Board of Commissioners (boc) - Regular Meeting

I'll be in the mountains.

Good evening. Welcome everyone. Uh, I would like to call this meeting of the Pittsburgh Board of Commissioners for February 9th, 2026 to order. And we will start with a moment of silence if you'll join me.

Thank you, Mr. Ferrell. Will you lead us in the pledge of

allegiance to the flag of the United States of America indivisible with liberty and thank you thank Uh up next we have the agenda. We have the consent agenda and the regular agenda in front of us. Are there any changes to the or additions to the uh consent or regular agenda? See

make a motion to approve the agenda. Thank you. A second. Thank you, Commissioner Thurber. Second. All those in favor say I. I. I. Thank you. I'll take a motion to approve the consent agenda. So moved. Thank you, Commissioner Foley. Is there a second? Second. Thank you. All those in favor say I. I.

Thank you. Um, we have two information items this evening. the town of Pittsburgh financials and the Boy and Girls Club winter update. Are there any questions on either of those items? All right, up next we have citizens matters and we'll start with the managers updated this time. Um, up next is uh my update. We have a uh Central Pines Rural Planning Organization meeting this Thursday coming up. So, we have a little break for the holidays. We got one coming up this Thursday that I'll attend. Um, other than that, uh, just appreciate every, uh, all of our, uh, staff and all the community, uh, with all the support, um, as the months came through for one thing, which was a pretty, uh, pretty incredible thing to happen for Pittsburgh. And then, uh, in all of Chad County and everywhere really, but, uh, and then also all of staff's work uh, through the multiple winter storms and things that we had getting things cleared out and opened back up. Um, not something we normally do and, uh, staff reacted really well to it. So appreciate that. Uh Mr. Hinger,

so um I did attend um the last A-hack meeting. Um and in that meeting, we discussed basically where Ahack has been, where it is now, and where it is going in the future. Um, and since 2018, Pittsburgh has received about one and a half million in trust housing trust investment supporting more than 260 housing units through preservation, affordable rentals, and home ownership opportunities. Um, one of the big parts of the conversation um that I took away was who affordable housing actually serves. And in Chattam County, um I surprised you to realize that um the area, the AMI is in the mid70s range. And that is our teachers, our uh county workers, our town workers, um healthcare, and and even myself falls in that that range. And um it's just so important to realize who benefits from us making affordable housing a priority. Um, and while we were talking about $70,000 being the AMI, um, we're also looking at the, um, average home price in Pittsburgh and across Chattam County exceeds more than a half a million dollars and is increasing. And there's a growing disconnect between the wages and the housing costs as development continues. And uh I just think it's important for everybody who lives in Pittsburgh and the developers who are developing in Pittsburgh to understand that providing middle workforce housing especially inside downtown is essential to creating a healthy viable town center. Um and uh you know that that that middle workforce housing supports local businesses, reduces long commutes and helps maintain a really good thriving downtown. And then finally, and one of the most important things is that Ahack passed a resolution formerly commending

John Foley for his long-standing commitment to affordable housing since 2017. And I wish I could run down the list of all the things that he has contributed, but we will have a very very long long meeting. Um, but personally, I want to thank him for his mentorship with affordable housing and thank you so much. I'm learning so much from you. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner. Good job, Commissioner Furl.

Just want to thank the ABC board man sales from last year were were up even in our uh number one station in town even though we have a second store open that we do have one position open on the uh ABC board. I believe it has been filled. So uh we should be taking applications for that. I believe uh it's on the website for applications. Thank commissioner Foley.

Moving from the Chapman County affordable housing advisory committee was uh hard to do. I will be speaking with Commissioner Huner at least six months to make sure that she's up to speed. She is entirely effective as an excellent physician now on the economic development corporation in general county. It's my responsibility to ensure that or help ensure that we are a viable county when it comes to economics. We have two large ticket items. We have Wil and Ben pass. But I'd love to concentrate on infill when it comes to economic development. That is perhaps companies that would feed into mobile speed and in big bass uh to more more corporations that come to Pittsburgh means less tax burdens on on our residents and so that's definely that I'll be concentrating on future. Uh we had a meeting uh what's called a chat and shoe at the hops and Barry uh in Mosaic and it was very informative and I'm looking forward to contributing however I can. That's it.

Thank you, Commissioner Thurber. Yes.

Hi, I attended the Pittsburgh downtown Advisory Board meeting last Tuesday um and they were discussing the potential budget. I strongly support the proposed full-time downtown administrative and events coordinator position that they are asking for. Um, that would shift the administrative, marketing, and event responsibilities off of the downtown development director and allow them to focus on business recruitment and retention, streamlining permitting for small businesses, datadriven downtown performance, housing and transportation coordination, and long-term planning for downtown success. And I'll also be attending the Chattam Chamber of Commerce's annual meeting um on Wednesday. and I'm looking forward to that.

Thank you, Mr. Bonds.

