll be going to the planning commission um hopefully I'd say in April.

Town, it's on town council.

That should be going to them soon. And then some of the developments that are currently ongoing is Morton Farms, um Sunrise, Champions Village, Belvadier 2 or Len Ridge that's just started. Um the Pelton oil small area plan uh Wendy's and the people's bank. So currently uh the tiff area has about 106 properties uh out of 200 totals a 207 total acres. Um a couple 25 plus or minus acres for green space trail areas. Um 14.62 areas are dedicated to conservation bank. Uh we recently did annex that large piece of property over here uh at the top right corner be added into that plan that is now in the town limits. Uh this is a timeline from before this current year of 2026 to 2025. Uh so it's been a it's been a long process. You can see we started this in 2020 um with the planning commission about the tiff district and it goes all the way up until uh small area was approved small area plan was approved by council last February. That was the first council meeting I ever went to as an employee of the town. That was pretty interesting to see. Um this is as of this current from 2025 until now what we've done for the the tiff area. Um you have the planning commission held the first work session to get input on the design ordinance. The draft of the ordinance was discussed the first time. We also had a public sharet on the ordinance over there as well. So people had an opportunity to see what was going to be going in over

there as well as some of the improvements for infrastructure. This is kind of giving you an overview of you know the the tax districts itself. Yeah, tax 44, which is the rest of town, and then 420. Um, these are some of the ongoing projects continued. So, you have Belvadier 2, which I mentioned have done about seven permits currently. There's six houses going up right now under construction. Uh, Morton Farms, which is has 61 single family homes. CF Sunrise, which has 144 total. uh Champions Village which has 132 single family lots and then we have the Town Creek development which um that's as you know an interesting process right now. Um and then web crossing that was that is a subdivision that I've been reached out about going in over on Brown Road and Central Stevens Road. Um currently he's in the pre-application process for that. It's 26 lots currently what they have planned. Where is that regulation station going?

It's right next to it. It's right next to the going up central or is it going It' be coming up central. So if you're coming down road, it's going around the corner on dead brown road. Oh, so it's there. Does it span central road or is it all on the same all on that all on the west side? It spans central. It's across the road from there's the large piece of property over there. They built those new houses, right? That's where it's going to be going in. And then there's an area across the street from that. That is also where it's going to be going in. So, it's in front of those apartments. Yeah, it's uh this this side of the pump station.

Well, we'll see. Um so this is a fiscal year 2025 belt out analysis uh for the current projects in town. You have see Tucker Ridge over here. From 2025 they had not started uh actually selling any of the homes. Um and most of them were under construction and now they're currently I think only five of them are still for sale. So for 14 14 of the 19 have been purchased and somebody's living there. Um Champions Village at the end of 2015 you had about 27 lots remaining for that subdivision um for that development. And currently we have 10 under construction. We have 17 empty lots remaining. So we're waiting on 17 for them to be completed. Uh Morton Farms has been a relatively slow process getting them permitted, but I recently did just do three um with them. So, they have two people living over there currently and I think one is under construction and they should be starting the other three that I just permitted soon. Um, Sunrise has nine homes for sale currently and I think there was there's seven under construction right now. And then Lton Ridge has just begun construction. Um, I haven't heard uh how long it's going to take for them to keep going, but Lton Ridge, you know where Belvadier is at across from the high school? lot ridges right behind it. It's technically below your face too.

That's got a different name.

That is what they are calling it.

Yeah. right here. Right here in this area. So, is it uh currently I I don't think anybody's living there. I don't think we have set up a utility for that area. Um this is some of the census data. I don't know if you want to talk a little bit more about this, Steve.

Well, so this is something uh we went over leadership Pendleton and if you uh if you're ever curious, you can go to censusreporter.org org and it has a lot of interactive graphs. You can measure us against the county and a lot of other places. But 2020 was when the you know the big census happened and what we do every 10 years. Um 2024 is the latest estimate. Some of the biggest things that you know take away is in South Carolina they average 2.44 44 people per home and in Pendleton we average 1.9.