Yes, sir. Um, thank you. Uh, my apologies for my tardiness. Uh, so the Chattam County Climate Advisory Committee meeting was on January 22nd and the committee debriefed the county board of commissioners response to the climate action plan that had been delivered by the committee to the board of commissioners. Um there followed much discussion of a proposed new data center uh near Chattam County southern border. This is in Lee County. And I don't know if anybody has heard about this, but when I personally read the press release, I didn't think very much of it. Um apparently with um further action and events, uh this probably does warrant some attention. It's called the Deep River Data Center proposal. Um the plan is to uh use the Butler well number three which was a it's a 27y old test well that was drilled for natural gas in 1997 um to extract natural gas to run generators to power the data center. And the uh county commissioners are planning to hold hearings on a possible moratorum on this data center or excuse me on data centers in general within Chattam County. And the climate change advisory committee will be meeting or be submitting written concerns for such data centers to the county commissioners at their February 11th meeting. and I will pass along those written concerns uh to this board. But uh just on the face of it, I will

share my concerns now. Um these are very large new data consumers, excuse me, energy consumers with by my perception limited benefits to the local economy. Um, Mayor Ship, I recognize you have significant professional experience with these uh facilities and so I'm eager for the conversation to unfold and for us to learn more together. Um, at a glance, permanent jobs could be anywhere from 15 to 50 people for, you know, 100 acre site or something like that. Uh the tax revenue is questionable because of North Carolina General Statute 105164.13 subsection 55. Um local governments will see very little tax benefit from these data centers. um the dirt and the bricks um not the equipment or the energy consumed. So local government benefit is is limited backup power for these sites and in this case in the the Lee County proposal has in the in the past been highly polluting natural gas fire generators which produce noise at levels that harm human health and the environment. So, uh, I just wanted to make sure that this was elevated to the attention of the public and this board. Um, we'll keep watching and keep learning. Um, thank you very much. Thank you. Up next is public comment. So, uh, I'll read your name. Please state your name and address at the start of your comments. There's a time limit of 3 minutes which will be displayed on the screen. In the interest of time and fairness, it's the board's policy not to

respond directly to comments during this period. Staff will follow up as appropriate. Any speaker with handouts should give them to the town clerk and they'll be distributed to the board at the conclusion of the meeting. So, up first we have uh Ethan Tyer followed by Alan Cat. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for giving me the chance to speak at this board. Um, I've been on orders. Can Can you say your name and address?

Yes, sir. Ethan Tyer. My address is 80 Haven Creek Free Grow Department One in Pittsboro. I've been working on the east side of the state the past two weeks with these winter storms that have been coming through. And when I went to church yesterday, I realized that there is a flock camera pointed directly down the only street to that building. and come to find out that anytime I leave my apartment or go to church, my vehicle is being recorded and monitored and that is a egregious violation of my Fourth Amendment rights. I would like to see these cameras taken down immediately. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Up next is Allan Cat followed by Jan Ber.

Good evening y'all. My name's Alan Cat. I live at 180 Woollyworm Drive, Pittsboro, North Carolina. I've been a resident of Chadam County for about 10 years now. I'm here to talk to you tonight about adtech. First, adtech is the technology that came up when I first got into the search and rescue community. Essentially, the idea was back in the day of the dinosaurs when everyone started carrying out cell phone. You send out a ping. If that phone is on and has battery, it would reply back with which tower it was closest to. That gives us a 3m radius to look for a human body in. That was great at the time. Then you come to 2019. 2019, Google proposes something called adtech. It's this idea that with smartphones, we have an advertising ID on every single phone. And that advertising ID affiliates all the data coming off of it from things like cookies from websites you visit, apps you have installed on your phone, etc., etc. That data also comes with your location. So now there's this continuous record of everywhere you've ever been. By 2019, Google's got 50 billion pings of consumer phones in the US. Nowadays, you can imagine that number is much bigger and it's continuous record leading back about seven years. That data is just a continuous location for every phone that has been on that has access to either the internet or 4G LTE. That's a massive Fourth Amendment violation because law enforcement happily uses it to track people around using um geofencing and by contacting the various data brokers that provide that information. It's such a big deal that Google is being addressed by attorney generals of California and Texas to get them to stop using this technology that is incredibly invasive. Now, we brought block cameras to Chattam County. Now, they will assist law enforcement. So, from what I understand, Pittsburgh PD is very happy to have them here because that allows us to do automatic license plate reading. Essentially, the concept is that all of this video data coming off these cameras gets labeled with the, you know, actual license plate of the vehicle, but also

comes with the color of the car. It comes with how many occupants it has. It comes with what those occupants are wearing. It comes with modifications to the vehicle. Do you have a bike rack on the back of your car? Are you carrying a cargo container on top of your car? This tracks vehicles more than just in and out of neighborhoods, more than just two churches. This also tracks everyone who visits the first health location outside of the Lowe's Foods. This tracks everyone coming in and out of mosaic. This tracks everyone going to their churches, going to stores, going to work. Tracks what time you come and go. All of these things are normally things that would require a warrant or a judge's approval for surveillance. And these are all things that are now happening continuously 24/7 so long as we have these cameras on and it's going to a private company. Now, we might not be paying much for these cameras, but that's because we are the product. Flock happily will make money off of selling that data, selling that video feed to consumers, whether they be public entities for law enforcement purposes or private entities for commercial purposes. And frankly, I think it's inappropriate for us to have these sources of data just leaking private information. and I highly suggest a moratorium on the use of them in the future. Thank you.