So what that means and this is not just you know in 2020 we were 2.12 in South Carolina was 2.96. Um so we we are way under you know the state average of how many people's per house. So our population as you start decreasing in people per house and this is our main takeway we were given to leadership is if you have 2.5 people per house and you go to two you have to build 25% more housing units just to maintain your population with us being under two uh and everybody's like oh we got all these houses but our population is not growing a lot. They confuse us a lot as a town with the area outside of town. And both areas are growing per housing unit, but the area outside of town is the only one maintained above a twoerson per unit housing model. Um we we have and um have always maintained a hired and average uh persons with bachelor's degrees and higher within the town. Um we are below the state median income and have consistently been below the state median income and consistently been higher on the poverty rate. Uh our poverty rate has come down from 2013. In 2013 we we were well into the upper 40s I think lower 50s in poverty rate after the 2010 census. Uh now we're down to 21.8 8, but the state average is 13.3. Our age has come down. We used to be consistently older than the state, and now we're we're tracking right with the state. And our population over 65, we're

we've always been a larger population over 65 than the state, but we're only about 1% larger now. The biggest thing is the state averages about 26.3 minutes commutees to work, and we average about 24 minutes to commute to work. Uh, so we are a commuter town. Um, we, you know, whether they're just commuting over to the main campus or they're commuting to Anderson, the jobs are not centered in town. And I think that when you go to look at the commercial percent, we have commercial zone within town. I mean, that's a that's a large portion. You just don't have commercial buildings in town or commercial, you know, properties within town. Um, couple I'm trying to think a couple other things that's interesting about ours that you don't you don't really see. Um, we have a much higher than average population 18 to 64 than the state when you're looking at 5%. And we have consistently had that, but we're also consistently lower in the amount people per house. So, you have a lot of single person houses out there. Um the uh

I mean is that also a reflection of how many houses are built? Um it I mean there are a number of things contribute to that.

There are a number of things that can contribute but the biggest thing is from 2020 to 2024 even though you've gone from 1,862 units to 241 units. You've gone up only 105 people, but you've gone up, you know, the significantly more. You've gone up, anybody can do that math in their head, what, 160 units for 105 people. Um, and that's what your that's that's where your impacts being being under two people per per house or being under really the state average of 2.44. Um so yeah so and we are a statist statistically and we have always statistically been a very high high rental city. So our rentals stay almost 50% of our properties are rentals. Um there I think in 2024 I think it was 47% of our properties are rentals. How do we compare with Clemson on that?

Uh, we can look. I didn't I didn't really look. I looked at 35% 65% Clemson. I just came up in my some file somewhere. I know we're hired to manage the county as a whole, but I did I did not look at Clemson. So, the across 76 is probably not 1.9 per household. Oh, I have some great things. I have some great things about Oh, where's my math at? I feel like dancing. Yeah. All right. Y'all all know the wards. Yeah. Who in here thinks they have the youngest ward? Raise your hand.

You think You think you have the youngest ward in town? Who thinks they have the oldest ward in town? You think you have the oldest there? Jed has the oldest award in town. No way. They are 45.1 years of age. Lynn has the No, wait. Yeah. Lynn has the youngest ward in town. I believe it's 32.8. Wow. Followed by Barbara, which is 33 something. And then you're the third youngest or second oldest, however you want to be. We're the media. You're the media. Yeah.

And so most of our older residents actually live in Ward 4. Most of our younger residents actually live in W one. And that has changed considerably. That's flipped.

Yeah. And so I don't know if it's because of the natural rate of um I hate to say deaths, but you know there's two things certain, death and taxes. Um but you have the elementary school over here. You have houses that are turning over. You have older houses versus new houses on the other side versus easier houses. I'll just from personally I would just tell you easier houses when you're dealing with people with mobility issues um that are over there. And that drives the age up considerably. So it's not at least in 2024 it was really backwards from I think what most people believe. I believe and I think I would have too that you probably had 28 was probably the average age over on 76 but it's not

so education. Yep. Yep. So and and we had you know being even 1% over the state average over 65 with 21% of our population almost a quarter of our population. A lot of those people are older that have advanced degrees. You know, it, you know, it makes a little bit of sense. So, so we're older and single. We're older and single. And we have, we have historically been older and single

and educated. Yeah. So if we did a thing where we did inspections on rental properties much like we do with like Clemson does and I think some of us start to inspect for fire safety which you're looking for to make sure they've got fire extinguishers and the doors aren't you know whatever that inspection is and we charge a fee for that almost we walked in almost 50% of the homes. That's an interesting

I will say I I don't know if this means anything yet. I will say from 2023 2024 the amount of people here over a year has increased. So it looks like people even if they're renting they're coming here staying. Yeah. So that's because they can't afford to rent anything anywhere else. Can't afford to buy can't afford to rent. Yeah. So, um,

this this was a five-year plan that we did back starting in 2023 looking at things we need to plan for um this this came out of council whether you had to update whether um you know Yeah. Yep. And uh this came out of council. So, this this is out of the out of the budget. Um, as far as what council wants charge, no, this we're going to talk about that.