Thank you. Up next is Jan Ber followed by Chris Run.

Gilber. I live at 726 Bum Road in B. Um, and I also am here to talk about FL cameras. Um, I only just learned about them recently and have been reading articles about what Flock is doing around the country. And one of my concerns is that the data that we're collecting here can be used by many different entities of which we don't really know or have control over. and um a a ACLU article that I read talked about a woman in Texas who was being tracked in Massachusetts um because supposedly she had gone in to have an abortion and it wasn't allowed in Texas. So, as an example, um something that we may allow here may not be allowed in a different place. We don't really know who's going to be using that data and it doesn't seem fair. I don't know about the legalities of it, but it doesn't seem fair to the people that live here to be sharing that data with. We don't know who, including the national government or any other entities that they may choose to share their data with um as well as the um Immigration and Customs Enforcement um all around the country. Thank you.

Thank you. Up next is Chris Run followed by Kaden Watson. Oh, I'm sorry. I just thought that was a signin sheet. Sorry. No problem. Thanks for being here. Uh Kaden Watson.

Hello. Thank you um for your time. My name is Kayen Watson and I live at 314 Danbury Court here in Pittsburgh. Um, I've lived here for 17 years. And while I can say that I'm not exactly um extremely knowledgeable about the flop cameras, I am under the impression that these are a major violation of the Fourth Amendment. And that also on a side note, they hardly provide any economic value to our town. So, I would just like to ask if we could reconsider having these in our town and or at the very least have the data be shared publicly. So, thank you. Thank you.

All right. Um, up next we have the miscellaneous section which this evening is a presentation uh presentation from Tri River Water. So, you for start us off. All right. on the board or just print out. No problem.

Good evening, mayor, uh, commissioners. My name is Nick Fortune. Uh, I'm the director of business management for Tri River Water. With me here this evening is Jason Burtonino. He's the director of engineering for Tri River Water. And Cameron Kleiner, he's our public information officer. Paul Weekes is also supposed to be here, but he has some family matters. So, if there's any questions that we can't answer, we're going to blame it on Paul and Paul will be back to y'all. He's back. So,

this is the first meeting that I think we've really been to as Tri River trying to give an update to town of Pittsburgh. Just uh we've been merged for a year and a half now. So, we're just trying to give an overall Tri River picture from a regional standpoint. That's what I'll do. And then Jason will have a little more in-depth um more information on specific projects related to Pittsboro that we've been working on as well. So to get started a little bit um you know the merger before the merger actually happens it's uh you know us talking to employees us looking at numbers on a piece of paper but you know that's a little different than when we actually start to operate and converse with employees and those things happen. So over a year and a half we feel like we've gotten a pretty good idea and comfort with the Pittsboro system. Um, so we feel like we're in a pretty good spot with what we've seen operationally and kind of where we're headed moving forward. Um, so we've you unified some business efforts is what we're calling it that we'll just call those our day-to-day things that we've done over the past year and a half. Um, your planning department works with our utility planning. um that that they they coincide as far as you know what the utilities approval are with your development that's kind of going on. Those meetings take place on a regular basis. We have a monthly communications meeting that Cameron puts on for other PIOS in the area uh between Syler City, Chattam County, even the Sanford area. We kind of get together. He has a list of items that he discusses just kind of what's going on in the Tri River community and then try to get some feedback on what the public information officers hear from local municipalities as well. Anything that Tri River needs to address. Um customer service location we created last year down here down the street in

the food line shopping center. Feel like it's a good touch point for the customers. They can come in, pay their bills, ask questions. Uh it's quite a good turnout that we get through that location. We created a purchasing position through Tri River when we took over with um when we merged with Chattam County and Siler City just to try to leverage some of the purchasing power. That's one of the regionalization benefits. Try to utilize some of that. Trying to make sure that we use our inventory system that we have that we're starting to put in place. trying to utilize some of that purchasing power to buy inventory, manage a warehouse, those types of things. Those are some of the day-to-day things that we've been working on over the year and a half that we've been trying to um make more refined each day that kind of goes on. And then we have what we're calling our transformational alignment where we're trying to think big picture, right? You know, we're a large regional utility now that we've merged together. You know, believe it or not, water is not infinite. So, how do we plan for 2050, 2070, right? How do we make sure that we have a water supply? How do we make sure that we're treating water down the road, treating the waste water down the road? So, those master plans on how these different interconnection projects take place um and how they, you know, make sure that 20 years, 50 years down the road that we're taking care of our customers and our communities and serving them well. So, those are some of the bigger ticket items, future planning that we have that we've been working on as well. And at this point, I'll turn it over to Jason. He'll talk about some of the specific projects that we've been working on as well. And I'll also say if you have questions, feel free to converse kind of an open dialogue back and forth. You know, put us on the spot. We're for it. And like I said, we'll blame it on Paul if we don't know. Thank you.