So, um, this is basically what y'all what that council at that particular time wanted to start looking at as far as a planning function um, and start writing writing their plan so that as you go through and do your comp plan and your your ordinances update. I think the TIFF district's a prime example of of the planning, a true planning process, how now y'all have the design ordinance and that takes years to do, you know, to to get it right. But this the these plans are out here um for y'all to consider. But the the plans the plans that Whoops. The plans that I have heard most um that you guys as a council want to talk about is uh you want to talk about historic preservation overlay which would require us to do a historic property inventory. I think it would be under 40,000. I haven't priced one in in years to tell you an impact fee study. Um, we got a price last year. I think it was $40,000 for our study. I talked to Ambi Blondo who they just finished their study. Theirs was 61,000. Um, so you have to have that's the study you have to have to start charging your impact fees. And that that helps you design a capital project around those impact fees you want to charge. Um the other thing is I've heard a lot uh Clemson is getting ready to to next month urban 3 will be at their council meeting to release these kind of studies that they had done the revenue impact study which just kind of shows where the revenue comes from in your city over the course of years. Um it's through GIS analysis. So,

yep. Yep.

Um, so they they look at it and they look at um they look at several one ones of them. Everything that we've kind of heard y'all talk about, cost of service maps. They make cost of service map so you know where your service is costing you more to serve, which would impact your impact fees. So, when you combine that with your impact fee study and you're talking about the cost to service the town, you really got a story in these two studies right here. Um, the equity and assessment. Um, that's basically looking at how much things are valued, especially when you talk about us and act 388 where things are frozen, who's carrying your load, the value of public properties. Um, that's an interesting one because we uh have a lot of public non-t taxable properties in town. And and this tells you two things. Number one, if if you're a large city and you're looking at managing your public properties and selling them off in order to maximize where you put the public money to do it, then you can track the values of your public property and make determinations. If you're us, you're essentially tracking your leakage of your tax revenue because you do control so much public property. So we have Anderson District 4, we have US, we have Clemson University, we have Clemson University Research Foundation, we have Tri County Tech, we have Tri County Tech Foundation, we have the Experimental Forest. Um I think we have 25 to 35% of our property is is in a non-t taxable state.

You can still that includes the apartments here now. No, they're they're taxable. They're just not they're they would come into that equity and assessment analysis. The RV park be not taxable. It's taxable. the the refund because why would you have to refund the $30,000? They got a uh qualification under a state law that allowed them to qual to reduce their taxes down to I don't I don't remember how much off the top of my head, but it has to do with public housing and everything else and and having a nonprofit board in there. So,

and who is this? This is uh 950 Cherry Street. Um, so recreation park is 501c3 and churches that are 501 they own a lot of land. The churches own a lot of land, but the RV park out at the Oh, it's it's probably the highest tax paying area. So, how why is that? They're on 51 C3. They still pay real estate tax. Well, they have it's a it's a it's a horizontal property regime. That's what the 501 is. Oh, so it's not a C3. It's 501. Yeah. Okay. So they still they still pay taxes on all that a significant amount of taxes.

So if you bought one of the 90 foot blocks or whatever, those are taxed to the individual all part of that package. They're taxed to the individual and they're taxed at a minimum 55,000 at 6%. So, but they they are all involved in that. Um, essentially that property owners association is there. So, so the 90 lot is taxed at 55 at a minimum $55,000. That's a minimum supposed to be a minimum 55,000 is what it's supposed to be. Then it goes off sales price. Some of those lots have resold for 80 $90,000.

Are you kidding me? 90 ft just to put a trailer 20 20 by um 20 by 50 or whatever they are. I don't remember what they are out there. They pro they probably they probably are now but but when they first started they were all valued 55,000 all the way across the board and then as they resale they get reset to that new number 247.