Nick, as Nick said, my name is Jason Bernstein. I'm the director of engineering for Tri River. Um, so kind of group these uh projects into a couple different categories. I'm sure you have them in your agenda packet. Um, so as Nick said, we've merged now for about a year and a half. Uh me personally, I merged for about five months now at Tri River, so still relatively new, still uh learning quite a bit about the system. I would say uh that extends beyond just myself. We still continue to learn things throughout the system. Um we as for instance, we learned last week that our Siler City wastewater treatment plant is on a road that is neither maintained by NC DOT or the town of Sil City. So we sort of had to figure out scramble how to uh how to get our folks there to keep things uh operational. Uh but that's you know to be expected in these mergers and um you know so it uh certainly makes going to work each and every day entertaining uh and you know actually somewhat fulfilling. You get to feel like you've done something at the end of the day. Uh so with that talk a little bit more about the projects Nick mentioned a little bit. Uh the big project that everybody sees just pro every day if you head down 15501 is the Pittsburgh to Sanford uh pump station and wastewater course main project. Project is underway. It's under schedule. We have all the pipe on site. Um uh starting most of it's fused together now. Uh they're going to start working on the bores and burying pipe. We're going to start disappearing on the side of the road hopefully here pretty soon and is on track for a summer 2027 completion. Um that will certainly add a lot of sanitary sewer capacity to uh the bulk of the Pittsboro. Uh from that standpoint, we sort of had a self-imposed moratorum on any things that were

tributary to the current plant because we didn't want to get into a situation with the state. We uh now feel like uh we're at the point we're far enough along on the project. We're date certain enough, if you will, on the completion that we've started signing permits again for projects that are tributary to the Pittsburgh wastewater treatment plant. So really, really happy about that. That's been a milestone for us. Um we're continuing to work on the Monure to Pittsburgh water main connection. Uh it also has a booster pump station along the way in the Mount View Church Road area along uh Pittsburgh Monure Road. The project's uh getting close to 90% designed uh and we're getting ready to start uh real estate acquisition on the project. So uh we don't have an exact timeline on the construction, but at the moment there's no reason why we're slowing down once we can get all of the rights away and easements in place. Our intention is to keep moving forward with that project. uh to again to bring us uh quite a bit more water capacity into the town of Pittsburgh and frankly some some resiliency which I think is again a little bit of a theme. You know if we have an issue at the Pittsburgh waste water or excuse me water treatment plant will be able to bring water from Sanford uh from there. Um actually and actually I guess I should say that facility will have the capability to send water both ways. So we have future additional capacity here. Again, same thing. We're just trying to build resiliency throughout our system for our customers. Uh the so to that end, the Sanford Water Treatment Plant project is also underway and also a summer of 2027 completion date to go to 30 million gallons of treatment capacity. Um despite the weather, we're still a little bit ahead of schedule and on track. Uh the biggest thing about that that keeps me up at night is we're expanding our water intake in the river. and so let's not have any hurricanes this year. Uh but other than that, uh no, every everything

is going well. Um really really pleased with that project. Um as Nick mentioned, he and I are spending a lot of time with uh through the Central Pines Cog Triangle Future Water Partnership and we're talking about um really the entire Capefar River basin. I guess I would say sort of south of Greensboro all the way down through the system through Hornet County. Um as well as uh again it's the Triangle Water Partnership. So the new spacing conversation uh is in there as well uh for the folks that that sort of live on that side of the world. Um really it's just planning about raw water resources and making sure that we're looking you know way out in the future. 2070 sort of is the current horizon date because any solution as it relates to wall water and sort of the appropriate studies and permitting. You just can't start soon enough to to have all that work done. So what we don't want to do is get out there to 2040 and say you know hey we got a 30-year solution and and really feel like we're against the clock. So, it's really all these communities uh that come together. Tri River, AASA, Durham, Kerry, Apex, Holly Springs, Fugquway, Raleigh, Kerry, um uh excuse me, Hornet County, uh Hillsboro, um Orange County. Again, just everybody uh there together sort of sitting at the table together and communicating about what's next for all of us collectively. again was the date you were talking about for the water connection via Vinfest completion date.

I don't have a specific completion date on that uh as it goes. But again, we have no plans to slow the project down. We're almost done design and we're headed into uh real estate acquisition. So once we have a little bit better handle on the easement acquisition time frame, then we'll have a a more published uh construction date. Okay. I've heard estimates anywhere from five years to seven years.

I think I'm going to speak totally out of turn. I I it would definitely be at the sooner part of that than than the latter part of that. Uh existing pro other projects sort of here uh in Pittsburgh. I'm sure all of you have had some commentary and things there. We continue to work on the existing wastewater treatment plant uh in Pittsburgh. Uh I've not been as directly involved in all these projects. There is a lot of studies going on. Uh there's a lot of what I would call modernization as it relates to how we deal with uh chemical usage and uh fauculation and and removals of solids and things of that nature. Uh it is definitely a work in progress. Uh we're even learning some things like don't turn the sludge over when you have an air inversion in in the air. I think the last big thing we really felt like it u it was just one of those sort of fluke type weather events where kind of the the heating and cooling inverted and yep we spread some not the best odor around town there on that day. So again, just sort of learning how to adapt and how that plant re reacts even again to sort of certain atmospheric conditions. All things that we're working on really really actively uh here.

I'll just say on that I've heard complaints about that odor there. So um is that related to the weather conditions you think or is there other like operational things you guys are doing to work on the odor at the waist? I think everything it's a little bit of both. So there, you know, every so often you have to sort of you you remove the sludge, it goes to an off-site handling facility, whatnot. There are days when it's much worse to do that than other days. And I think the last time that this happened recently, it's been what, a couple weeks?

Well, yeah, about a month ago or so, whatever. We just hit a picked a really bad day to do it. Uh from sort of again the atmosphere conditions and whatever. So, we're trying to see if we can predict what causes that and try to avoid those types of events. Thank you. Um, again, uh, sort of specific to Pittsboro, uh, this was a, um, what I'll call legacy project, uh, from the town

downtown find it, fix it project. We are finally under construction. Um, I think that project languished a little bit, uh, with the consultant on sort of getting it its footing. Uh we now have the contractor mobilized. We're doing a lot of lining of manholes and sewer lines in downtown. I think we're very hopeful to reduce uh infiltration uh issues in the sanitary sewer system and that's certainly going to help the plant. Uh you know, we're seeing some uh rainy day peak flows of nine times the normal flow amounts in some of the areas in downtown. So again, I think we're very hopeful that we can solve a lot of those issues and that should help everything operate much smoother as well. So that's uh that's a good project. Glad to finally have the contractor mobilized and those things going. Uh we actually used that contractor for uh an emergency repair uh in our mind across the aerial crossing there, Ropes Creek right down here on Sanford Road. Um and got got that replaced. We actually were able to remove one of the peers so we got a little bit wider span across the creek um when we did that. So hopefully that uh not only is less impactful to the stream itself, but also helps kind of keep things cleaned out a little bit better. So uh there were some trees growing over top of it. The line had a massive deflection from tree roots. It had trees laying across it. So again, we we became very concerned that that could become an immediate issue. And again, we had the contractor mobilized. we were able to jump on that and get that knocked out and and worked very well. We believe uh we we continue to deal with some pressure fluctuations. Um we went and met at the annual meeting for the Chattam Park HOA uh there at the cottages section um in it sort of it's in the uh that lowest section along Thompson Street in Chadam Park is in the

the town's lower pressure zone. the bulk of Chattam Parks in a higher pressure zone. There's a pressure reducing valve in that area and it that area sort of became isolated and what we finally figured out is it was trapping air at that valve and that's what really what was reducing those uh those conditions. So, we've put a temporary air release on that pressure reducing valve to sort of solve that. We view that as a temporary fix, our long-term fix. We're working on the permitting now. We're actually going to move that pes pressure reducing valve uh down closer to Thompson Street. It's a less of a rise. So, we believe there's going to be less of an issue with trapping air. And we have been able to verify uh with everyone out there that they all have inh home pressure reducing valves. So, we don't not concerned about causing issues in the home itself if we make that switch. So, we think that's sort of a long-term fix over there. Um I don't know, you know, just one of those things that happens. you don't necessarily anticipate, but again, it was sort of a a quirky situation that was occurring there that took a little time to figure out. Think we finally got there. Uh, and then the last thing really specific to downtown Zeld, you'll know the DOT's got the Hillsboro Streets skate project. Um there's a lot going on with our system uh in that project and one of the things that that we're going to do as a betterment uh is that the business the meters there at the businesses just immediately north of the traffic circle sit like literally right up against the building. They're really not serviceable. So as part of that DOT is going to pull them slightly off the building. So again we have a little bit more access to them a little bit more convenient in case there's any issues downtown. believe that's really it. Uh on the construction front, uh Nick and I are both here and happy to answer any questions that we can or as he said, if we don't know the answer, we'll blame Paul Weeks.

I have a couple I have a couple for you, Jason. Uh specifically what you just mentioned, we'll start there. uh how do you communicate with the residents if you're going to uh change their water beater position? What's the communication process? Is that something?

So spec notice it. I mean again we're talking inches. It's you know it's it's really in the exact same spot. It's just not underneath the wall. It's it's sitting right in front of it. do the but specific to that obviously throughout that project D is will be it's totally their project they're responsible for it they'll be doing any communication as that goes

you you spoke earlier about um there's there's some studies about uh the wastewater treatment plant here and how you might you might be going chemical uh can you describe what what that is and are you planning then to increase the capacity of the Pittsboro treatment plant because of it. We are not planning on

Yeah, we are not planning on increasing the treatment capacity at the Pittsboro plant at this time. Would never say that it's entirely off the table. There's limited space out there. It's not likely we're going to do much expansion. I do think with this downtown uh INI project uh where we're reducing infiltration, the reality of it is is periodically we're able to to reconcile the flows to the plant. So we will realize some additional capacity at that plant through that process, but it'll take a little bit of time for that to happen. I don't want to overstate the the chemical thing. I think it's really just sort of trying to operate it more efficiently than how we use. We're trying to dose less. Um it's much less of a issue I think I would say here in Pittsburgh than you know again s city again I think there's just a lot of things that were managed the old ways because they always did it and we're trying to unlearn some behaviors and and bring some some very highly skilled technical folks and consultants in to help really modernize just operations.