I don't know for sure they don't. You probably know better than I do. So, so the uh but yeah, they they pay I think just the proper just the the main park itself pays $80,000 just in property tax to us. So, common elements

just for common elements. So, um, but those those are um those three studies are probably uh I I would say they're probably $150,000 study. So, it's really up to y'all which studies you want. Clemson did their impact fee and then they did their urban three study. Um, you know, if you have your if you have your HPO, then you have to have your inventory. So that goes back to kind of goes back into the Bailey bill we were talking about last night too. Uh so you have those and then you have you know looking forward um a lot of talk about Western House Road Highway 76 kind of doing the small area plan master plan out there trying to get some design elements on top of it. Uh, Riverside, we probably want to go back in Riverside and look from a planning standpoint after that arch corridor and take that and our neighborhood plan and our streetscape and roll them all in together and write the design guidelines for it and then you're coming up on 10 years on your W walk and bike ability. Either we need to update that or we need to, you know, go back out. Um, you know, it's still a fairly relevant plan to what you what we have right now. We haven't changed a lot, but it's kind of still out there. So,

how much land is left at um in town or total?

Uh, in town? In town, we probably have three acres out there and that includes our acre. Out of town that would be affected by that project, it's probably all inclusive of about 15, maybe up to 20 because of the utilities. Now, you have right there where the ice shack is, it's not in town. The town already has an existing agreement with those property owners. So there's a sewer line now across it that they have access to four or six inch taps for sewer. And when they take those they have to annex those parcels as they start being taken down. Those parcels have to annex in town.

The church will come in too because they're on that they're going to come in, right? Um there's two of them out there. So the one beside the car wash or one beside the pump. Yeah. So they have indicated they want to come. So the one beside the car wash, we have the line ending at their property line. Oh. Yeah. That little church is in that old building. So we ended that sewer line at their property line. So if that building ever turns over, sewers there.

So the walk and bike friendly community master plan. I just don't think that that we look at the whole community because I know there are plenty of pockets that you don't have anywhere you can walk in your community. And I think that that's what if we're going to do anything and focus on walkability and the master plan for that we need to focus on the areas that have been neglected with such and also when it comes to crosswalks can we do a study to see where we need the crosswalks? one um you can one of the things that uh I've talked to a couple of y'all about is

having y'all submit to us, you know, the top five places y'all want to see crosswalk improvement and then seeing where where y'all have some kind of um cohesiveness to it or either one from each ward or one from each council person. And we wrote we wrote the bid that we've got out to do those walkability things like adding crosswalks and everything else so that you know we could just work directly and take the paving and sidewalk money that we had in the budget and redirect doing that kind of thing. So, this is just a breakdown um in terms of code enforcement, some of the things that I've been doing this past year. Um so, I had over 80 complaints. That's people either coming into the office here um and asking me to handle situation or people calling up or submitting something off of the town's website. Um, I tracked down over 20 contractors working in town without a category 2 permit. So that's your electrical mechanical or your interior exterior renovations. So that's basically people coming to town doing some work that requires an inspection. They're planning on probably not doing it. Um, and permits category one, that's like your your building additions or your debts. I had less than 20. I can't remember the exact number how many of those I have. I think it was about 15 maybe. Um, but those are, you know, people wanting to actually add on to a structure or add a structure to their property without getting a permit or making sure it's compliant with our zoning ordinance. Um, and I had about over exactly almost a hundred um businesses in town or contractors working in town without a business license. Um, and that's, you know, me driving around, seeing somebody working, stop and talk to them, ask them to get a license. Um, you know, maybe somebody

opened up a business in town, they didn't have a license. Uh, as well as people that had a business license that was overdue for the renewal, they gone past a year or even two years. Um, so for a total fee collection from business licenses, uh, it was about $18,835. Um, permits it was for a total of six $1650. So, the entire fees that were collected um were was $20, uh $485. Does that build up when I call you about signage?

Yeah, you can see them in here. I put them on there. That was uh that was before usually whenever it was more of a

replace there. Yeah. So, this is a breakdown of complaints. Um the majority of them were for overgrown lots or high grass and that's usually the summer starting in probably this month I'll get a good majority of them starting up. Um sign violations and legal businesses were the next two that we got complaints or probably discovered um or another member of staff discovered and informed me about them. Noise violations hospitality tax those are delinquents. That's another thing that sometimes when we process our records we see oh this business hasn't you know paid their hospitality tax in a couple months. Uh, abandoned vehicles. That was one I I got a a good number of complaints about. Um, as well as open burning. Open burning is one that that's usually me driving around. Somebody's burning some brush in their yard and I got to get out, stop start talking to them, let them know like, hey, you can only have a fire in town if you're roasting some wings and marshmallows or, you know, cooking or something. So um

so when we get this new board that you fully staff for the first time in a while that the international board um probably that work um are we going to have more is that is the is the process for that also complaint driven? So would that be a situation where this building is this trailer needs to be removed or is maintained? Is that Yeah, that is complaint driven. So you get the complaint and it's officially logged and then you start the process with the board. Each one of them's got to sign off on either tearing it down or getting it to come into compliance. So that process from what I've read in our records usually takes about a year to two years or maybe even longer.