Can you thank you for that? I appreciate that. Can you talk a little bit about our granular activated charcoal process and what you intend to do with it? Are you going to expand that treatment treatment of Pittsburgh water was very we focused on it and of course uh with our our filtration process the POS levels dropped considerably and some of the feedback I get from our constituents centers around that. So what is Try River going to do? Can you can you talk about that? What your plans are?

Yeah. So that is not a project that I've been specifically involved with. Scott Christensen uh who's over all of our water treatment facilities has uh been more directly and I'm happy to provide you more sort of specific data relative to it. Um everything that I understand is that we feel that the the Gak projects has been successful. Um I think they've even done some recharging of the existing systems here recently. Uh we are incorporating it into our new treatment facility as well in Sford. Um and then frankly even all of our all of our new facilities whether it's water uh treatment or wastewater treatment and there's emerging contaminants continues to be a very active topic. And so there is an element of we're trying to make sure that we're reserving the ability from a just a spatial standpoint uh to be able to adapt to to those things as they come along. So certainly POS is is the newest one uh well I shouldn't say newest one, it has been around for a while uh but it is the one that we're most active in trying to upgrade all of our systems to. This may not be the right opportunity to speak uh regarding this, but I'll throw it out there anyway. Uh right now, the governing body of of the town of Stamford is the legislative body making decisions. Correct?

I think that's correct. Yes. Yeah. uh that is a political body and I'm I I I would love to see something like the the way OASA is set up where we have representatives from each town that you service putting input and making decision sharing decision process. Are there plans on changing that? Are you phasing out the town's administrative decision making process? What's what's the long-term plan for that? That's a loaded question that significantly beyond my pay grade. That's right.

I will I will say that from staff's perspective, we absolutely try to operate in that manner. Uh moving forward and again, I think that's one of the reasons why we're here tonight. Uh and certainly we have plans next month to be in Siler City. Similarly, and we're starting to meet uh on a regular basis with like for instance Mr. Franklin and uh last week uh we were here uh in town with Mr. Thompson from Chattam County. So from staff's perspective, we absolutely view it that way. And I think what we're trying to do is communicate as openly as we can. Again, that that's why we're here tonight uh from that perspective. But that's kind of all we control at the moment. Thank you for your answer.

Any other question? Jason, just a couple u what's the what's going on with the Jordan Lake partnership? So the the Jordan Lake partnership that that triangle water partnership has um sort of taken over from what was the previous Jordan Lake partnership. Um so I I mean that that's really that planning organization that everything's going on there. I don't know if you have a more specific talking about western intake or the triangle water partnership. The join lake partnership the western western western intake. Yeah.

Okay. So so intake is a specific project that's sort of a subset of of that planning. Um that project is being led by Durham. Um there was a plan at one point in time that Durham was going to be building the water treatment plant near the lake near where the western intake would be and that would be shared. Uh I do believe that Pittsboro had a a small stake in it. Chattam County Chadam County system had a very large stake in it. Um Durham has made the decision uh they told us a couple weeks ago to move that treatment facility to Durham. Uh they're going to colllocate it I believe next to one of their reclamation facilities. Um so the the western intake itself the the withdrawal from Jordan Lake will occur essentially in the same location. Um we absolutely are going to remain a partner in the raw raw water intake. uh we're just trying to figure out whether it's more economical to try to treat water in our facilities or a facility of our own or pipe water back from Durham once it's treated there. So that's uh that's really uh a development that has occurred in addition to worrying about today's problems. That's one of those things that gets thrown at us that we have to figure out fur on down the road.

I'm trying to understand the um the odor a little bit better. So, with the facility being so far from downtown, why do we sell it so bad in the downtown area? The the Pittsburgh wastewater treatment facility is in the downtown. It it it's just behind sort of the county building there on Roberson Creek. Um, so it it's very close to downtown. Okay. It's not the Chattam Park facility that's odor issues. It's it's downtown facility.

Gotcha. That makes more sense. I I'd like to follow up on Commissioner Thurver's question because I think that there are some lingering odor issues that are distinct from the operation of the Small Street sewer plant. Um there's a spot on um what used to be 15501 Hillsboro Street north of town. So, it's far from small street

where it's very common that I'll drive through and smell sewer gas. Um, it also it it does seem unusual that um in the spot where Commissioner Thurber's business is found um which is upstream and um uphill from the small street plant. It does seem unusual that there would be sewer smell there. So, um, also um I mean we could probably look on it look on look at it on a map, but I I've never thought of Small Street as a part of downtown. Um, it's kind of out of out of the way, but um yeah, how would we address this on an ongoing basis? Is there a way to monitor it or is there a way that we can explore it further? Yeah. No, it fair all fair questions. I'm not familiar with the 15501 uh issue that you and happy to explore that further. Um I know in this most recent event that we had um I believe there were some odors as far away as the Thompson Street, you know, lower areas of Chadam Park that were from the downtown plant. Um so it was pretty widespread. Uh again, I think it is a lot due to atmospheric conditions. Um and again we we have consultants very actively studying what we can do to improve conditions at that plant. Uh we don't have any conclusions yet. Um and that's I know that's not the best answer to your question other than to say we're very aware of it and we are very much working on it.

Okay. We hope to be making changes the next few months. Okay. I'm I'm certainly not an engineer, but my my understanding just from observation in the world that that there are situations where sewer gas can form inside the pipes as it's being transmitted to the sewer plant. Is that true?

Certainly. Uh it can um if you have some things you see it more typically uh in force mains where you know pressurized sewer pipes coming from pump stations uh where you get a little bit more sort of volatility in the system if you will. Uh you and you have high points uh that can trap pockets of air. Uh you can have them in uh gravity systems as well. Typically uh as long as it's moving through and and sort of gets on down the line. so to speak, uh, in a relatively short period of time, that condition doesn't exist. But if you have some pockets where it's able to stagnate and sit, um, it that can happen. Sure.

And I guess it might also possibly be caused by an undetected leak that surfaces.

Yeah. I mean, there again, there there's any number of of things out there. I mean, again, certain it's hard to just say that there's one answer to any any of those solutions. I think uh if we can be made aware of of any specific areas, um uh Alvin Davis, uh who many of you may know leads that crew with us, I mean, you can certainly reach out to me, but he's our our man in the field and his crews and those guys work really hard. Um they'll be on it and and they'll try to track those things down, but but please absolutely make us aware. We we want to hear about it.

Well, you're smelling it inside of businesses. Where is that coming from? You're smelling it inside of a business. Businesses,

unless it's coming from, again, unless you also smell it outside of the business and it's sort of atmospheric. Sounds to me that it's more of a plumbing issue because you should have a a a wet trap uh preventing that from occurring as you would, you know, in your home. that you know all of those types of things should not occur. I'm not saying that that they don't and sometimes the older plumbing systems even maybe don't accommodate. So again, I think if it's if it's something specific that you can send to us, we're happy to take a look at it and assess. We camera private lines all the time in in those types of thing. I shouldn't say all the time, but sometimes, you know, we go a little bit further than our system to help try to figure things out. Um, so absolutely if you you can let us know, we we'd be happy to take a look.

Well, if I may, let me take you up on that offer. You mentioned Thompson Street getting that smell. Um, and you kind of mentioned it like with that last occurrence with atmospheric issues.

Um, my business is on Thompson Street um, right across from Chhattam Park and the smell can be so bad that it disrupts business. We are a healthcare um business and it will it's so bad that in the middle of December, November when it's freezing, we'll be opening doors um trying to ventilate and it's coming and it's outside just as bad as it is inside. So I think I don't know if the find it and fix it like John um like Mr. Von had mentioned is part of looking for that odor, but I think there's something definitely going down going on around Thompson Street because the odor is a weekly issue. AB: Absolutely. Please send us a message. David, let us pinpoint the location a little bit. If if we can hear about them, we can check them out.

Thank you. Uh, and I have some further questions that are more on more positive things. Before we get off that, well, so would the best way for anybody to report those things just call like the the main customer service line for Tri River or

Yeah, they they will probably send you to engineering. Uh, and so from customer the main customer service line's fine. they'll transfer you back to engineering. There's also main engineering line at Tri River. Uh you can talk to to one of our folks there and and they'll get it directed to one of the engineers to take a look at. Will there be an easy way for customers or people in Pittsburgh to maybe just go on the website and find that report a an odor or an issue so that they're not trying to figure out who to get

wasn't expect you mention we're actually working on a system that is going to allow folks to be able to do that. We're not quite there yet. Um, there's a lot of different software systems that have to be integrated to talk to one another. Um, you would think nowadays it should be easier than it turns out to be, but we're working on that to where you would be able to actually have an app on your phone and do it from the app on your phone. That's the end goal. Um, we'll put that back on Cameron to finish finish it out. But yeah, we're we're in the the ninth inning of really kind of getting it to to an operational standpoint. But that's that that would be the goal. App on your phone website that where you put that information in different than even having to call, but you put that in, you get a notification um when it's passed along to a different step. You would get notifications throughout the process as well. So, getting there, just haven't got there yet. It's

excellent. things.

So, this may be in a similar vein in communications. Uh, Mr. Fortune, um, I don't know if you want to handle it or not, but what can we do to continue expanding awareness of the superior quality of Pittsburgh's water? And I'll I'll follow that with a what I should have made as a a preface. I continue to encounter people who think that we have contaminated water. And this is an equity issue because people moving to town who might be really scrimping are told there's polluted water and that they need to pay5 $10,000 more in house filtration system. I'm understanding that in certain neighborhoods that that is promoted by the realtors which is really unfortunate. Um, plus we're losing the efficiency of water when these are reverse osmosis systems as you know because they throw away half the water they clean. Uh, so um, at one time we had a very significant base of data from our own testing of the Gak plant and we had that posted on our website. Um, and I I'm embarrassed to say I don't know what's going on today with the Tri River website, whether or not I can send people there, but is there a way that we could first of all get that back up, continue to publish the the test results? Uh, and then can we do further efforts like public tours, you know, return to public tours of the the plant?