The long weeds is not that one. Unmold grass is not that one or

so unmoved grasses and both. So so you have but now they mirror we made them mirror each other. So, you have to have it both in the international property maintenance code and in your property and health code. Um, and so if you're going after, the easiest way to think about it is we're not going to cross codes. If we're going to have to tear that building down, we're going to stay in one code. But if you've got, you know, if you've got a building, and this happens a lot, somebody passes away, you know, their children trying to figure out what to do with the house. You know, the house is in decent shape, but the grass has gone up. We're not going to go after international property maintenance code. Those ones grass.

Yeah. But the one where the long grass was going around dilapitated structure. That's interesting.

Uh this just outlines the process that we currently do for um complaints. We usually get the complaint and then we do a 15-day violation letter. Um, that's not sent certified mail. So, we just send it, you know, regular mail. Give them a chance to come into compliance without the actual, you know, enforcement behind it. Because usually, usually I don't have to send out the certified letter. That's only if I haven't heard from the person. Either we send it off and they just didn't check their mail um or they're ignoring us. So, usually when you send them a certified mail, they they typically respond to that. Um, and then after that they give I give them 15 days to respond once I get the signature back from them. If they don't, then I have to figure out some other way to get in contact with them. Um, some constraints that we have is is enforcement challenges. You know, it's it's difficult to get people to comply sometimes, but usually I I haven't had too much of a problem of it. But um it seems like every complaint is usually I would say a moral argument, but a lot of people they don't seem to want to understand why it's an actual violation. It's just kind of a it's kind of a thing. So I have the hundred they probably had 100 arguments or plus with those those folks. Um

once a month somebody chicken joint was chicken joint some of the board and commission just ripping old wounds open

um some board and commission turnover. I think we've seen that pretty recently. You know, sometimes when you get a new board on there, they're not really up to up to speed on what the last border commission was handling. So, it's kind of a whole new thing and they gota they weren't involved in before, maybe not super into our ordinances or anything. They're they're going to have to study that and get up to speed with what's going on in town. Yeah. And that's uh that's all I got for y'all. So, if you have any questions, just let me know. I'm happy to answer them for you. What? Uh, so is the basketball annexation that's not

you talking about for the the one area over there for the whole golf course? No, that little go.

Yeah, it's um not right now school pass. the school or somebody needs to give us a ribbon to go through and uh there is the call of taking the the practice uh not practice the there's a there's a put and driving range at the very back of apparently somebody's talking about putting four or five houses in there that's that's just outside of our sewer territory um and then you know to get the whole golf course in you would probably have to offer them a fee in L or something to come in so that they don't have to pay any additional taxes to come in in order to do it and I and then I don't even know if they come in.

How about Engles? Engles. That's somebody asked that during the leadership one. We haven't heard anything from Engles. They still own the property over there. They're paying their taxes. I guess the storm probably from what we're thinking probably messed up some of their their business. So maybe one day. I guess the the oil mill property I mean it's just kind of starting to get a bit ragged there. I've talked to him recently. Um I think two weeks ago was the last time I spoke to him. So he he told me he's going to be cleaning it up. So, so it I can do that. Yeah.

Um, and speaking of cleaning up, is the town in compliance down in the um almost. So, we were actually working on it this week, but had to pull back off of it. You know how much more we got down there? The curves coming in off Cal Boulevard. We need to uh cut that one lot inside that first house. Uh we're kind of waiting till it dries up a little bit at Harris Street.

Harrison Harris. It's pretty much all out. The guys kind of went overboard and cleared it, but it's kind of a mess. So, but it's about all gone. Did you get your G? Yeah. So, of our apartments, do we know what percentage are are one bedroom, two bedroom, and three bedroom? For which one? The apartments. All apartments total apartments.

Um, we can tell you Cheney Mills behind I don't we have the plans on those. We do know those. I don't know about the rest of them. They're just they're so they're so much older. But I would I would think the bulk of most of them are probably two bedrooms. That's just knowing that's just knowing housing for us. So, all right. We get those numbers. We can get you to me and Jamie.