Yeah, you you make a great point. I mean I think the reality of um and I'm gonna call on you because you got a lot of those answers because we are working on a lot of that um the reality of what we have determined water utilities in general struggled to get that information out right so we are we are in that category we are actively working on it whether it's through planning whatever it is um Cameron answer on the the the website stuff because I do believe it's there. I just don't want to overstate. But actually in, you know, to try to help with that, in your little bag that we've brought, we brought some goodies. Um, there's a what we call an activity book. Uh, we've created the activity book that kind of gives a rundown. It's for a broad range for a school system is what it's geared towards. Uh, we have started in Lee County. We are going to branch into Chattam County soon, but we're we've branched into Lee County to reach out to the school system, get in the school system. Uh we feel like the school system is a good way to start. Uh you know, because it starts with the kids, they bring it home, whether that's education from a standpoint of kids to parents or even recruiting from trying to get, you know, employees to come work for us from that standpoint, too. So the activity book is a way that we're trying to reach back out. School systems is one of those things. I think you do have all that stuff still currently on the website that was on the website. Is that

I think we have all that. I'll have to double check on the PAS stuff. So I know uh several months ago, you know, there was a the discharge of the 14 dioxane and from that we did start posting those test results monthly. Um, but let me check with Scott Christensen and Corey to double check on the PAS numbers because I I don't I think they're there, but they're not as easy to find as the 14 is currently. So, I can make it easier. Sure. Routinely checking the file numbers. I know they're routinely checking 14. I pretty sure they're doing the other one, but like I say, I need to double check on that. And just for the public's benefit, that was not in the Hall River. That was in the in the Rocky. Uh, yeah. Well, right.

Okay. Yeah. Um we still have a lot of the um treatment processes on the website, right? We integrated all that over. That's all there. Once again, going back to the communication struggle, it's you know how many people are going to a utility website to look at some of that stuff, right? Like what how do we how do we get people to do that? Um it's an ongoing challenge that we acknowledge. Um we are trying to do different things and do that. You know, educating here is is is good in this type of forum. Uh we do all kinds of other uh forums that that we're trying to be in front of in order to do that as well. whether those are the citizenmies that are throughout, you know, Lee County has them, Chattam County, we went to one just a few months a month or so ago. So, we're trying to get into different avenues of trying to tell that story, trying to drive that information out there. It just is a it is a challenge to get that out there in a proper way.

Yes. Yes. Well, thank you for your ongoing efforts with communication. Um, once you get the assurance that you do have this data up on the website. I' I'd be indebted to you to know where what page to refer people to. Um because I I routinely encounter these folks, especially online, and it's a very simple matter for me to cut and paste a link for them to go visit your website. Um and then the other item that I just wanted to share, it's kind of really I I hope that it might be beneficial. Um Mr. Burtonino, did I say that correctly? did

um the the INI efforts are are really we appreciate that and I hope that you're aware that they're they've been ongoing and it may be helpful for you to understand and visit with with staff or or look at our records to understand we've been making these investments for uh eight years I think. So um and it was tough at that time. We didn't have the budget for it, but we knew it was serious. That was before we really were serious about the the merger. So,

yeah. No, and that actually that brings up a good point. Absolutely correct. And we are very close to uh publishing um consulting. Again, this is I would call it a legacy project that started by the town uh and asset inventory um assessment uh that was just recently completed kind of in its final draft form. Uh, so we should be able to present that pretty soon and and a lot of those efforts are documented in that as well. Terrific. Yeah. And and sorry, we're using acronyms for the public's benefit. That's the infiltration and I and I Yeah. inflow and infiltration. Flow and infiltration.

It's where rain flow gets into the sewer and messes up the efficiency of sewer treatment. So yeah, thank you. So, uh, if you wouldn't mind, can you trace I'm just really concerned about this water right now. Okay. So, can you trace uh how this bro gets their water? Do they get it from our water treatment plants still? Yes. Correct. Y. Okay. And because of that, it's treated if uh with through the granular activated charcoal process, right?

Yes, that's correct. Will will the water be coming northbound from the water treatment plant at Sanford eventually? Yes. So it that our our current upgrade that includes the granular granular activated carbon system will be online well before the interconnection will be right. Any other questions? Thank you for your time. Very very helpful meeting. Thank you. Thank you. We appreciate it.

Okay. Uh this evening we have no public hearings and no action items. So next up will be a close session. I will take a motion to enter into close session pursuant to NCGS143 31811A3 to consult with the town attorney to give instructions concerning the judicial action of seven directions of service chatam climate action network in Hall River Assembly versus the town of Pittsburgh and A6 to discuss personnel move. Thank you Commissioner Bonds. There second second Foley. All those in favor say I. I. Thank you.

We're back in open session. I'll take a motion to adjurnn. Thank you. With that second, Commissioner Bonds. All those in favor say I. Bye.