Okay. Um and do we track VRBOs at all? So, that's one thing that I I would like to start doing. Um, don't sometimes I've gone on there when I get a minute or two just to check in town because there's a bunch of them that people don't have. We do track short-term rentals. Yeah, I have a we have a folder of them. The ones that report themselves. Yeah, the one that report themselves, but the uncompliant ones that, you know, they might they might just own the house and not actually live there, which is our requirement because they got to live there. Um, yeah, we don't have a system for tracking those yet.

And so, can we track I've just been told I have no This just but all right. So of those 19 houses out there behind all that whatever that is Tucker Village Tucker Tucker Ridge. Yes. Yeah. Is there anyone to check that's unoccupied?

Um currently I I don't wouldn't say there's a way that we would know they're owner occupied or not. We can check the addresses of the utilities. Um, so you accept utilities and where they're having their mail forwarded to. That would be to check the easiest way to check the tax record and see if they're being taxed at four or 6%. That's one of the easiest ways to do it. But they're they're telling people. Yeah.

Yeah. We went checked quite a few homes, close to 30 that were getting homesteaded tax credit, but tax bills being mailed to New York City or something. So, that's a pretty good indication that they're probably not living there. Or you drive by the go that that house next to the convenience store on North Mechanic that had sign violations. That house gets most of tax credit. The one on the corner. I don't think anybody's currently living there from my understanding. Somebody came in and got a permit to remodel it.

That was the Evans permit, not the one. I think he's got I mean, he's been there, too. I've never seen him, but other people told me that. It's the original house. No, the one next to it in the woods bathroom's on the floor. There's there's right now unassembled scoutm. It's right there. When you go through the intersection going toward community center from town hall, look to your right, you'll see it. And I have seen the light on just recently. Yeah,

my point is that if we can find places that are claiming the tax exemption, but in fact nobody there or they're a VRBO, then that's taxing for us. Yeah, if you can get to Yeah, that would be that'd be something I'd like to start working on. That's something I've wanted to do for a couple months. AI AI and JS GI as well. Well, thank you. Y thank you.

Uh the ad went out last week probably at least 30 days. Um I hadn't followed back up to see if had any interest but it's out here. Did you differentiate between zoning administrator and planner or not? Is it what did you differentiate between administrator? Is it all just it's all the same? I mean zoning administration. Yeah, they got they need to be able to do both of them though. I mean that's just that's just in small town. Good job.

May pro 10. Any other questions? Any other comments? Everybody's put your information on the sheets. No, I haven't yet. I'll do it right now. Do that before we leave these up to the I mean planning and zoning. We the the three plans that the forest preservation and impact um that urban three and you need to think about the YMCA needs assessment. Y'all need to start thinking there's a consensus over which one you want to fund. Is there that's what you want on here?

Yeah, the YMCA. We got a number from the YMCA today. I was shocked at the number. I need to talk to the new CEO a little more. His quarter million dollar. That's what they told us that I I got nothing on the back of that how much it really is. He said what? Quarter maybe. For what? For needs assessment. Is that for the whole state? That's for northern Anderson County. Not in the whole county. Not in the whole county. whatever the YMCA would service out of Pen. Can we get the county to help with that?

I maybe I mean I I don't I haven't talked to the county about it yet, so I don't know what they're about. Who's running? Uh I can tell you later. Is there just one guy running? No, there's four right now. Is that is that a is that a primary position or is that just the general election? That'll be it'll be primary. So that's coming up soon. It's coming up. So they must have all we must know. We can't tell. I know. All of them have announced.

I don't know if all of them have announced, but I know two and a half. I don't know the one very well. I just know I just know their name. And then there's a there's a dark cord up there. I don't I don't know. Of course. There always is. That $40,000 for the um impact study or the historic preservation. Is there a chance contract with the Historic Commission and they could participate with that in some way or is that they have to be certified some sort of credential to do that study? Best I can remember is they have to be certified.

Okay. With credential be credential. And my last question for you on planning zoning this plan zoning, but do we still have that work session in mind to look at the 76,000 that was carried over from this year, last year around trails? Yep. It's still we still know we got to do it. So on our list that money did go away, it's still being Yeah, it won't it won't go away. is is reserved. We we haven't we haven't set it up yet.

Anybody else got a motion to motion? All thank you.